England v Republic of Ireland - Sunday, 17th November 2024 - UEFA Nations League

[liamoo11]

That was me Razor. :-) This is the way I see it. We are facing a WC campaign that is just 6 games. A sprint. Goals scored and matches won will have outsized gains. With the bigger picture of WC qualification on the horizon, why play for a 0-0 in a dead rubber game? Agree HH is willing to mix up the tactics – and I’d actually be more positive leaning on that. Far better to be adaptable/ flexible than set in our ways. However, after six games with HH, we do not know our strongest line-up, we do not know our best shape, we haven’t solved the midfield, we have not fixed the gaping hole on our left side, we don’t score goals, and we concede buckets. Our future is the hope of an easy draw. There’s been time to reflect since Sunday and listen to the other side. But for me, we’ve been here before – taking short term positives to miss out on the longer term gains.

It's a fair point HH really only has 12 months left in the role unless we qualify for the world Cup, which from where we are now would be an outrageous achievement

[ifk101]

I thought the last 15 mins of the 1st half we actually attacked a bit and we did create 2 potential penalty situations . I don't see a lot wrong with going away to a team that we know are better than us and keeping things tight, especially early and seeing if we can get something on the break.

Snowed in with work, so can’t reply fully to your post but on this – the two penalties that weren’t stemmed from long balls aimed at Evan. Evan is not a target or a pacey striker than gets in behind defences. I don’t see those opportunites as indicative of creativity/ a pre-designed attacking threat as we’re are not actually trying to capitalise on Evan’s strengths, rather they are low percentage, relief balls playing to his weaknesses. Btw, a strong and weaker penalty shout were high returns for those long balls – because ultimately they are low percentages balls that 9 out 10 times give possession away (especially in a low block as we are too deep to compete for eventual second balls). Not something to hang the positivity hat on imo.

[Razors left peg]

Snowed in with work, so can’t reply fully to your post but on this – the two penalties that weren’t stemmed from long balls aimed at Evan. Evan is not a target or a pacey striker than gets in behind defences. I don’t see those opportunites as indicative of creativity/ a pre-designed attacking threat as we’re are not actually trying to capitalise on Evan’s strengths, rather they are low percentage, relief balls playing to his weaknesses. Btw, a strong and weaker penalty shout were high returns for those long balls – because ultimately they are low percentages balls that 9 out 10 times give possession away (especially in a low block as we are too deep to compete for eventual second balls). Not something to hang the positivity hat on imo.

Look I'm not saying it was perfect by any means, but going to Wembley and keeping things tight is how we should have approached the game, anything else would have been silly. Whether those 2 penalty claims came from good play or pure luck is kind of irrelevant given that we were in around their box and should have gotten something from it. To me that's playing the best hand we have against top teams, even if it doesn't necessarily suit Ferguson in that particular game..... but if we approached every game like that I'd have a massive problem with it. That was the only game so far he's approached like that and we have played some half decent football at times in the other games so far. He knows Evan is who he needs to build around for the long term, and proof of that is when he played both games in previous window when he really wasn't fit.

I'm not going to say I have total confidence in Hallgrimsson yet, he's definitely made mistakes, but he has also done things I've like so I'm willing to keep positive about him for now even after that result at the weekend

[Snapshot]

That was me Razor. :-) This is the way I see it. We are facing a WC campaign that is just 6 games. A sprint. Goals scored and matches won will have outsized gains. With the bigger picture of WC qualification on the horizon, why play for a 0-0 in a dead rubber game? Agree HH is willing to mix up the tactics – and I’d actually be more positive leaning on that. Far better to be adaptable/ flexible than set in our ways. However, after six games with HH, we do not know our strongest line-up, we do not know our best shape, we haven’t solved the midfield, we have not fixed the gaping hole on our left side, we don’t score goals, and we concede buckets. Our future is the hope of an easy draw. There’s been time to reflect since Sunday and listen to the other side. But for me, we’ve been here before – taking short term positives to miss out on the longer term gains.
Interesting read. But our strongest line-up when burdened with our left-side weakness, our feeble midfield, our leaking-bucket defence and our goal-shy forwards is not a strong line-up at all. Szmodics looks like taking the Aldridge 20-game road to goal while hell's fury awaits any non-flattering Ferguson reassessment.

But HH taking the Mick/Jack road against quality opponents - as in the promising first-half is to his credit. It ultimately saved an even bigger thumping. There was definitely hope heading into the second half but we impoded following Scales dismissal. Fact is - he shouldn't have started the second half.

[Stuttgart88]

I left the house this morning to be greeted by my England season ticket holder neighbour. Luckily I had headphones on and pointed to them as a reason why I couldn't talk. I still have the satisfaction of saying hi to him as he came home from Wembley at around 11pm having lost on penalities to Italy.

[tetsujin1979]

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