World Cup KO: En-ger-land, En-ger-land, En-ger-land (was 'Group G')

Yeoldhammer

I'm already booking a flight out to Moscow for the final. Its coming home.

Any case,

Rashford for Sterling (deserves his chance)
Rose for Young (needs game time)
Alexander-Arnold for Trippier (would like to see what he can offer)
Loftus Cheek for Ali (is there a point risking Dele Ali ? let Loftus Cheek get more experience)

Keep the rest of the team the same. (Back 3 and Keeper must remain the same its definitely not Englands strong point and getting as many games as they can together is important)



Pickford

Walker Stones Maguire

Alexander-Arnold, Loftus Cheek, Henderson, Lingard, Rose

Kane, Rashford

IronHerb

I've been doing a lot of 'what if's' around who will qualify to the next stage.

If Portugal win by more goals than Spain tonight there would be a big chance, imo, that the top half of the draw would contain France, Spain, Brazil, Argentina, Germany, Russia, Japan and whoever wins our Group.

See where I'm going here?


COME ON YOU BELGIANS

Yeoldhammer

Doesn't matter we're going to win the World Cup bring them all on !

MrsGrey

Loss. Deal with it.

Vorselaarhammer

BOOOO..

MunichHammer

Kane needs to play so he can score. I want him to outscore CR7 and Lukaku.
Germany and Brazil could easily meet in the next round so one of them will likely be eliminated soon.
I don't think England are half bad this time around and there is a chance we could end up reaching the semis.

IronHerb

4-4 draw but we get a couple more yellows than Belgium. ;whistle

Brother_Sledge

England v Belgium is last game so all other teams in the draw will be decided - it may be obvious that both teams would prefer to lose - which would be a farce - Is there any scope for an intervention to give the winner of Group G the choice of draw - so that a competitive tie could be properly contested?

MrsGrey

There's no chance imo that either Kane or Lukaku will pass up the opportunity to score, even were their managers to send them out to lose.

baracks_a_hammer

Yes but there’s every chance that Kane will try and claim lukaku’s goals

Vorselaarhammer

I think Vardy / Rose / Trent will start.

MrsGrey

Brother_Sledge said:

England v Belgium is last game so all other teams in the draw will be decided

This will be the case in every last set of games in each pair of groups. I'm not sure if in any cases they will also be playing for first and second though.

MunichHammer

MrsGrey said:

This will be the case in every last set of games in each pair of groups. I'm not sure if in any cases they will also be playing for first and second though.

That's not what he meant. Group G are the very last group to play their final matches so they will know before they go out who their opponent would be if they win the group. And they will also know what opponents will await them in the quarters or the semis.

thornburyiron

Not sure what his point is though. It's one thing knowing but if you have a preferred route doing something about it is another eg if you'd prefer to finish second in your group.

MrsGrey

MunichHammer said:

That's not what he meant. Group G are the very last group to play their final matches so they will know before they go out who their opponent would be if they win the group.

Same goes for Spain and Portugal when they take to the field tonight. ;puzzled

MrsGrey

I must be missing something.

MrsGrey

MunichHammer said:

And they will also know what opponents will await them in the quarters or the semis.

How? They'll know that it will be one of 2. Same as, eg, Spain and Portugal.

England's not unique. The only special thing atm is that they are playing against the other team in contention with them for top spot.

Hammerwombat

The present Mrs Wombat is of Belgian blood. I will mind my Ps and Qs. But come Thursday night, my home, house and garden will be awash with the flag of St George.


#has to be done

whupathman

My wife is Belgian but hates football

Hammerex

Looking at the table we have identical pts, and goals scored for and against
both scoring 8 for and 2against. So what happens if we draw, just toss a coin. ?

Vorselaarhammer

We have one less yellow so go top on fair play...

imagelost

It must be about winning, England do not need to practice losing,dub hand at that,
So stick a strong team out, and none of Astra marlarky that put us the Europey cup,
Practice makes perfect same team please

baracks_a_hammer

I’ve just heard dean Ashton on the radio say there is no way England should let up and should go out to win every single game.

Well that’s settled then, nothing more to debate.

IronHerb

Ashton was a much better player than he is a pundit. No real surprise there then.

jay_in_cpt

I agree with Ashton .
Go for the win regardless , if u wanna win a WC u gotta beat top teams, playing for a result that might get a better or easier route thru the competition is the wrong way to go
IMO
Just win

MrsGrey

The BBC'S article reporting Martinez saying that changes could be made to protect players - particularly defenders - who have a yellow card.

imagelost

If will only worry about Belgium if we meet in the final, after this game
If it’s possible

alderz

I was just taking a look at Sterling's conversion rate over his career, and it was pretty interesting.

From 2011/12 to 2016/17, he scored 31 PL goals from 282 shots - a conversion rate of 11%. In 2018/19, he scored 18 PL goals from 86 shots, a conversion rate of 21%.

For reference, Harry Kane had a worse conversion rate this season (16%), Marcus Rashford has a conversion rate of 11.4% over the last two seasons, Jesse Lingard has a three year average of 10.5%.

In terms of chance conversion, Sterling is no worse than any of our other attacking midfielders throughout his career, even ignoring his massive improvement in 2017/18.

PrestonHammer

My problem with Sterling is his shooting is terrible. If you look at the goals he has scored last season, a lot of them have been back post tap ins. You could argue that he always gets himself into that position but he does get good service.

Lukerz

Thing I would argue with Sterling is, last season, how many of those goals he got were crucial goals, and how many were the 3rd, 4th & 5th goals in games?