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

 

Where did I say I thought Argentina would win? I just said that apart from the France game they have been fairly poor.I still think Spain will win (well its probably more hope as I want what on the face of it seems to be FIFA fixing the winners fails to happen). They just aren't anywhere near as good as they were 2 years ago, they still have that ability to keep control of the game with endless pass after pass but they are lacking that dynamic attacking threat they could turn on. Some of it is clearly because Yamal is certainly not full ft and Nico Williams isn't either and their backups are more functional than amazing and I also think Oyarzabal forces them to play differently so they don't have Olmo or Pedri in the number 10 rather then are playing more like an 8

 

LOL he has chosen Eze to play CM over Mainoo. The last time Eze played CM was for Palace in the 22/23 season where he played it 10 times in a midfield 3 of Doucouré and Schlupp so with a DM and a Defender where he was more the 10 when on the ball and dropped for numbers when out of possession. Today he is being played in a 2 with Rice (and Why is Rice playing? He has struggled with Injury all World Cup and then has struggled with the illness).

And why isn't he playing Kane. This is probably his last World Cup match and he is 1 away from going joint 4th on the all time list. Just play him ffs

 

You can win matches without playing really well though. Spain are a team who will always restrict opponents chances because of the way the retain possesion but they have lacked that lacked that cutting edge we saw 2 years ago. And you say they have scored 11 but 37% of those goals were scored against a very poor Saudi Arabia team and a further 28% against Austria.

And you have named 3 teams they have beaten who on paper should have been top teams but underperformed massively (TBH until the Semi's France were probably the only big team that had turned up). Uruguay were a joke. Belgium turned up for like 5 minutes against Senegal (You could argue the USA game but the US were dreadful and most of the goals came from mistakes they made rather than anything Belgium did) and Portugal had Martinez wasting another crop of amazing players with his awful style of play (Why make 1 pass when you can make 5 passes of 10cm's. Their team is full of players who make adventurous progressive passes all day for their teams but it was all short, sideways or backwards passes)

Spain have the ability to be an amazing team, we saw it 2 years ago where even when teams sat in against them their possession was pulling the opponents all over the place as were the progressive movement by Yamal, Olmo and Nico Williams which allows that possession to have purpose. Something just isn't clicking with them, their good chances have actually often come not because they have unlocked teams but because either the opponents have switched off or because they have been down they have overcommitted trying to get back into it

 

This match has highlighted the problem England have had and that's the selection of so many players either carrying knocks, who are injury prone or have missed too much football.

For example look at Saka. The fact he hasn't been able to complete 90mins for most of the tournament and seeming only able to play every 2 games hinders us. Madueke doesn't fill his boots at Arsenal hence why Arsenal keep rushing him back before he is ready and we have no-one else on that side in this squad thats a replacement for what he offers.

And look at Rice. Once again he ran out of steam in the second half (Why it took Tuchel so long to realise that and give him help) because even before his illness he was carrying an injury.

With all the difficult conditions from Altitude to the various different conditions, the distance that teams had to travel and the extra games this wasn't the tournament to take so many players with fitness issues. And certainly not without more like for like replacements who don't have fitness issues to slot in for the problem positions

 

hmm Saka seems to be implying that he has been fit to play. So its been Tuchel deciding to play Madueke and Rodgers over him and choosing to leave him on the pitch when we needed someone who we could have used as an outlet