Dman

Big comment. One I suspect I’ll be laughing at you in a year. Broja would absolutely thrive at a bigger club with better midfielders.

We’re pretty much a 1 man team in terms of threat going forward. If teams can single out Broja then we don’t have a great deal else left. Much more needed from the midfield.

Who is a big club more likely to buy? Che / Armstrong or Broja? Broja and his pace / ability to run in behind essentially enable Che to have the space to perform like his has done.

Agree he wasn’t Great today or for past few games to be honest. Hes still miles better than Armstrong or any other alternative though, who’s shite, so simply has to start (unless we’re gonna Chuck long up there). In fairness to him and Che, we’ve been off the boil for the past 4 or 5 games in general. Not really creating enough. Funny enough, the only game I can really remember us having 2 or 3 clear cut chances of which we should have scored was City, which Armstrong blundered.

In which time your man Armstrong has had Long, Tella and smallbone selected ahead of him. I think that shows what Ralph thinks of the 2 of them.

He’s crap. 6th choice now, Long, Tella and even smallbone been preferred to him in recent weeks. I think we’ve slightly changed how we play or teams have sussed us out, don’t seem to create anywhere near as much as we were 10 or so games ago.

@TWar salivating with excitement just at the thought of this (yes I know it’s an April fools)

Doesn’t sound great. Moving Romeu on would be a very, very big mistake. Up there with letting Fonte go for me, I think we’d struggle to replace him.

One of the best left backs in the world for me.

hearing they’ve got a little firm together on the hunt specifically for warriorsaint.

Are the goals bigger up there then?

Bizarre how you could say with such confidence that someone is the best or one of in the world for a certain position, but not actually know where they play 😂 You’ve literally just read on the athletic or something that he’s a good player and formed your opinion that way, haven’t you.

If I remember rightly, Phillips much like Broja, you had it in for before the summer started. Nothing he could do, even voted best England player of 2021, could or would change your opinion.

His in game management is pretty poor. But those notible mistakes do not include picking Pickford and Phillips and not picking Trent (as you suggested) who’ve both been brilliant every time they’ve put on an England shirt.

This argument completely contradicts you wanting Phillips dropped. Fwiw, I’d have both of them starting.

Imagine how well we’d be doing if Southgate didn’t continue to make ‘notable mistakes’. Crazyyyyy….

I tell you who was one of our players of the tournament and in fact voted player of the year and SHOULD start… Kalvin Phillips.

Trent, as a defender, especially 1 on 1 defending, is bang average.

Hahaha you couldn’t help yourself, could you. But It was based on the facts my friend. At the time of posting, England only stuck 4 or so past them, they set up with 11 men behind the ball to prevent getting a drubbing. The difference in class between San Marino and England is far, far greater than Us and United / Leicester, both of which managed to stick a record number past us. It’s about context, but we’ve already discovered you’re not very good/incapable of processing that, haven’t we. So yes, the geezer who was / is running San Marino knew how to prevent his team taking a drubbing, unlike Ralph. Just like the facts that since southgate has arrived and made “notable mistakes”, in 2 tournaments we’ve recorded the best finishes since 1966. Long may those “notable mistakes” continue.

So how can you say he’s made “notable mistakes” when his record is very, very good and you have 0 qualifications to make such judgements 😂

And if he gets us to another semi or final of the tournament then he can continue to make “notable errors”. For someone who gets it so wrong, his record is fantastic. Failing that, they can give you the job and see how well we do… FWIW, as someone who has followed England over the past 5 years, Pickford, Maguire etc. have never let us down and every time he’s played TAA has been bang average.

We don’t need JWP to play in a more advanced role. Bellingham, Mount and imo Gallagher are better at that than Prowse. Against the better teams where we need 2 DM’s, Phillips is better than JWP at that. We’ll have to agree to disagree or else this will become another of those long and endless debates. My money is on Phillips being on the plane come November though (providing he / everyone is fit).

And more importantly, neither does Southgate, who’s the bloke who picks the side.

I think our defence is poor, therefore against the better teams we need to play 2 holding players and give up some creativity to build a solid foundation. Phillips played pretty much every minute, there was a reason for that. Both him and Rice gave us a solid foundation. Against the so called ‘weaker’ teams, we have more than enough (Bellingham, Mount or Gallagher) to bring in. Agree to disagree, but Phillips is vastly underrated in my opinion.

In fairness, ‘his favourites’ have never let him or England down. There could be many reasons for lack of form. Maguire as an example looks a shambles when in a United shirt but never puts a foot wrong in an England one. Players like Mount and Henderson are winners and leaders. Generally speaking, there’s a reason they’re at the top clubs and not bottom half clubs. If Gareth can get them performing like we know they can, who cares how they’re doing for their club.