England World Cup Qualifying Thread (2 Viewers)

Evo1883

Well-Known Member
One the subject of Harry Kane he’s clearly up there with the best in the world for goal scoring but it isn’t even the best part of his game. He’s so much better when he drops back and plays it to others.

Think with spurs it works , with England it prevents us getting forward as quickly ..I'd rather he played as an out an out striker for England
 

Evo1883

Well-Known Member
Certainly was a deserved criticism of him previously & he lost his place in both the City & England teams as a result.

However he has been superb this year &, with the exception of last night, had pretty much managed to eradicate that from his game. Let's not pile on by far our best defender on the back of one error. I'd much rather have somebody comfortable on the ball in that position than the other options available.

I'm just not keen , I won't pile on him , but this is a position that will cost us any chance of winning the euros imo
 

Evo1883

Well-Known Member
Certainly was a deserved criticism of him previously & he lost his place in both the City & England teams as a result.

However he has been superb this year &, with the exception of last night, had pretty much managed to eradicate that from his game. Let's not pile on by far our best defender on the back of one error. I'd much rather have somebody comfortable on the ball in that position than the other options available.


I've had a look and yes he's comfortable on the ball , but in terms of actual defending stats , his tackle success rate is 44% this season and that's in a team that has to defend much less than a Burnley.

Tarkowski success in the mid 60s ..

There has to be a balance surely between actually defending and passing ability otherwise we may aswell stop bringing through defenders and play holding midfielders there instead ...as they typically pass and defend better than John stones

Not really my type of defender I'm afraid , if you can't defend you arent a defender
 

Frostie

Well-Known Member
I've had a look and yes he's comfortable on the ball , but in terms of actual defending stats , his tackle success rate is 44% this season and that's in a team that has to defend much less than a Burnley.

Tarkowski success in the mid 60s ..

There has to be a balance surely between actually defending and passing ability otherwise we may aswell stop bringing through defenders and play holding midfielders there instead ...as they typically pass and defend better than John stones

Not really my type of defender I'm afraid , if you can't defend you arent a defender

Need to be a bit careful with those kind of stats though because as you say the style of the teams play makes a massive difference.

Burnley play probably 90% of their football in a low block, making lots of tackles, contesting a lot of high % balls, the top teams obviously don't play that way. For example I'm pretty sure Tarkowski's numbers would be better than Van Dijk's last year & nobody would honestly believe Tarkowski is a better defender than Van Dijk.

Similar reason as to why Save % figures are so unreliable as they pay no attention to the actual difficulty of the save. Without even looking I can guess Nick Pope would probably be right at the top of the league for that stat.
 

Evo1883

Well-Known Member
Need to be a bit careful with those kind of stats though because as you say the style of the teams play makes a massive difference.

Burnley play probably 90% of their football in a low block, making lots of tackles, contesting a lot of high % balls, the top teams obviously don't play that way. For example I'm pretty sure Tarkowski's numbers would be better than Van Dijk's last year & nobody would honestly believe Tarkowski is a better defender than Van Dijk.

Similar reason as to why Save % figures are so unreliable as they pay no attention to the actual difficulty of the save. Without even looking I can guess Nick Pope would probably be right at the top of the league for that stat.
I mean there Is definitely some English bias towards stones especially this year..
He's having the best season of his career which many people widely agree on but yet he's still no better than rudiger at Chelsea, he's defensively worse than Tyrone mings in many areas ...it literally just comes across as he's a good passer Screenshot_20210401-172754_Chrome.jpg

I don't know mate it's all a bit worrying for me , neither stones or Maguire come off great statistically

The reason I used rudiger , was many people don't think he's good enough at Chelsea


I think teams that press us high that have quality will give stones and Maguire nightmares
 
Last edited:

Sky_Blue_Dreamer

Well-Known Member
I'm not a fan of Stones. Not good enough to be a defender but passing isn't good enough to be a midfielder. But he has done well this year at Man City.
 

David O'Day

Well-Known Member
One the subject of Harry Kane he’s clearly up there with the best in the world for goal scoring but it isn’t even the best part of his game. He’s so much better when he drops back and plays it to others.

If he has the right players around him like he does at spurs, it's fucking awfull when he does it for England as it's normally drop deep, pass sidewards, drop deep pass sidewards.
 

Frostie

Well-Known Member
I think teams that press us high that have quality will give stones and Maguire nightmares

Don't disagree with that at all.

I think we are massively unbalanced as a squad & the wealth of attacking talent masks a whole host of problems behind them. The centre backs lack pace, all of the defence have a mistake in them, including the goalkeeper, & the Midfield is almost as problematic.
 

CJ_covblaze

Well-Known Member
If he has the right players around him like he does at spurs, it's fucking awfull when he does it for England as it's normally drop deep, pass sidewards, drop deep pass sidewards.

His best performance to date for club or country was in Seville. He didn’t score but provided three assists.
 

David O'Day

Well-Known Member
His best performance to date for club or country was in Seville. He didn’t score but provided three assists.

Cool he had a good game, but as has already been pointed out England are not set up to play that way and be successful on a regular basis.

There's no one who plays like Son who breaks in to the gaps created behind the centre backs or runs in behind the full back so thusly the play gets slowed down.
 

Hutch11

Well-Known Member
Who do we have instead of Stones ?

There isn't exactly a plethora of top quality centre half's ready to step in
 

Ccfcisparks

Well-Known Member
The way Kane plays for Spurs hinders England as a whole. We don’t have the players to run in behind. We would be much better as a team if he stuck on the CB.
 

Grendel

Well-Known Member
The way Kane plays for Spurs hinders England as a whole. We don’t have the players to run in behind. We would be much better as a team if he stuck on the CB.

He’s overrated anyway according to Nick
 

Ian1779

Well-Known Member
Who do we have instead of Stones ?

There isn't exactly a plethora of top quality centre half's ready to step in
I think half of Stones’ issue is that he’s always got to have in his mind that he has to cover Maguire as he is SOOOOO slow. He ends up caught between what he wants to do and what he has to do to protect his partner.
 

Evo1883

Well-Known Member
I’m talking more for England really, probably end up all time top scorer. Although if he has a good career and stays injury free then he might even reach shearer! He’s only 27, and got 180 goals, quite amazing really.
He should definitely end up England's top goalscorer , although in my eyes we've had some better strikers...for example Michael Owen would have scored many many more for England if he wasn't a sick note ..and Rooney wasn't pushed back to midfield .

I like kane btw ..Shearer a better striker but kane all round better
 

Ccfcisparks

Well-Known Member
He should definitely end up England's top goalscorer , although in my eyes we've had some better strikers...for example Michael Owen would have scored many many more for England if he wasn't a sick note ..and Rooney wasn't pushed back to midfield .

I like kane btw ..Shearer a better striker but kane all round better
I could see Kane doing what Rooney did and dropping back deeper. It’s good for him that he’s got it in his locker, although it doesn’t mean he’s utilised as an out and out clinical striker like Shearer was.
 

Evo1883

Well-Known Member
I could see Kane doing what Rooney did and dropping back deeper. It’s good for him that he’s got it in his locker, although it doesn’t mean he’s utilised as an out and out clinical striker like Shearer was.
I hope that doesn't happen though as I think it was the start of Rooney decline . Rooney was very good at his peak
 

CJ_covblaze

Well-Known Member
Kane will probably go down as the best English striker ever. He’s already scored 265 and he’s only 27.
 

Frostie

Well-Known Member
The way Kane plays for Spurs hinders England as a whole. We don’t have the players to run in behind. We would be much better as a team if he stuck on the CB.

Yep. Not really Kane's fault but with all the attacking midfield talent around him we really need him to be a more orthodox 9. This will be why the likes of Grealish and/or Foden won't start, too many players who want the ball to feet & nothing that's going to stretch defences. Only ones who can do that are Rashford, Sancho, Saka.
Again, shows the lack of balance we have.
 

Sky_Blue_Dreamer

Well-Known Member
I think half of Stones’ issue is that he’s always got to have in his mind that he has to cover Maguire as he is SOOOOO slow. He ends up caught between what he wants to do and what he has to do to protect his partner.

Wouldn't explain why he made the same errors at Man City and Everton before that. Fact is for a central defender he's pretty decent with the ball at his feet. Trouble is sometimes he seems to get it in his head he's Zidane or someone and his touch lets him down.

He's the kind of defender I'd press high on as often as possible because you'll get mistakes out of him. Teams don't do it much because he plays for Man City so they sit deep, scared in case they get hit by one of their lightning quick attacks.
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Top