England need to build around ‘vision and passing range’ of one player

Lee Carsley needs to build his England team around Cole Palmer, says the Mailbox, which also has short shrift for the anthem nonsense.

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Lee Carsley must build around Cole Palmer
The English media really is totally mental and is very obviously one of the most destructive forces in the UK and one of the biggest barriers to improving the nation.

Why didn’t a man who played 40 times for the Republic of Ireland sing the British national anthem in Dublin? Um……..because he’s not a total cock maybe? Or maybe cos he has some values and integrity.

Of course the new England manager is either gonna be AMAZING and nailed on to win the World Cup or a DISASTER and should be sacked immediately.

The problem we have is that most English managers can beat a weak Ireland, a weak Holland, Switzerland, a weak Germany, Denmark, Colombia, Sweden, Slovakia, Ukraine etc. Beating non-elite sides has been our bread and butter for years. What we need is a manager who can knock an elite team out of a tournament. We haven’t knocked an elite team out of a tournament since 1966. It’s been 58 years. The closest we’ve come is knocking a weak Germany out of the Euros at home and knocking out a weak pre tiki-taka Spain on penalties also at home.

As a footballing nation we have no track record at all of beating elite teams in knock out matches. We basically need to recruit a history and reality defying genius as our next manager. Is Lee Carsley that man? Has that man even been born…..anywhere in the world???

The one huge positive for me is that Carsley played with an old school number 10. This system is wide open for Cole Palmer to walk into. We have to use CP in that role and allow him to control our attacking play.

We have to have in-game intelligence in our midfield. Every single player in the midfield area has to have in game intelligence. Tournament after tournament we come up against midfielders who make our midfield look like morons. You can get away with a low footballing IQ in goal,.at full back, on the wings but your midfielders and your #9 have to be supersmart when it comes to how they read and play the game. We can’t do to Cole Palmer what we did to Hoddle. We have to let him be the main man like at Chelsea. No one in the England squad has his vision or passing range.

Bellingham is a great talent but his impact at Euro 24 was way less than Palmer. He needs to learn how to play alongside Palmer not instead of him. Bellingham has shown he can galvanize a club. Palmer needs to be given the opportunity to galvanize a nation.
Ben Teacher

MORE ON ENGLAND FROM F365:
👉 England player ratings vs Ireland: Liverpool Trent, Arsenal Rice, Villa Grealish and no Kane excuse
👉 ‘Embarrassing’ reaction to Carsley not singing national anthem as he joins special England club
👉 Rice response confirms not celebrating goals is worse than not singing national anthems

Sing or not sing…that’s free speech
It’s interesting to see so many people who scream until gammon about keeping politics out of football now screaming until gammon about Carsley not singing the anthem – an entirely political act. Singing that anthem has nothing whatsoever to do with playing football and is simply a political demonstration.

These are also the same people squealing about free speech whenever someone tells them not to use a racial slur. Not singing is every bit and act of free speech as is singing and should be protected as much.

Finally … It’s a bloody song celebrating the domination of your totally unearned and entirely entitled masters over yourselves. I’ve always thought it was a little bit weird and bootlicky. If your boss demanded you sing a song dedicated to him every time you went to work you’d be real pissed off about it.

A rich man doesn’t need to tell you he’s rich and a country whose citizens love it doesn’t need to sing about it. Seems to me like you’re doing an awful lot to try to convince everyone else how great it is….

Sing or don’t sing. It should entirely be your choice, that is the freedom we are supposed to have.
Lee

READ: Carsley anthem anger is ‘stupidity for consumption by the stupidocracy’

…Every word of this John. Every word of it.

This country is absolutely bonkers.

This is a complete non-story.

I’ve seen a few journos over the weekend saying “this could all so easily have been avoided”.

Yeah. It could have. By you lot stopping writing absolute f*cking shite about it. Don’t give it oxygen. The man has explained, in depth, his reasons. It isn’t hard to understand. It isn’t hard to grasp. And it’s not hard to take the view that it is entirely reasonable as well. Just like it is, by the way, for James McClean and the poppy.

The problem is the numpties who can’t deal with complexity and nuance and have to reduce everything to a binary argument. The problem is most definitely not the rest of us i.e. those who can.

Depressing. Thoroughly depressing.
Andy, Swansea

Let’s get a woman into the England Under-21s
Watching the England game got me thinking about the female football manager chat again and specifically – if Carsley keeps the job – could Wiegman take over at the U21’s?

It’s 2024 and the only female to have been in charge of a senior men’s English professional football team is Hannah Dingley with her caretaker stint at Forest Green last year.

It’s kind of weird and I can’t see any reason for it.

Females are working in most traditionally male only environments and doing great. It’s not just a question of being as good as men, but that they bring a whole new dimension, a range of attributes often neglected or undervalued previously. I won’t even try to list them all and honestly, if you don’t know what they are, that’s on you.

The top level of the women’s game is considered tactically and technically superior to the lower league men’s game but I still wonder if, as an alternative, accepting an opportunity there could be a smart move.

As for the team they’d get a level of talent that is usually unavailable – and to be the first break new ground in the cause of common sense and decency. I’m male and for me it can’t happen soon enough. I think it could really work.
Hartley MCFC Somerset (I thought England looked more open and progressive – tentative thumbs-up?)

ADRIEN!!
Why is your top story Adrian Rabiot?

The person who has constantly used premiership clubs to boost his salary at Juve. The one who’s agent is his mum. The player who will never come to the premiership yet was always being hawked around the gossip columns to get a better deal

I mean it’s clever, but why do you fall for it?

If it’s gossip you normally put it in the gossip columns so why is this front page news?

Slow news day? Or have you been just paid well by his PR team?
Fat Man (cynic extraordinaire)

(What an odd response to a list of free agents that is topped by Rabiot that was never top story – Ed)