Most liked posts in thread: England v Denmark

I have to say Southgate not using Rashford really annoys me. He has been carrying a back, ankle and shoulder injury all season and needs at least one operation this summer (and ideally 3) which he could have had now if it wasn't for the Euros. If you have a player carrying injuries that need operations and you basically aren't going to use them why take them?

It's not doing anyone be it United, Rashford or England any good. I suspect he will have just 1 of them fixed, still miss the start of the season but because of that will take the one with the shortest rehab and will rush back. So he won't be at his best. He might have the others fixed next summer but if he misses the start of next season due to that with the World Cup taking place in November he won't have many games under his belt and would have missed a preseason for 3 years in a row

 

I'm not having a dig at him in general, just on this one thing. If you have a player who needs operations and you aren't going to play them then you shouldn't take them. Especially with next years world cup even being played in Winter is going to be massively taxing on players sp we are going to need a squad that's fully fit. Unless he can't walk Southgate will take him but I feel he simply won't be fit and we will have that situation we have seen in the past with Rooney and Beckham where they just weren't fit and were more of a problem than an asset and as I said with the conditions we might be in a situation where we rely on him and he isn't fit.

Would have been better of Southgate had just said, you are carrying injuries so haven't been at your best, you won't really get minutes so go get your operations and focus on being ready for the world cup. And then we could have taken a young player who would have benefited from just sitting on the bench

 

I'm not sure he would have played if Sterling was injured though. The 4 matches he has got minutes in he has replaced Kane once, Foden once and Sterling twice. One of Sterlings was after Sterling had been moved to the right where Sterling may not be the best but Rashford is god damn awful. It largely seems Grealish is Sterling's backup (I suspect Saka would be next in line as well as he is pretty decent on the left) and on the right Saka, Foden, Sancho (and Sterling) are ahead of him.

And I understand tournaments are a squad game but that's why I have the issue as I feel it's doing more harm to our world cup campaign than leaving him out of the squad here would have done. I feel Qatar 22 is going to be a killer tournament with the heat even in the winter plus the fact it's happening in the middle of the season (Some of the countries whose leagues are in the summer have suffered from that in the past).

 

The ref in general was inconsistent to both sides. The foul on Kane for example was worse than on Sterling

 

My first thought was Sterling had dived and the penallty was wrong. But on a second look, there were two 'contacts'. I'm not convinced that the first of these involved any contact whatsoever. But in the second one, there was physical contact with the defender and Sterling was right to go down. I'm of the view that the penalty was given for this and not for the initial non-contact.

Having said that, it was a soft one and if it had happened against us at VP, I'd have been livid!

 

A couple of things though

1. He has been ineffective for England and Man Utd for a good few months though. He had no preseason like all the United players due to COVID causing United's Season not to end until the 16th of August, he started more games than anyone but Bruno and Maguire and as I mentioned has been playing with 3 injuries that have increasingly hampered him. So it's not like Southgate wasn't aware he wasn't going to be that effective
2. Of the 4 times, he has got on it's been twice off the right where he is awful even when fully fit, once up front where he needs a team setup a specific way to be effective which England aren't and once on his favoured position. Hence he hasn't really been given the chance to really be effective

Again it just seems to me that when you have a player who is injured especially given both the situation caused by COVID and the situation next November with the world cup due to corrupt FIFA; who is barely going to get minutes due to being hampered by it then why take him . He might not even get to have the operation next summer because as WC qualifying hasn't been completed yet England have 7 of those games to play before the end of the year (and more if we don't come first) which has seen the Nation League pushed back to where the World Cup would be so next summer is not actually free so we could again have a Rashford who should be pushing for a start being hampered so much that he isn't close to pushing for that. It just strikes me as short term thinking, he isn't adding anything really to the Euro squad but could for the World Cup but it relies on him getting fully fit and I just don't see that happening now