England national team

[AV82EC]

Bellingham is a world class 8, not disciplined enough to play the no 6 double pivot and not skilful enough to be a 10 (see M.Olise) so we should be building our team around that.

[Somniloquism]

We have a few options with our defence when attacking, either one full back stays back and/or Kamara drops back to cover. With England both full backs bomb forward and Anderson is also up there so it is reliant on the two defenders, although at one point last night, every England outfield player was in the attacking 3rd so it was a good job the ball wasn't lost.

Sorry lads, my mistake. The Guardian tell me that Konsa had an awful game, looked uncomfortable in possession, was at fault for the goal and Guehi needs a new partner.

As with most of matches, Konsa pretty much does nothing wrong that can't also be thrown at most of the other defenders, yet because he isn't playing for Citeh he is the one always targeted. Imagine static Stones up agains the speed of the attackers of Ghana and DR Congo? He already got dumped on his arse in the last two competitve matches he has played by a bit of speed and guile.

[LeeB]

My theory is that Bellingham and Kane are both the cure and the cause of England's problems.

[AV82EC]

My theory is that Bellingham and Kane are both the cure and the cause of England's problems.

Yep. The trouble with Kane is he's such a good finisher you can’t not play him even when for the teams benefit a different type of striker ie Watkins/Toney is required.

[VILLA MOLE]

It is all a bit  'couple of moments of quality'  to get England out of trouble.  Not enough patterns of play where we move the opposition about and obviously when attacked we look far too open.  Time to bring another midfielder in for me

[brontebilly]

Moving konsa to right back might be one of those happy accidents that fixes the whole thing. One less attacking full back and should allow OReilly to push forward/into midfield.

Currently we have two attacking full backs, two wingers and a ten. You’re going to struggle with that. Arguably rice and Andersen think of themselves as 8s too.

Konsa at right back won't fix anything, ball retention in Mexico will be crucial and he's a liability as an easy pressing target. It also brings a finished Stones back into the centre. There's no McGinn type player to go on the right, would put huge pressure on Saka or Madueke to retain possession. Rice at right back is a frankly mad option, might work but have Henderson or Mainoo played a minute yet? Either way to even be considering these moves before a knock out tie v Mexico is insane and exposes how poorly prepared this squad is.

Id probably move Bellingham to the left, keeps him in the team without exposing the centre of the pitch. He reminds me of Gerrard back in the day, outstanding talent but a tactical liability. Could try more of a 433 I guess with Mainoo or Henderson coming in but it's a tempo setter England need not another 8. Wing and a prayer stuff to be considering major tactical changes at this stage anyway.

Wharton and MGW would be ideal options for this game, TAA would be starting and Maguire might not be far off either. Tuchel's reputation as a coach is in tatters, WC2010 all over again.

[Gareth]

For me the wide players have been as responsible for where England are as anyone - starters have invariably been poor, subs liven it up, swaps them and the same occurs….hopefully Rogers / Bellingham / Saka behind Kane vs Mexico

Guehi needs to be much more disciplined in holding the actual line, he was ahead of the rest of the defence for so much of the game last night causing issues

Anderson gets far too excited, he needs to hold properly but to often gets sucked into trying to join the attack…when you are confident in your back line that #6 role is pivotal but it has to be done properly ie how Kamara does it

[paul_e]

As a point of order we don' t have Kamara drop back to make a 5 and I've posted about this many times before.

What we want to do (the same as many other teams out there) is transition into, effectively, a 325 when we're attacking. How we achieve that then alters between a few patterns, with thge 2 main ones being:
- One full back sitting in and the other either taking a wing-back style position or pushing right on and both midfielders sitting.
- Both fullbacks pushing into wingback roles and a DM dropping into the defence.

The important thing is to always have the ability to quickly drop into a 41 defensive shape to block the counter-attack.

The problem with England is that they're just not very well drilled at doing this (partially because they come from clubs playing different ways and don't have enough time to fully learn the new system). That manifests as 2 or 3 players in pretty much every attack not really knowing where they're supposed to be. Add to that the 'main character syndrome' that a lot of them suffer with and you get the disjointed mess we've seen of players regularly being caught out of position defensively and not knowing what role they're supposed to take in attack.