England v Nigeria

All discussion relating to international tournaments including qualifying groups/matches. Since 2006.

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Faithless
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Re: England v Nigeria

Post by Faithless »

jastons wrote:
Exactly. Who was last player to score 23 goals in a season for West Ham?

Sterling is a midfielder*, he isn't going to be as prolific as Alan Shearer so I don't understand why people expect him to be?

*Messi and Ronaldo being obvious exceptions
Sterling has been playing as part of a front 3 since his days at Liverpool. It's not his Club performances i'm worried about more the fact that as he played as our 2nd most advanced forward today and he now hasn't scored for 2.5 years, 2 goals in 38. Even for an attacking midfielder that's not a good return.
Patito wrote:I wonder if the krauts are all slating Sané for his measly 14 goals that must have all been put on a plate for him this season...
Maybe they are, maybe they're thinking he's not scored in 11 games for Germany ;)

Tell you what £20 to BMF if he scores at the world cup, Sterling not Sane he can carry on not scoring :lol:
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Patito
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Re: England v Nigeria

Post by Patito »

Ok

I’ll bet £20 Sterling nets in Russia then
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Faithless
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Re: England v Nigeria

Post by Faithless »

Patito wrote:Ok

I’ll bet £20 Sterling nets in Russia then
Sorry i think I've confused matters...I was putting my money where my mouth was ;)

I meant I'll do £20 if Sterling scores at the WC...I've already added it to the BMF thread :thup:
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Patito
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Re: England v Nigeria

Post by Patito »

My fault, I got what you were saying it’s just past my bed time and forming sentences is a struggle. :D
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Re: England v Nigeria

Post by Morocco Mole »

Southgate already showing worrying signs of cluelessness. Where was Kane supposed to be playing? Has he caught a dose of Rooneyitis? One of the best number 9s in world football playing every position on the pitch except center forward. :P

We have a team full of wannabe number 10s (Ali, Sterling, Lingard, Kane inexcplicably) and not one of them is any good there. The lack of creativity in and around the box remains our weakness. Our final ball is woeful. We simply don’t have the players to play tippy tippy continental style football. Time to play to our strengths: Vardy and Kane up front as a proper pair on Thursday please....
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Re: England v Nigeria

Post by bobcar »

HammerMan2004 wrote:Friendly or not, that was a really poor Nigeria side and we got a win with a huge goalkeeper error.

Can’t wait for Russia.
Germany lost to Austria with a poor performance, hands up who thinks they'll bomb in the World Cup?

If the second half had continued as the first and we'd won four or five nil it would not have increased our chances when the tournament starts just the opposite, these are friendlies and we should only read so much into them.
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Re: England v Nigeria

Post by Kendo Nagasaki »

Morocco Mole wrote:Time to play to our strengths.
Something that appears to have escaped England’s attention for decades. You wouldn’t see Spain, Argentina or Portugal abandoning their strengths in the hope that it’ll counter their opponents preferred tactics. We should always play to our strengths, tactics, personnel and position, and challenge our opponents to counter us. Be proactive.

Used to be argued that “foreign” refs don’t allow us to play English football “abroad” because they don’t allow the physical stuff so much. If that was ever really the case, it isn’t any more, with every contact between players in the PL leading to a foul.
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Re: England v Nigeria

Post by Puff Daddy »

Iceland lost 2-3 at home to Norway who haven't even qualified for the world Cup. How **** must they be ? I do, however, rather like their fans, 'Come on you Spurs' chant
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Re: England v Nigeria

Post by westham,eggyandchips »

I really really tried to watch the whole game........

I just can't seem to bring myself to get behind ANY of them. Hopefully that'll change when the real stuff starts in a couple of weeks. :(
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Re: England v Nigeria

Post by Ted Fenton »

IIRC England lost to Austria at Wembley in the prelude to World Cup 1966. These "warm up" games mean very little resultswise.
Having said that, I hold out little hope for England to get very far this year. It's been a long while since they got me excited.
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Re: England v Nigeria

Post by hammers92 »

I’ll go one step further and say we have the best no.9 in world football right now. Get the service to him and teams will fear us. That’s why it’s absolutely crucial Sterling, Ali and our wide players do the business.
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Re: England v Nigeria

Post by bubbles1966 »

England are very much like West Ham - the 'keepers are a bit ropey and nobody seems to know who the best one is; the centre halves are limited and slow so we have switched to a back 3; the midfield is populated by pedestrian huffers and puffers but we have potential match winners up top.

On our day we are capable of beating some good teams, but the truly excellent all round ones will very probably beat us.

That said, it's still a cup competition and it only takes a run of luck and the better players simultaneously hitting form to advance.
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James P
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Re: England v Nigeria

Post by James P »

Double post
Last edited by James P on Sun Jun 03, 2018 10:46 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: England v Nigeria

Post by James P »

The issue with playing to our strengths is that we regularly come across international opposition who take the position of being spoilers. In qualifying groups and international tournament groups, we tend to be perceived as being one of the stronger opponents. As a result opposition seek to contain us, get a point and then go for it against the other teams in the group.

Our strength is generally fast-paced counter attacking football. Players like Vardy thrive on a ball in behind a high defence. Our pacey wide men want to get around the full back and deliver quickly into an uncongested penalty box.

The problem is opposition regularly set up to suffocate us. They sit deep and they fill the box with defenders. They play in a way to frustrate and nullify our strengths. We are left with either trying to find a way to pick the lock of a tight final third (the tippy tappy way), or we have to try to draw the opposition onto us to create the space in behind (the slow sideways balls in our own half).

I was very pleased yesterday how quick we were looking to get advanced at the change of possession. I believe it was Kane's goal where we won the ball and Sterling, Alli and Lingard all haired forward to try to create a chance before Nigeria could form a wall in front of us. My natural inclination was to play both Henderson and Dier but having seen yesterday how well we were able to break quickly by using the three above I am minded to carry that forward into the first two games.
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Re: England v Nigeria

Post by Hammer.CA »

-DL- wrote: Maybe the gun on his leg went off. :o
A knee jerk reaction.
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Re: England v Nigeria

Post by fmgod »

Ashley Young is and never was a left back or wing back, not a clue how he is still at Manchester United, Cresswell is a better full back
Sterling I honestly don't get, to me he looks at times utterly devoid of football iq, decision making, finishing yet has tons of goals for City but whether this is due to Aguero, Silva, De Bruyne putting ten chances on a plate for him every game, that he has to score at least one but as a footballer he looks dreadful sometimes

Vardy is the first striker name on the sheet for me when we play a better team, he would be perfect against Belgium, Vardy's record in the big games is quality, he works non-stop, against better teams as well he can run into the space behind.
Kendo Nagasaki
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Re: England v Nigeria

Post by Kendo Nagasaki »

Fair points, JP, but if we don’t play to our strengths then we are, by default, playing to our weaknesses - expecting our players to eschew their natural game to play in a manner they’re less comfortable with. Something we did extensively in the SGE years, without much success.

TBH I don’t know what the answer is, beyond looking to have a varied squad with an array of technical capabilities to choose from. Easier said than done, of course. Still think we should focus more on penalties though and finding ways to exploit the fact that you’re going to end up having to deal with them at some stage if you’re going to make a major showing at a tournament.
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Re: England v Nigeria

Post by S-H »

fmgod wrote: Vardy is the first striker name on the sheet for me when we play a better team, he would be perfect against Belgium, Vardy's record in the big games is quality, he works non-stop, against better teams as well he can run into the space behind.

I've been saying this for a while now, in those games when Kane was injured and we started Vardy we looked so much better.

I like Kane don't get me wrong, sadly he's undroppable, and I don't think Southgate will ever start with both him and Vardy.
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Re: England v Nigeria

Post by fmgod »

I think if Kane has another poor tournament, I think he should be dropped, we carried on with Rooney for far too long, he looked frightening at 2004, he scored 3 goals in 17 games in the tournaments that followed, I mean considering he was meant to be our talisman that is atrocious and for some reason it never got questioned, we carried on doing the same thing of having a striker who didn't score in tournaments, I mean look at some of the teams you play in the groups as well, hardly world beaters.
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Re: England v Nigeria

Post by Kendo Nagasaki »

Kane didn’t get much of a chance in 2016, to be fair. Hodgson’s masterstroke of having him take the corners, for example. Plus the rest of the team were equally poor.
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