Henderson to Saudi!

Diego said:
Alexander Arnold should start midfield. He’s been terrific this season. He’s played there for England recently and I do think we need to find a place for him in the England team.
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His all round game isn'tgood enough to be a nailed on England player, he's a useful squad player, but you wouldn't want him starting deep into any tournament. We have to get out of this mindset of trying to shoehron every 'baller' into the england team, it's never worked. Need a balance of in and out of possession players, playing in their proper roles. That's what we have had. The only things holding us back are a lack of quality at CB, no fit LBs and a lack of CDMs who play every week. We are already creative enough, it's the resilience that we need, and TAA in CM isn't going to help with that, if anything it'll be worse.
 
BoroMart said:
His all round game isn'tgood enough to be a nailed on England player, he's a useful squad player, but you wouldn't want him starting deep into any tournament. We have to get out of this mindset of trying to shoehron every 'baller' into the england team, it's never worked. Need a balance of in and out of possession players, playing in their proper roles. That's what we have had. The only things holding us back are a lack of quality at CB, no fit LBs and a lack of CDMs who play every week. We are already creative enough, it's the resilience that we need, and TAA in CM isn't going to help with that, if anything it'll be worse.
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Who would you play alongside Rice? No obvious candidates for me. I think Alexander Arnold is Southgate’s preference as he’s played him recently. As you say we have a lack of CMs so there isn’t really an obvious choice
 
Diego said:
Who would you play alongside Rice?
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Yep, it's a difficult one.

I would probably say (when fit) Stones would be the best to partner Rice, as we saw during City's treble win last season that he was incredible with Rodri in the middle of the park in the latter stages of the season.

But then, he's our best CB too and we are so light at CB that we would need to play Stones at CB...which again leaves the CM spot alongside Rice vacant.

I think our first 11 has 9 nailed players to start.

GK - Pickford
RB - Walker
CB - Stones
CB - ????
LB - Shaw
CM - Rice
CM - ????
RW - Saka
LW - Foden
CAM - Jude
ST - Kane

Maybe Foden isn't as nailed - but he should be, he's been incredible for City this season and that LW spot should be his.

The CB spot is up for grabs, as well as the CM spot.

And I would actually be tempted to play TAA in the CM spot, to the right, with Walker covering and Rice sitting deep.

As for CB - I'm not so sure. Maguire isn't good enough, Dunk/Guehi lack experience, Ben White is banished, Konsa/Colwill unlikely to even get called up.

The only other solution could be to put Shaw at CB, and play Chilwell at LB - but I don't really trust Chilwell defensively (even though going forward he's electric). If you played Chilwell at LB, then you'd have to play Grealish at LW for defensive cover because Foden's defensive abilities are a lot lower than Grealish's.

One thing I'm set against is us dropping Jude in at CM - as we lose the best #10 in the world. And it's not worth it. I'd much rather have a lesser CM playing and have Jude as #10, than play Jude as a #6/#8 and lose that power he has behind Kane.
 
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Marvanelli said:
Yep, it's a difficult one.

I would probably say (when fit) Stones would be the best to partner Rice, as we saw during City's treble win last season that he was incredible with Rodri in the middle of the park in the latter stages of the season.

But then, he's our best CB too and we are so light at CB that we would need to play Stones at CB...which again leaves the CM spot alongside Rice vacant.

I think our first 11 has 9 nailed players to start.

GK - Pickford
RB - Walker
CB - Stones
CB - ????
LB - Shaw
CM - Rice
CM - ????
RW - Saka
LW - Foden
CAM - Jude
ST - Kane

Maybe Foden isn't as nailed - but he should be, he's been incredible for City this season and that LW spot should be his.

The CB spot is up for grabs, as well as the CM spot.

And I would actually be tempted to play TAA in the CM spot, to the right, with Walker covering and Rice sitting deep.

As for CB - I'm not so sure. Maguire isn't good enough, Dunk/Guehi lack experience, Ben White is banished, Konsa/Colwill unlikely to even get called up.

The only other solution could be to put Shaw at CB, and play Chilwell at LB - but I don't really trust Chilwell defensively (even though going forward he's electric). If you played Chilwell at LB, then you'd have to play Grealish at LW for defensive cover because Foden's defensive abilities are a low lower than Grealish's.

One thing I'm set against is us dropping Jude in at CM - as we lose the best #10 in the world. And it's not worth it. I'd much rather have a lesser CM playing and have Jude as #10, than play Jude as a #6/#8 and lose that power he as behind Kane.
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Totally agree. Bellingham at 10 and totally agree with your front 4. Picks itself.
 
Diego said:
Who would you play alongside Rice? No obvious candidates for me. I think Alexander Arnold is Southgate’s preference as he’s played him recently. As you say we have a lack of CMs so there isn’t really an obvious choice
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There's a cracking young player in the champo who I honestly think could slot in alongside Rice.

Will never happen though.
 
Diego said:
Who would you play alongside Rice? No obvious candidates for me. I think Alexander Arnold is Southgate’s preference as he’s played him recently. As you say we have a lack of CMs so there isn’t really an obvious choice
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If Philips gets 6 months playing time and finds his form, then that' the answer, it allows Rice a bit more freedom to roam, and protects our weak defence.

Alternate is, if we can get a couple of CBs really on top form and release Stones into that CDM role like Pep did. The fact Pep felt he was a better option at CDM than Philips is quite telling.....but we don't have an embarrassment of riches at CB to allow that,
 
Pep has played Stones, Kovacic, Bernardo, Lewis, Akanji all ahead of Phillips at CM.

I think that speaks volumes.

And I trust Pep's judgement far greater than Southgate's
 
Marvanelli said:
Yep, it's a difficult one.

I would probably say (when fit) Stones would be the best to partner Rice, as we saw during City's treble win last season that he was incredible with Rodri in the middle of the park in the latter stages of the season.

But then, he's our best CB too and we are so light at CB that we would need to play Stones at CB...which again leaves the CM spot alongside Rice vacant.

I think our first 11 has 9 nailed players to start.

GK - Pickford
RB - Walker
CB - Stones
CB - ????
LB - Shaw
CM - Rice
CM - ????
RW - Saka
LW - Foden
CAM - Jude
ST - Kane

Maybe Foden isn't as nailed - but he should be, he's been incredible for City this season and that LW spot should be his.

The CB spot is up for grabs, as well as the CM spot.

And I would actually be tempted to play TAA in the CM spot, to the right, with Walker covering and Rice sitting deep.

As for CB - I'm not so sure. Maguire isn't good enough, Dunk/Guehi lack experience, Ben White is banished, Konsa/Colwill unlikely to even get called up.

The only other solution could be to put Shaw at CB, and play Chilwell at LB - but I don't really trust Chilwell defensively (even though going forward he's electric). If you played Chilwell at LB, then you'd have to play Grealish at LW for defensive cover because Foden's defensive abilities are a lot lower than Grealish's.

One thing I'm set against is us dropping Jude in at CM - as we lose the best #10 in the world. And it's not worth it. I'd much rather have a lesser CM playing and have Jude as #10, than play Jude as a #6/#8 and lose that power he has behind Kane.
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That's pretty aligned to my thoughts too.

That front 4 is right up there Kane is one of the best 9s, Jude is probably the best 10, Foden and Saka are in the top 5 in europe in their roles.

Rice, Stones, Walker, Pickford all solid. LB is a real issue because Shaw's never fit long enough, CB2 and CM2 are an issue. My problem with TAA alongside Rice is that TAA plays like Gerrard in possession, lots of hollywood balls, they're not the % pass, and end up with a turn over more than not against the good teams It isn't the style of play that England play and he isn't good enough to be the reason to change our style.

Out of possession, he's lost at RB, in CM there is no way he follows his runners because it's much hard to do that in a part of the pitch where you need 360 awareness.
 
Marvanelli said:
Pep has played Stones, Kovacic, Bernardo, Lewis, Akanji all ahead of Phillips at CM.

I think that speaks volumes.

And I trust Pep's judgement far greater than Southgate's
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Not really a fair assessment. Man City dominate % play a slightly different style to England, have the ability to choose players from all across europe not just english born and of course we don't know the ins and outs of the relationship between Philips, Pep, his coaching team and the other City players.
 
BoroMart said:
Not really a fair assessment. Man City dominate % play a slightly different style to England, have the ability to choose players from all across europe not just english born and of course we don't know the ins and outs of the relationship between Philips, Pep, his coaching team and the other City players.
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Fair enough - regarding the other players who aren't English.

But the fact he chooses Lewis over Phillips is alarming.

Phillips has bags more experience in CM than Lewis does, and yet Pep still favours Lewis at CM over Phillips.

The relationship between Pep and Phillips looks fine. What I will say on Phillips is that he is very very professional. His game time has been extremely limited and even when Rodri was suspended, he didn't get a lot of game time and yet he still doesn't moan. He just gets on with it. Even Pep has confirmed how professional he is on the training pitch etc, knowing he doesn't get a lot of action.

Fair play to Phillips. I can see him leaving this January and hopefully he does so that puts him in the frame, but at the moment I wouldn't have him anywhere near the squad, let alone the first 11.

To pick Phillips when he's played a very very small handful of games over the last 12 months would be ridiculous.

Maybe he gets his move this month, and plays himself into grabbing that CM spot alongside Rice.
 
Marvanelli said:
But the fact he chooses Lewis over Phillips is alarming.
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I'd say that's more to do with the fact Lewis is the future for that club, and Philips isn't, Lewis is more progressive, Philips is more defensive and of course Man City don't do a lot of defending in most games. It's alarming for Philips Man City career more than his ability as a CDM. Philips signing really was an odd one, like a disjointed signing where the coach wasn't entirely involved.
 
Phillips is Gareth no 1 choice always has been hence why he played him when he wasn’t fit or even playing.

So why would that change.
 
Jedi boro said:
Phillips is Gareth no 1 choice always has been hence why he played him when he wasn’t fit or even playing.

So why would that change.
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Its the one pick of Gareth's I always question. I haven't seen anything of Phillips in the past few seasons to warrant being in the squad never mind the first XI. Mainly because he simply hasn't played.
 
Zoophonic said:
Its the one pick of Gareth's I always question. I haven't seen anything of Phillips in the past few seasons to warrant being in the squad never mind the first XI. Mainly because he simply hasn't played.
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Oneof the problems is, there isn’t a like for like replacement and the dedicated CDM role is key to how Southgate sets up. I wish we could unearth a proper top class CDM and not need to pick Philips
 
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