I still think it’s speculative. He is a good player obviously but his injury history is terrible and seeing as we have one expensive sick note already, I think (hope) it’s unlikely.
The FA as the players employers could bring them home but i don’t think the government have any power over private citizens going where they like. The Foreign Office only issues warnings and guidelines but citizens are free to ignore them. (Unlke the USA where the government can make it illegal for it’s citizens to travel ro certain listed countries). Even if the government did request the FA to bring the team home wouldn’t that very act make the position of all the fans over there more difficult?
Will never happen!
I don’t get all this comment about GS’s brave new way of doing things.
He’s got a young team with little expectation rather than an older team of stars that we have usually gone with.
He is media savvy and speaks English natively, which is also unusual recently.
He is making use of the same tactics that to rugby and cycling are adopting (golf, tennis etc) around shrinks and marginal gains.
The way elite sports are managed has changed and we are just catching up.
The rest is just shove a team out and see. It’s his plan B that will show if he has the real bottle or guile to be different.
Yes. Which, for some reason, hasn’t been done well before.
It might not be new, but I think it is brave given the poisoned chalice that is the England job. He’s moved away from 442 and picked a clear system which would have been pilloried if England lost a couple of games; he’s gone largely with youth which again the press would have lectured him about leaving out established stars the minute they fluff something; and his focus on the group and collective mental strength would count for nothing if we didn’t get out the group.
Dunno when we last played 442, tbh. 4231/ 433 has been the norm since Sven IIRC
Wether it’s by luck or design GS seems to have adapted well. He appears less full of shit than recent past managers and looks like he want’s to learn how to be successful along with most of the team.
There are those saying that for £2M PA or whatever that meeting expectations is expected or a Manager. That’s not happened before to us in recent times. I am crossing my fingers for long term success for the team. There is more chance now than has been before the last 40 years.
All being equal a nation of 55M (England) should be comfortably be beating of 10M (Sweden). We have a favourable draw so our mathematical chances of walking away with a trophy could even be between 12% and 20%
On that basis, Uruguay (3.5m) Croatia (4.2m) and even Belgium (11.3m) should be back home now and why aren’t China the best team in the world?
Because all isn’t equal.
The problem is that here there are easier ways to become rich and famous - setting up as a hi-fi repairer, for example.
VB
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Considering how much they had to pay Capello & Sven, GS is looking like a bargain at the moment.
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Jimmy is a legend at WHL. My father and Jimmy were drinking buddies in the 1960s, along with Danny Blanchflower and a few others.
Unfortunately Jimmy isn’t a well man after suffering a few strokes from 2016
we can thank Allardyce, somehow I doubt he would have been so embracing of these fancy new ways of doing things.
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That’s fair enough, though tbh, it’s kind of obvious the odds are stacked in favour of the bookies - it’s not really a secret.
I’m concerned this evening that Sweden are just the sort of difficult, defensive team that England won’t be able to break down before their coup de grace in the 89th minute. I wonder if GS has anything up his sleeve, tactically. It looks to me like only Vardy is a worry fitness wise and that probably it will be the same eleven to start.
Think it will be an extremely hard match possibly won by a single goal from a corner/free kick.
I don’t think this would be the ideal match for Vardy as i expect them to be defensive unless we score first.
I actually fancy Sterling* to star in this one as it will be the closest to a bog standard PL game we’ll get.
Early goal for England and then Sweden will be in trouble - job done.
*that’s assuming he isn’t dropped for Rashford.