by Durhamfootman » Sat Jul 14, 2018 8:35 pm
I'm trying to think what England will have learned from this tournament, once the dust has settled.
Assuming we stick with 3-5-2, the players who have absolutely nailed their positions down are Pickford, Stones, Maguire, Trippier, Lingard and Kane.
Henderson has some question marks over his attacking ability, but his defensive work, his work rate and his fitness will doubtless secure his spot for the foreseeable future.
That leaves 4 slots up for grabs in Southgate's ideal XI.
Sterling, while he has done some really good work up front at times, cannot find the net and so can't justify his place in the starting XI up front... Kane can't do it all on his own. While I admire Walker, he looked a bit shoehorned into his role at times against better opposition, so his position must also be under review. Young did okay, but this WC must surely have been a last hurrah for his international career. Alli just wasn't effective enough, for me, as a creative player.... but then nobody really found those defence splitting passes that teams like Belgium seem to find at will from several of their players.
Work in progress... a decent enough tournament, but still lots of things for Southgate to unpick ahead of the Euro's
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