French Squad vs Englands squad

Diego said:
No way Griezmann or Lloris get in. Would prefer Rice to Rabiot too
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Well can’t argue with your optimism about the quality of our squad. Can we beat them of course we can but they need to be on a bad day and we need to play the game of our lives. The WC starts on Saturday. We have seen off the likes of Iran Wales and Senegal and tussled with USA. The big test is coming. Pass it and we can go all the way. Fail - well at least we achieved expected progress and Gareth Southgate can retire from the job with a strong upheld reputation.

The defence still concern me. And we will see it stretched and tested on Saturday like we haven’t seen before. How we will cope shapes the destiny of this side.
 
Pickford > Lloris
Walker > Kounde
Varane > Maguire
Upamecano > Stones
Shaw > Hernandez
Rice > Rabiot
Henderson > Tchouameni
Bellingham > Griezmann
Dembele > Saka
Mbappe > Foden
Giroud > Kane
 
Walker tried a few times to get by the Senegalese lad last night, commentators kept saying Walker fancies himself in a foot race against him and he didn't beat him once. Mbappe will fly past him, theres no doubt whatsoever about that. I think we'll see it early on too long diagonal ball or Griezmann through ball and Mbappe will set the tone early to get in Walkers head.

If we're pinning all our hopes on Walkers 'speed' we've got no chance. I think we need to double up, drop Hendo alongside Rice and have one of them cover that side which will create gaps for Dembele and Griezmann, but you have to hope the other DM and Shaw can cope with that.

We've got attackers that will hurt them. I really do think if we're to have any chance it will come from us being on the front foot and hurting them, they know the ability of Foden, Bellingham, Saka, Rashford, Kane, Sterling if he's back, so i can see Southgate playing 4231 with Rice and Henderson sitting deep creating that box of 4 with Maguire and Stones, but that will leave quite a big gap between them and the attackers.

It'll be a hard, hard game
 
VestasBoro said:
Walker tried a few times to get by the Senegalese lad last night, commentators kept saying Walker fancies himself in a foot race against him and he didn't beat him once. Mbappe will fly past him, theres no doubt whatsoever about that. I think we'll see it early on too long diagonal ball or Griezmann through ball and Mbappe will set the tone early to get in Walkers head.

If we're pinning all our hopes on Walkers 'speed' we've got no chance. I think we need to double up, drop Hendo alongside Rice and have one of them cover that side which will create gaps for Dembele and Griezmann, but you have to hope the other DM and Shaw can cope with that.

We've got attackers that will hurt them. I really do think if we're to have any chance it will come from us being on the front foot and hurting them, they know the ability of Foden, Bellingham, Saka, Rashford, Kane, Sterling if he's back, so i can see Southgate playing 4231 with Rice and Henderson sitting deep creating that box of 4 with Maguire and Stones, but that will leave quite a big gap between them and the attackers.

It'll be a hard, hard game
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Will be very interesting to see what he goes with. He could switch to wing-backs but that will potentially mean breaking up our midfield trio, which is working really well for us.

Another option could be to stick with the midfield three and have Rashford up top alongside Kane, aiming to catch them on the break. Would be a shame for both Saka and Foden to miss out though.
 
VestasBoro said:
Walker tried a few times to get by the Senegalese lad last night, commentators kept saying Walker fancies himself in a foot race against him and he didn't beat him once. Mbappe will fly past him, theres no doubt whatsoever about that. I think we'll see it early on too long diagonal ball or Griezmann through ball and Mbappe will set the tone early to get in Walkers head.

If we're pinning all our hopes on Walkers 'speed' we've got no chance. I think we need to double up, drop Hendo alongside Rice and have one of them cover that side which will create gaps for Dembele and Griezmann, but you have to hope the other DM and Shaw can cope with that.
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I agree, but Ismaila Sarr is a very fast player, it's not like Walker was being done for pace by a no mark.

He's reached top speeds above Mbappe in this tournament.

Obviously Mbappe is 3x the player though.
 
VestasBoro said:
Walker tried a few times to get by the Senegalese lad last night, commentators kept saying Walker fancies himself in a foot race against him and he didn't beat him once. Mbappe will fly past him, theres no doubt whatsoever about that. I think we'll see it early on too long diagonal ball or Griezmann through ball and Mbappe will set the tone early to get in Walkers head.

If we're pinning all our hopes on Walkers 'speed' we've got no chance. I think we need to double up, drop Hendo alongside Rice and have one of them cover that side which will create gaps for Dembele and Griezmann, but you have to hope the other DM and Shaw can cope with that.

We've got attackers that will hurt them. I really do think if we're to have any chance it will come from us being on the front foot and hurting them, they know the ability of Foden, Bellingham, Saka, Rashford, Kane, Sterling if he's back, so i can see Southgate playing 4231 with Rice and Henderson sitting deep creating that box of 4 with Maguire and Stones, but that will leave quite a big gap between them and the attackers.

It'll be a hard, hard game
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The thing about Walker's speed for me, is it highlights his main weakness.
He's just not that good defensively. He NEEDs his speed in order to make up for this.
 
TeaCider said:
I agree, but Ismaila Sarr is a very fast player, it's not like Walker was being done for pace by a no mark.

He's reached top speeds above Mbappe in this tournament.

Obviously Mbappe is 3x the player though.
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It wasn't Sarr i was on about, forget the lads name but for this lad who is all pace, he couldnt get by some lad i've never heard of yet the commentators were going on and on about it. If it was that big a deal and Southgate saw Walker as the key, wouldn't he have been 1 of the 5 players taken off last night? We can swap 50% of our outfield and Southgate didnt feel the need to take care of Walker so not sure what to think of that.
Bernieslavenschin said:
The thing about Walker's speed for me, is it highlights his main weakness.
He's just not that good defensively. He NEEDs his speed in order to make up for this.
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100% i agree here, his pace gets him in the fight v wingers and then he just seems to barge his way into challenges, which is fine if he's winning the ball and stopping attacks but if he does that in the box too often its dangerous
parmoboy said:
Will be very interesting to see what he goes with. He could switch to wing-backs but that will potentially mean breaking up our midfield trio, which is working really well for us.

Another option could be to stick with the midfield three and have Rashford up top alongside Kane, aiming to catch them on the break. Would be a shame for both Saka and Foden to miss out though.
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I like the idea of 442, Rice and Hendo midfield, Rashford and Kane upfront cos Kane is struggling on his own, 1 goal and spends most the time on his backside i think he needs help up there. 2 wingers from Saka, Sterling, Grealish but thats leaving out Foden and Bellingham who are probably our 2 best players? Its a hard one to call
 
For all we put down our own centre backs, we have 3 clean sheets in the tournament and France have none after 4 games.

Some will point to opportunities missed, including those by Senegal, last night. So what? France could have conceded a few more too: certainly against Poland and Australia.

Our defence is playing better as a unit than theirs.
 
VestasBoro said:
It wasn't Sarr i was on about, forget the lads name but for this lad who is all pace, he couldnt get by some lad i've never heard of yet the commentators were going on and on about it. If it was that big a deal and Southgate saw Walker as the key, wouldn't he have been 1 of the 5 players taken off last night? We can swap 50% of our outfield and Southgate didnt feel the need to take care of Walker so not sure what to think of that.
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I can only really remember Walker being troubled by Sarr.

Not injured and still lacking match fitness, there's 5 days rest until we play France.

Might have been for his benefit.
 
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not forgetting the big difference is that they’ve been there and done it, no pressure to break the hoodoo and can just play their own game. Southgate has done a great job of removing most of the pressure and expectation previous managers and squads have had to contend with but this is as big a test of that as ever.
 
Kyle Walker wasn’t at his quickest yesterday but there is no doubt he absolutely lightning and he is someone who gets quicker the longer he is sprinting so he is definetly our best option to combat Mbappe. By no means it’s a given he will be able to come out on top but he won’t give Mbappe an easy ride, that’s for sure
 
Should be an exceptional match - probably the two best squads in the tournament.

Think I'd stick with a flat four but Rice needs to do a job on Griezmann, if you stop him you'll stop a lot of France's best attacking moves.

I don't think you can really counteract Mbappe at the moment, just hope he's not brought his shooting boots. Although on yesterday's performance if he can get a shot away in the box he's scoring more times than he isn't.

Tchoumani will take some stopping too, he's basically their version of Bellingham - wouldn't mind a couple of stiff ankle high tackles on him early doors.

Neither team will fancy sitting back (although their defence looks stronger than ours) so I think it will be an open game with France (just) shading it.
 
i think we have a reasonable chance but I would still put them as favourites. I don't rate either of the French full backs, they are no Lizarazu and Thurman. For me thats their weakest link and i expect foden and saka could make hay against them.
 
Pace is the danger as we haven’t really faced that yet and we saw last night we struggled at times when they ran at us esp maguire.

Mbappe will exploit this and unlike Senegal he can finish.
 
Hoolio said:
Are you for real, Stones is better than them all, Varane is a bottler umamecano is a pound shop Maguire the others don’t start and their full backs are poor we will destroy France bookmark this
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You mean world cup and multiple champions league winning bottler Varane?

Upamecano is a pound shop Maguire? Well then Upamecano must be a penny shop lindelof and Martinez, as Maguire can't get in the man U team ahead of them.

We have a good chance of beating France but let's not get carried away after beating a few average sides
 
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