The Trippier thing is very odd. Gomez actually plays left back for his club fairly regularly so the insistence on playing a player who is very reliable but ultimately not offering us a lot us frustrating. What Southgate will see, and will like, is that Trippier rarely gives the ball away, rarely gets caught out of position and offers a high base for the attacking players to play off when they're probing for space. The fact that he doesn't put in early crosses or beat anyone on the outside won't really bother Southgate because he's not all that interested in his left back doing that at the moment. I think Southgate will look at Gomez and Konsa and see that as right footed defenders they won't necessarily offer what Trippier doesn't either, but they might be less reliable defensively.
It was always quite a mad choice to only take one left back who was unlikely to play. If only Chilwell hadn't looked so terrible in his recent England appearances things might be slightly different.
As much as Switzerland have looked the best I've ever seen them, I am surprised they made it look so comfortable vs Italy. Thought that game had pens written all over it.
On the flip side (and without sounding arrogant) I'm very happy with the Swiss going through, as our record is fantastic against them compared to Italy, and I don't think our players will have as much a mental block.
Hopefully we can beat Slovakia later as it is all falling into place for us.
They're very good at pressing and harrying teams that are expecting to have a lot of the ball and throwing them off. Scotland were content to not lose heavily again and gave Switzerland's dangerous wingers little space to work in. That worries me a bit as our players look knackered and susceptible to a press and we're not moving about well enough to create avenues to break a press. I think if we get there we'll have a very tough time if we don't wake up a bit.
I do think we've looked better than Italy though who fell behind against Albania, lost one of the most one-sided 1-0s you'll ever see against Spain and barely scraped a last minute draw against Croatia. They were lucky to have even got to the Switzerland match frankly.
The wankfest over Musiala has begun then, Tyldesley talking like he's just singlehandedly won the Euros, World Cup, both World Wars and the fucking cricket for Germany after that goal
So England didn't do the same about Jude until the last two games. No question mark needed. He's a talent that plays with freedom that could be playing for England or obviously on the bench getting on the pitch in the 89th minute.
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But just how broken does something have to be? If it's dead then that's too late.
It's not working, why not change it?
I would play Joe at left back.
Unchanged....
On the flip side (and without sounding arrogant) I'm very happy with the Swiss going through, as our record is fantastic against them compared to Italy, and I don't think our players will have as much a mental block.
Hopefully we can beat Slovakia later as it is all falling into place for us.
So England didn't do the same about Jude until the last two games. No question mark needed.
He's a talent that plays with freedom that could be playing for England or obviously on the bench getting on the pitch in the 89th minute.
So because of a friendly you wouldn't start them today?
Switzerland... England... Now Georgia!!