England matches discussion.

The ref was pretty poor. In that first half they were committing a foul on us every 4 minutes yet got 1 booking (and we got a booking first). There was that one early on where they dragged the studs down the back of ours calf which by the rule book should have been a red card. And it seemed every challenge they did involved them throwing hands or elbows into our players heads at the same time.

It just encouraged them to keep doing it

 

See though if you watch that the issue isn't that we double it, it's that Spence feels he has to go to De Paul which leaves Messi in space. When The ball goes to Messi, Spence has to go after the ball which then means Anderson has to react to cover De Paul. Spence gets nowhere near Messi and then feels he has to backtrack and at that point he is in his own box and making a tackle becomes tough, Anderson see's he is in Trouble and has to adjust to back him up rather than cover De Paul and that then leaves both De Paul and Fernandez free.

That's were the second problem then arrives. We are overloaded on the front post. We have 3 people covering Mac Allister who is the only person making a front post run and then Kane and Stones there to try and cut out a cross. They are really all just getting in each others way and when its passed to Fernandez everyone is too far away to close him down



At the very least we needed Spence tracking Messi, don't give him space and if he wants to do something make him do something magical. He struggled for most of the first half because he didn't get space.

And then thats where we needed Mainoo and not Burn. Kane should have been up ready to cover De Paul or Fernandez with Anderson doing the shield so if Messi beat Spence he could cover but if but if Messi looked to pass he could support Kane dealing with De Paul or made the pass to Fernandez tougher. While Mainoo is better positioned to close down Fernandez if it did get to him

Mind you I still think we are overloaded on Mac Allister and Argentina were over committing so I would have setup more like this



Stones should be able to deal with Mac Allister on his. That Free's up Jude. We have an extra body to try and intercept the ball if Messi tries to find Fernadez or if it gets through to charge it down and if he is there if O'Reilly needs to pass Ramero on.

And while I have Rodgers staying up I would have probably had Saka if fit or Rashford 'cheating'. Argentina have over committed. If you can turn it over a fast player has a counter attack on. And maybe a fast player cheating would have seen one of the defenders feeling they needed to stay back thus reducing the pressure.

The other advantage here is actually it allows for Pickford to deal with crosses better without a wall of players acting as a wall making it hard for him be proactive.

 

Apart from against France tbh I can't say that Spain have impressed me. At the Euros what was great about them is they had that Spanish control they have become known for but they could be proactive and they would use the control to open up a space for them to do that. That dynamic attacking side seems to have gone missing, even Yamal hasn't been all that great and as such they resemble more that toothless Spanish side we saw after that run of success where they would often play with a false 9 and just pass, pass, pass but never really open sides up.

Certainly across the whole tournaments performance it seems like a fairly poor final. Maybe both will step up but its not the mouth watering tie on paper that a Spain vs Argentina match should be