Denmark’s toned-down Qatar protest is nothing but ’empty virtue signalling’…

Editor F365
Christian Eriksen applauds Denmark supporters.

The Mailbox isn’t impressed by Denmark’s kit protest. Also: evidence that Trent Alexander-Arnold is better than Reece James, and Scotland are magic.

Get your views in to theeditor@football365.com

 

Nonsense protest 
I read today that Denmark will wear “toned down” shirts for the World Cup to protest against host Qatar’s human rights record and its treatment of migrant workers.

Will countries taking part in December please stop this empty virtue signalling as they are still pocketing money generated by the competition. If Qatar’s human rights record is an issue to these FAs then they should boycott the World Cup. Wearing “toned down” shirts or rainbow armbands will achieve nothing and is the height of hypocrisy. Some big countries declaring they will boycott and not turn up at all will definitely gain a lot more attention and damage Qatar’s evil regime.

Any country or individual players turning up then doing these nonsense “protests” need to be ashamed of themselves.
William, Leicester

 


 Ian King: Denmark and Hummel toning it down: virtue-signalling or valuable World Cup protest?


 

Trent > James
England Appearances:
Trent – 17
James – 15

Conceded for England
Trent – 5
James – 12

Win Ratio for England
Trent – 76% (17 games, 13 wins)
James – 53% (15 games, 8 wins)

Since Trent came off against Hungary in the 1-0 away loss (in which James gave away the penalty after replacing Trent) England have conceded 9 goals in 5 games with 8 of those 9 goals coming down the right hand side of England’s defence.

England have won 10 of the 14 games Trent has started (Costa Rica, Switzerland, USA, Kazakhstan, Montenegro, Iceland, Belgium, Austria, Andorra, Albania, San Marino)

England have won 4 of the 10 games James has started (Ireland, Albania, San Marino, Andorra)

Trent has 1 goal, 4 assists for England.

James has 0 goals, 3 assists for England.
Leon

 


The famous Football365 England World Cup ladder: How far has Harry Maguire dropped?


 

Falling standards
Some good points made by Turiyo Damascene this morning about the quality that England have had in the past. However, international teams of the past are much better than they are today. Italy and Germany are terrible, yet England somehow managed to cock it up. Other international teams aren’t much cop these days either. Think of it this way:

Zidane / Henry or Dembele / Benzema ?

Del Piero / Vieri or Scamacco / Chiesa ?

Real Ronaldo / Rivaldo or Richarlison / Neymar ?

Bergkamp / Seedorf or DePay / De Jong ?

Of course there are exceptions to this rule but in my opinion, England have just caught up in terms of international professionalism. The standard of international football is currently piss-poor and we are barely making par against what appears to be a general lack of overall quality players.

So I think the criticism of Southgate is valid, but not based on the “riches” he has at his disposal, based on the current overall lack of quality in international football.
Fat Man

 

Power of Scotland
I felt compelled to write in after scanning the mailbox  and noticing that no fellow Scots had written in to praise Steve Clarke and his band of mighty wounded warriors. A highly depleted team put in a performance full of energy and grit and secured promotion to the top league of European football.

It’s been an absolutely remarkable turnaround from when Clarke took over. Progress had been made prior to Clarke, such as scraping our way out of group C in the Nations League but it was uninspired and there were some dismal results along the way. Coming off the back of a 3-0 loss to Kazakhstan (117th in the World) the team was in a pretty dismal state. It’s not always been pretty since then, but we’ve had some fantastic achievements. Qualifying for the Euros, beating England 0-0 and now securing promotion to league A.

For bigger nations the Nations League might not mean much, but as a smaller country who doesn’t often trouble the major tournaments it offers something to get excited about. I’m sure we’ll find it challenging but I’m already looking forward to some competitive matches against the big boys and teams like Hungry have proved that relegation is no certainty.

More importantly though last night’s result puts us in pot 2 for the Euro 2024 qualifiers. That’s a massive deal for a team like Scotland, and gives us a genuine chance of qualifying outright, without needing the backdoor of the playoffs (although we’ll have that available if we need it). It’s a huge step up from being in pot 4, where we were at our lowest ebb.

We’re still short on quality and missing a game changing Gareth Bale type player that can turn a good team into an excellent one, but the improvement is there for all to see. Hopefully we can build on this, qualify for the Euros and maybe, for the first time ever, play a knockout match at a major tournament.

Also, it’s going to be really funny when we’re playing in league A and England are in league B. World Cup? Who cares? It’s all about the Nations League. That’s the real quiz.
Mike, LFC, London

 

Maguire hope
So, Southgate apparently said “So really, we should all be wanting a Harry Maguire that’s playing regularly and playing with confidence.”

Errr, no we don’t I want him to be picked for Man U and continue to be shit, so he doesn’t even get on the plane.
Neil, LFC, USA

Chris Smalling and Jose Mourinho

Mike drop
With reference to the Big Mike Smalling mail

To quote an acquaintance, ”The Serie A!? Where even Lukaku looked like a world beater..?”

Best,
Wik, Pretoria, (even Lucas Leiva and Ashley Young were revered in Italy), LFC

 

Harry to the rescue?
Totally off topic but I just looked at the league and realised that if Leicester draw at home to Nottingham Forest (very good chance of it), they will have 2 points from 8 games.

History tells us that should that happen then Leicester need to sack Brendan Rodgers and install Harry Redknapp straight away.
Bradley Kirrage