Quote Originally Posted by spaldy View Post
Catch 22 on this.

On one hand Phillips has done way more than act as a placeholder for an injured player. Very solid and unselfish. Exactly the kind of player the England needs more of.

On the other it just increases his chances for injury.

If the three lions focus on some young and hungry players like Phillips they could be very formidable. Not much different that Germany a couple of cups back. A high risk/high potential reward strategy.

I strongly agree with the thoughts on keepers. Not just a matter of lower teams but strategy as well. Teams that attack, such as Leeds, leave their keeps in spots where they have make huge saves. One I'll never forget was the Newcastle keeper years back (Shey Given). saw some games on the tube where they guy looked like some sort of circus acrobat he was flying around so much to make saves.
It doesn't matter what they do, whilstever Southgate is in charge they will never win anything unless the other nations all just fall apart. We made very hard work of a very poor Poland team, any slight bit of difficulty and this team will crumble. It is very worrying and telling to me that as soon as we went up Soutgate went ultra defensive. Not interested in maintaining our lead by holding possesion and attacking, he invites pressure by removing attacking players which against better nations will just lead to them scoring.