I joke about him, but it's probably Sam Allardyce who is a pretty solid manager. He'll never get the call because the FA is delusional.
Its is pretty sad state of affairs. Pardew or Allardyce are the "best" in a sense, in that they're experienced and have had success with mid-table Premier League teams. I don't think either of them is a particularly good choice for managing the national team. Neither one has ever managed a team with high levels of talent or dealt with the types of players involved in a national team like England's. Being able to set up, organize, and motivate a midtable English team takes real skill and ability - and both managers probably have better tactical sense than they're often credited for - but jumping from there to a star studded national team in which you're managing big egos and trying to find some way for highly talented players to mesh is really a different kettle of fish. There are a few quite promising young English managers - Eddie Howe, Sean Dyche, Paul Clement - but none of them have the experience for the job and its not one that makes sense for them career-wise anyway.
Well one other way to look at it:
Ehh, I don't think that logic really follows at all. And I definitely don't think there are ten countries with a stronger overall player pool than England's over the last 10-15 years.
I would say there have been to me at almost all times in the last 10-15 years 10 better teams, now maybe you could say that because the bottom of that rotates England is top 10, but to me they have a deep player pool, but they haven't had a true elite talent in a long long time.
The England "Golden Generation" teams were pretty universally - yes, even outside England - viewed as extremely talented and clearly among the Top 10 in the world (in terms of raw talent).
I think at their peaks Rooney, Gerrard, and Owen were all easily among the top 20 players in the world. Rating defenders in a Top 20 list is hard, since those lists generally include very few of them, but both Terry and Rio were surely rated at their peaks among the top 5-10 CBs in the world. And Ashley Cole was widely viewed as one of the best LBs in the world. But the best English player of the last twenty years was probably Paul Scholes. He was certainly a game changing player in midfield for Manchester United.
Of course Scholes was horribly misused by England, as was Hoddle before him -- Scholes was shoved out to the left to make room for the Gerrard/Lampard pairing, even though Scholes was a much better passer than either of them.
Absolutely. Its the inability to use the pieces well and form them into a coherent team, not the individual quality of those pieces, that has been the biggest problem.
Well, isn't that always the big problem with national teams?
I definitely think there is an advantage to having a bunch of players from the same club. We see that with Juventus and Italy right now as well. But its not the only way. The French starting XI in 1998, a team with great unity and spirit, represented 10 different clubs at the time. The Brazilian starting XI in 2002 came from 11 different clubs.
I don't buy it. It's an attractive argument, but there's a ton of foreigners playing in the EPL and they don't seem to have trouble with fatigue in their national teams.
I don't think they'll ever get rid of the Christmas schedule, however, I wouldn't be surprised if they introduce a winter break for say 2 weeks after the new years day matches.
I would say that the only two formations that could be considered the best for England currently is a 4-4-2 Diamond, with Alli at the top of the diamond and Dier at the base of the diamond, or 4-2-3-1.
To add to that, even the most recently very successful EPL sides don't really have a strong English base. Who have been the best sides over the past 10 years in the EPL? The 07/08 United team is up there. Who were the English players that could make up a national team? Rooney was great that year, Hargreaves was made of glass, Carrick was on the team, Scholes retired from International duty, and Ferdinand played. So you have 3 players who could/should start. Of course England didn't make the euros in 08.
This thought occurred to me up thread, where someone name dropped "Delph" as a guy who might have fit in the midfield. Except, you can't really select a guy who doesn't play - unless his name is Jack Wilshere (who has a big name AND was injured). A guy like Delph doesn't get NT selections because he only ever plays in garbage time or in less important matches.
Also, if and when Brexit occurs, Bale will probably have been in Spain long enough to qualify for citizenship.
This makes the most sense to me. The top English clubs have imported the majority of their talent over the last 10 or 15 years, and with basically every EPL team making huge amounts of money that behavior is being adopted by every club in the Premier league, including the relegation fodder clubs. English clubs simply import all of their talent, including managers, because there's too much money at stake to risk league games by starting developing English players.
If they're going to pick so many Spurs players (and they probably should), they really should put them all in similar roles to how Spurs play. That means 4-2-3-1. The 3-band behind Kane should probably be Sterling, Alli, and Lallana -- all quick players with good movement who can find spaces in between the lines. The hard part is finding the #8 to play alongside Dier and be the guy who links defense and attack. Naturally that's Wilshere's role, but he wasn't fit/sharp enough. They tried Rooney there, but he doesn't have the experience or vision in that role to work there. That's where someone like Carrick (although getting old) or Noble could have been useful -- somebody to form passing triangles, keep the ball circulating quickly, and get the ball to your forwards in dangerous attacking positions but who himself doesn't need to be spectacular. Maybe Henderson could have played that role? Not sure he's a good enough passer though.
To add to this, they should have been pressing throughout the team, overlapping the fullbacks, and playing a high line. That means they probably need a quicker CB than Cahill, so Stones (who also adds an ability to pass the ball out from the back, which neither Smalling or Cahill could do) would have been a better choice.
This seems reasonable to me. Part of the problem for Euro 2016 was that none of these Spurs players were regular starters during the qualifiers. Building the side around players from Spurs essentially meant building a new team in the spring of 2016, which doesn't give you a lot of time to experiment and get things right and which restricts any experimentation to friendly matches when the intensity level of the competition just isn't the same.
I actually only marginally disagree. I think any decent English player who shows anything like promise is generally going to be scooped up by a big side (Delph and Rodwell at City or the plethora who Arsenal picked up before them) because HG quota means that if you can find someone who can actually make the side then you've solved a major problem for yourself. With such leverage, the teams negotiate big fees for the transfers and the players get big contracts and they can't really pass up the move. But Rodwell and Delph were as much victims of injury as anything nefarious at City. I think they were purchased not with the intent to have an expensive English player on the bench (you could just buy championship level players to token fill slots) but instead with the hope they could at least be depth if not significantly contribute. Both Rodwell and Delph almost immediately got injured and never settled into the team. Delphi was almost never available for selection last season or he'd have gotten some significant minutes. Rodwell probably had a permanent physio table in the training room at City. These things happen, I don't think it is as nefarious as you suggest, but I agree that as long as there's so much money and HG rules in England the big teams will probably buy up anything resembling English talent and it may prove really hard for said talent to develop amongst the stars. Raheem Sterling is about to face a very similar situation if he can't force his way into Pep's side.
I like the squad quite a bit...I think you have to start Kane if you go one up top, especially if you're using that speed on the flanks looking to cross.
Agreed. As much as anything, a lot of guys just looked tired. Alli and Kane in particular looked like very different human beings than the ones we saw playing for Tottenham in April. There is a big push at the moment to start a winter break in the Premiership.
I like the idea of starting Antonio because he's a strong defender and really physical, he can also cut inside and is a very strong player in the box on set pieces. Ideally he's the guy who you can pull off to put on Sterling to use that speed against players who are tired. I'd prefer Antonio playing the 60-65 minutes over Sterling because he's the better defender and better on set pieces. I guess the other option might be to start Sterling on the left and bring in Lallana for whoever tires or is ineffective.
I actually rate Butland highly, I would start him, but other than that, that's a pretty good lineup.
