England v Australia

[Omegstrat6]

Anyone else watch this? I know it was only a friendly but worth a watch given the Italy game is coming up. As expected, Southgate gave quite a few others their chance to impress in a more experimental team selection.

England played some nice passing moves but still not incisive enough in the final third and probably guilty of playing the "safe" ball a bit too much sometimes when going forward. To be fair to Australia, they didn't make it easy and I thought they played well. While certainly lacking the individual quality players that England have, they were well organized, kept their shape and fought for every ball from start to finish. Their reputation for fitness levels was also evident and they seemed to have everyone forward when pressing and everyone back when defending. If they had had better quality up front they could have got a goal or two themselves given the number of set pieces and chances they created.

Maddison, Bowen, Watkins will doubtless all get to shine at some point and thought Trent-Alexander did ok and Rashford's pace also caused a few problems for Australia but over-all tonight looked a little disjointed (though Watkins did comment that they hadn't spent much time together). England, as expected, had the much better possession but too often their play looked too ponderous and lacked a cutting edge (sound familiar?&#128513 Breaking in numbers, Australia also managed to over-run them too often.

We certainly currently have a greater number of talented individual players available than we have had for a long while and I know this was a friendly and an opportunity to experiment but Southgate will have to do a lot better if England want to bring any trophies home.

[Albionic68]

Even as friendlies go I thought it was a bore fest. Having possession is one thing, doing something with it is easier with a tempo. It was largely slow methodical possession for the sake of it football.

I understand it's about using your squad and it's a balance between giving some players game time and others a rest over the course of the season but I expect a lot of changes and some impetus for the Italy match.

My son travelled down for the game and England loyalty caps last night but he was so bored he was in a curry house before half time. I'm not joking. He'll be there again versus Italy.

Australia can consider themselves unlucky not to have at least shared the spoils against an England scratch side which went through the motions. Slowly; very slowly indeed. 90+ minutes of tedium which I will never get back. My poor lad 😅 .

[Albionic68]

Ps. On second thoughts I think my lad only gets the England loyalty points for competitive games so last night would have been for the love of it. If so then he's an utter dafty 😂.

[Albionic68]

Ps. On second thoughts I think my lad only gets the England loyalty points for competitive games so last night would have been for the love of it. If so then he's an utter dafty 😂.

An update. Apparently he did get a loyalty cap for last night. And he's still a daft 🤣.

[boingy]

Sam Johnstone got man of the match, I came on here half expecting this thread to have some mention. I didn’t see the match by the way but he must have played well to get 8.5?

[Albionic68]

Sam Johnstone got man of the match, I came on here half expecting this thread to have some mention. I didn’t see the match by the way but he must have played well to get 8.5?

One decent save from four Australian attempts on target. Dithered with his kicking a couple of times and generally stayed on his line at set pieces.

8.5/10 is a very generous mark in what was a tedious and largely uneventful game with one side which showed application above it's general quality and another side which racked up another cap each.

And that's about it for the news today other than to say Sam Johnstone led his former employers a merry dance in the 'will he won't he' saga of a new contract leaving West Bromwich Albion out of pocket and our former player quids in.

[boingy]

One decent save from four Australian attempts on target. Dithered with his kicking a couple of times and generally stayed on his line at set pieces.

8.5/10 is a very generous mark in what was a tedious and largely uneventful game with one side which showed application above it's general quality and another side which racked up another cap each.

And that's about it for the news today other than to say Sam Johnstone led his former employers a merry dance in the 'will he won't he' saga of a new contract leaving West Bromwich Albion out of pocket and our former player quids in.

Thanks 68.

[kettering_baggie]

I honestly don’t know why people waste their time and money going to these games, boring and irrelevant. It is contemptuous of the fans that England deliver such non performances, frankly disgraceful.

[Albionic68]

I honestly don’t know why people waste their time and money going to these games, boring and irrelevant. It is contemptuous of the fans that England deliver such non performances, frankly disgraceful.

My son does it for the social side. He also needs the loyalty caps so he has a better chance of landing away tickets and enjoying even more of the social side in foreign lands along with thousands of others his own age as they missed out on lads holidays during Covid. He's playing catch up.