Sterling has been good this season. His performance yesterday was amazing. Seems like he’s back to his old self. Marcus Rashford has ONE goal all season and he’s been out of form. Is there personal issue between Sterling and Wastegate?
Why even ask this question. GS doesn’t care about form and we know that. You’re either in his circle or you’re not.
I think it’s strange because Sterling has always performed for England, and that’s what Southgate apparently bases his squads on as opposed to club form.
Sterling has been good this season
He’s been alright - had good and bad performances. Let’s be honest if he hadn’t played well yesterday would you have made this claim?
Rashford hasn’t been good at all but Southgate is well known to pick a core group of players who he trusts and performs well in the England team - he rarely changes the squad massively based on form. Rashford is one of those players but he has been left out on occasions as well.
For a while Sterling was one of those players who played in a certain position whether people liked it or not but now Southgate has other options and Sterling doesn’t fit as well into the team as he did before.
Sterling? We should be talking about JWP
Where do you play Ward-Prowse though?
Obviously Bellingham & Rice are the two starters in the middle. If you put someone like Ward-Prowse in there with them, Bellingham can’t take up the advanced positions he does, Rice doesn’t have the freedom to make the surging runs that he does, or both.
I know people don’t like seeing Henderson & Phillips in the squad, but honestly they’re the only two midfielders with the defensive mentality to allow Bellingham & Rice to play to their strengths.
We’ve got set piece takers in the team, Ward-Prowse doesn’t offer us anything that we don’t already have. He’s not going to offer as much going forward as either Bellingham or Rice, and he’s not going to offer as much defensively as Phillips or Henderson. Even Gallagher offers more defensively.
Surely it makes more sense to have Henderson or Phillips doing Bellingham & Rice’s dirty work than Bellingham & Rice doing Ward-Prowse’s.
I do agree Sterling should probably be going but this is the most absurd. At least at LW there was a plenty of other talent, maybe not as in form but by euros one of the other LWs could easily usurp him.
JWP is a very obvious fill in at the 8 for me. Hendo needs to be done, and with Rice and Bellingham, 2 of the midfield trio look really promising. JWP seems like the obvious best choice to round out that trio and also has one of the best skill sets that is counter to Jude and Declan. Rice and Jude have the defensive and driving runs aspect to dominate the midfield, imagine those 2 breaking midfield lines and putting the defense on their heels, just to drop the ball to JWP for one of his patented pinpoint services to the box.
Chelsea has been totally shit this season. A couple good games doesn’t change that. People acting like he’s been in good form for months. It’s been like 3 games.
Southgate said he’s happy how the attacking players played last few squad’s so doesn’t see a need to change
The game against Italy goes in favour of Rashford as well
He is a diving little shit.
I think Rashford regardless of form offers something different to Sterling, and with Kane playing a deepish role it is good to have a player with good finishing ability who can run beyond him.
Also, he did play well in the last round of international fixtures and in particular seems to link up well with Bellingham.
I’d probably put Sterling in the squad but don’t think it’s particularly controversial that he isn’t.
The fact it’s picking between the 2 shows how bad England are.
Neither one has consistently performed for a long time now.
Sad state for England that can’t find anybody else.
Next int break : WHY IS SOUTHGATE PICKING STERLING OVER RASHFORD
A few back people were complaining rashford wasn’t getting any time. It’s also about chemistry