This like that connect game on BBC2 with Mitchell's Mrs.....is the answer Mcdermott?
-
The Fighting Cock is a forum for fans of Tottenham Hotspur Football Club. Here you can discuss Spurs latest matches, our squad, tactics and any transfer news surrounding the club. Registration gives you access to all our forums (including 'Off Topic' discussion) and removes most of the adverts (you can remove them all via an account upgrade). You're here now, you might as well...
Latest Spurs videos from Sky Sports
France are in a funny place right now. Varane’s retirement has meant there isn’t a clear leader in defence. There’s a lot of talent at centreback but no established first choice pairing. For most of the time since the last world cup it seemed like Upamecano would partner Konaté but after his move to PSG, it seems like Hernandez and Konaté are the best two now. Says a lot that Saliba seems fourth choice.I don't get people put Colwill over Guehi who in terms of international football is certain to go by dint of his personality. Colwil as we saw against us is raw and far from finished product. Below is my list. I've ranked each department of the squad and will get an overall score( maybe withLeParisien help we can do france. Possibly get my man
Frankfurter and our Italian poster to do Italy.
GK
Pickford
Ramsey
Henderson
(Prey nothing happens to Pickford)
5/10
DEF
6/10
Walker
Tripper
Stones
Maguire
Branthwaite
Guehi
Shaw
Chilwell
MID
7/10
Rice
Mainoo
Trent Alexander
Henderson
Bellingham
Maddison
FOR
9/10
Kane
Toney
Saka
Foden
Gordon
Squad score 27/ 40
Up front our talent doesn’t look that exciting but the Giroud-Griezmann pair is easily the best front pairing in international football in the past decade. They were soooo good at euro 2016, and right through to last World Cup where they were both present in the biggest games (combining, of course, for the winner against England). I’m not in England but Grizou must be the most underrated player in England.
However the midfield and attack will both look stronger in 4 years, when they should both be world class. Right now we’re in a relative down period without any established leaders in midfield - in Tchouameni, Camavinga and warren-Emery there is world class potential but the oldest of them is 24.
View: https://youtube.com/shorts/7Br27L8kX0I?si=A5e8XJmPDAw-6Ijr
Anyway… to the task at hand…
GK
8/10
Maignan
Samba
Areola
One of the best goalkeepers in the world and samba is having a great season. He’d probably start for England.
Defenders
8/10
Clauss
Koundé
Saliba
Upamecano
Konaté
Pavard
L. Hernandez
T. Hernandez
7/8 are Champions League class defenders.
Midfield
6/10
Tchouameni
Camavinga
Warren-Emery
Rabiot
Guendouzi
Forwards
8/10
Mbappé
Giroud
Grizou
Kolo Muani
Dembélé
Thuram
Coman
30/40
If Grizou and Giroud are fit - and with Mbappé capable of looking ordinary then able to hit a hat trick in a final - I make us marginal favourites with a tight pack of contenders. If anything happens to any one element of the front 3 then it’s an open field.
Defense looks very suspect to me.
CM you have Guendouzi?
Old man Giroud up front? You have 2 top class forwards, the rest old or bang average.
Probably still beat us playing waistcoat ball.
What is waistcoat ball?
Is this a Southgate term?
Only on the internet is the scorer of the winning goal in a CL final bang average. Have you seen Giroud play for France?
Think Southgate will take Henderson as well in place of one of the defenders. No way both Eze and Gordon don't go (unless he goes with Bowen over both but that will be dumb as we need a creative pacy dribbler in the squad).
The difference between France and England is that France has players who typically play better for their country than their clubs, whereas England has players who typically play better for their clubs than their country.
Fully agree.
Exactly the point I'm making.
Squad = England > France
Team Performance = France > England
Origi scored in a CL final too.
Ok but Coman who (injuries aside) is a starter for Bayern and has scored winning goals in multiple CL knockout games, including a final in which he was named man of the match is not in the same league as Origi.
The bar that a player who isn’t English has to achieve outside the PL is a lot higher than someone who plays in the lauded Prem. Teams like Bayern are full of good but not great players whereas Ivan Toney is a 100m striker.
I don’t know really why I’m complaining about this on an English football forum. It’s interesting I guess - the same kind of gravity affect that Americans have about culture and politics… it’s hard to see outside your high value bubble.
Which points to a coaching issue wouldn't you say?
Deschamps might be a pretty average manager, but he still managed to get the talent you have performing pretty consistently. He may not have had France perform at their peak level best, but he's had them performing well enough to win titles ( they should probably have more with the talent steam you've had, but you have to recognise the fact that he HAS won both).
Southgate is doing the same with this England squad, but to a lesser degree obviously. We could be so much better with the right manager. Imagine if we had a manager that could make that pool of talent greater than the sum of it's parts, we'd be unstoppable. You could say the same for France, if they had a manager with a more adventurous outlook, and the coaching ability to back it up.
Of all the cogs that make up an international setup, the most important is the manager. Belgium are a prime example of this. They may have been ranked #1 for a while, but there wasn't a country on Earth could match the overall talent they had available. A better manager than Martinez would have had them winning everything in their prime.
Were I the FA, I'd be going all out to get Klopp. He's a media darling in this Country so he has the 'safe' criteria the FA look for, he's up there with the most elite coaches in the World, and he has a knack for making teams greater than the sum of their parts.
His high intensity Football would be perfect for International Football, as he won't have the team for a full season, so he won't burn them out.
I honestly think that if a serious offer were made to Klopp, he'd look at the talent at his disposal and would fancy adding a WC and Euro Champions trophies to his CV. It would seal his legend as one of the only managers to have won everything possible.
The more I think about it, the more I want him in the job. I think he could dwarf Sir Alf's legacy.
Never said he was. You're the one who alluded the CL Final scorers being better than bang average, I just brought up one that wasn't.
You seem to have a bit of a chip on your shoulder about this. I think your trouble is that you see a handful of posters rating a French player less than you do, and you take that as being the opinion of the whole.
It's not.
And there it is again.
Yet this immediately following an Englishman rating his own team lower than you rated your own French team, and you both being in agreement. Does this mean that the opinion of an Englishman only has merit if it is self deprecatory?
You're French, you rate your players higher. Other English fans rate our players higher. But we're overinflating our players and you're not?
You might want to reexamine your perception of it just being the English who are arrogant about their team.
I’m sceptical that international managers can achieve the playing systems and adventurous football that you’re looking for. What attacking teams (by club standards) can you think of that have won a Euros or World Cup tournament since (arbitrary date) 1991?
Possibly Brazil in 2002. I’d argue France in 2000 and 2018 had their moments… but there are more defensive teams than attacking teams that have won them (Brazil 94, Greece 04, Portugal 16) than attacking… and most are simply well balanced sides.
Why might this be? There isn’t enough time to embed complex patterns of play. It took Klopp and Guardiola at least 6 months of seeing their teams every day to get them playing really good football. That’s more time on the training pitch than an international manager might ever get over 5+ years. And the international manager has extremely fragmented time.
So I don’t know if it’s realistic for people to expect much more entertainment while preserving results.
Also, and maybe I’m being defensive here, but I hear comparisons between Southgate and Deschamps a lot but they are in different leagues. One of them had an illustrious playing career playing 5 European finals, winning 2 champions leagues, and Série A multiple times when it was the best league in the world, before taking Monaco to a CL final as a coach and winning trophies everywhere he managed… before winning a World Cup and reaching 3/4 international finals…
The other is Gareth Southgate.
There are levels to this.
Extremely fair criticism that I’ve taken the views of a few people and generalised that to an entire country. I can accept that.
Deschamps is nothing special. He wouldn't be getting big club offers if he left France. He won a world cup with a side that had Kante, Pogba, Mbappe, Griezmann, Varane, with about a million very good players around them and an insane bench. France don't ever look like an amazingly well coached side (from a managerial view, we outplayed them in the WC quarters, but their individuals took opportunities on the day) but they have had the best team in the world to play with.
Coman is a decent footballer (less than 1 g/a every two games in the last 60 matches he's played for Bayern isn't exactly scary good) but a sick-note. He's definitely better than 'average' but he's also only really ever had one stand-out excellent season in his entire career.
Bayern have a lot of good but not great players. Upamecano is one of them, benched for fucking Eric Dier for being a top tier clown-show player.
What would Klopp need to install? The top teams in the Prem currently play very similar styles. Technical, high possession Football with patterns of play that are suited to the skillsets of the players. Under Southgate we do that in patches, and when we do we look superb. We'd do that a helluva lot more under Klopp, with players essentially doing the same as they do in their club Football.
He'd elevate us simply by having players doing what they do week in, week out.
You hear comparisons from a handful, but you attribute them to everyone. I've already acknowledged Deschamps achievements, he most definitely is a level above Southgate, but I don't see him as 'elite' because I feel he could and should have gotten even more out of that France team.
The playing career is a straw man argument as well. Ferguson, Wenger and Mourinho hardly had stellar playing careers.
Which international manager would you take at spurs ? Maybe just Nagelsmann.
They’re not the same thing at all. What Deschamps (a player who won everything as a player at club and international level) knows a thing or two about is setting winning cultures. The team was in disarray when he took over and he has always prioritised team harmony (le collectif). He was able to banish Benzema, one of the truly elite 9s of the past 10/15 years even while he was winning 4 CLs with Madrid.
Pogba is a great example because far bigger names failed to get the best out of him consistently at club level but for France he looked world class, particularly at WC2018.
Also tactically he is excellent at finding balance. The Giroud / Griezmann partnership has excelled for 8 years. Best international pairing in that time. There are a lot of goals in both of them, sure, but they offer balance to the whole team. Again, how many managers would have picked Benzema?
Upamecano has had a terrible season. He’s been very poor.