Jude Bellingham accused of ‘chirping’ in unfair comparison with Rogers | OneFootball

There is clearly a massive reluctance to give Jude Bellingham any kind of credit, while there is a call for more lefties.

We have moved on from the Trent nonsense; we want World Cup predictions and thoughts to theeditor@football365.com

A calm reaction to an England friendly defeat

Can I ask the F365 community for a little help please.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to where I can book a last-minute holiday and avoid the World Cup?

New Zealand are the lowest ranked team at the finals. Howard Jones

Where are the England lefties?

In England’s 26-man squad, we have the following left-footed players:

Dan Burn O’Reilly Saka Madueke

The only left-footed attacking players play on the right. Apart from being decent players, it’s even more reason to have taken:

In the NZ game, Gordon fluffed a relatively simple left-footed pass into the box. We seem insistent on playing with the inverted winger approach, despite it not working. Not looking forward to this World Cup at all, maybe the Scots will be a better watch. Simon S, NUFC, Cheshire

Bellingham should be in the middle

Maybe England should have worn their training kits vs New Zealand so we could all see how much of a training session it really was. For what it’s worth, I thought Djed Spence looked half decent and Bellingham looked like a big beast. Still drives me mad that we put him so far up the pitch, everything should be going through him. Would love to see Rice or Anderson with Rogers and Bellingham ahead of them, maybe TT could have looked at that rather than doing his best to knock Bellingham down for the last 6 months.

Also, is it too late to do anything about shirt numbers on the front of the shirt? The badge in the middle is bad enough but when it’s stacked with brand logo, nation badge, game and number it totally ruins the kits – although I can’t believe the England one is so high up the list. Also, logo patches interrupting any arm design needs to stop.

Having had us down as no-hopers my optimism dial has now ticked up to; well, we have got Kane, Bellingham and some half decent players around them. Maybe we could?

But let’s ask what Bellingham had around him

Punditry and commentary is a funny old thing. Reading a few reviews of player performances from the England game, I’m quite astonished at the lack of nuance or awareness of context in many of them.

Setting aside the fact this was a friendly warm-up game that no one cares about, and a chance for most to just get used to playing in the heat, there was a significant difference between the two halves.

Let’s take two players for whom I have no skin in the game or bias, and their respective reporting: Bellingham and Rogers.

By all accounts, one had a good game and made a good case to start, the other was trying too hard and didn’t. Ok, sounds fair. But the shapes of the team around them aren’t mentioned at all. Bellingham had two wingers and a striker who pushes up around him, while the other had one winger, a striker playing at right wing, and Kane dropping deep.

Now, I’m not going to get into a Kane bashing here; he does what he does, he does it well (although success rides on setting up to accommodate him properly) and is going to start regardless of my views.

But that means Rogers had no space and few decent outlets to work with, while the other did. Had their situations been swapped I’d fancy Rogers would have looked a lot better. But it wouldn’t make him guaranteed to start because the absolute most key thing when the tournament starts is how whoever gets the role works with Kane coming deep. Foden never has really sussed it, Bellingham has often struggled with it.

If we look at the midfield where I’m considerably more biased, apparently O’Reilly and Anderson controlled the game better than Mainoo and Henderson. Again, fair enough, but also the opponents were deeper in the second half so they were under less pressure.

Just all round a weird match, from which few real learnings can be taken. Other than Gordon making me laugh a couple of times as he tripped over his own feet. (£70m eh? Nice work Newcastle.)

We also really should take Rio. Probably over either Watkins or Toney because we absolutely don’t need two players who won’t play, especially when we have two left wingers who can fill in if needed. Badwolf

But Bellingham is chirping already

Christ that was rancid. I know it was always likely to be rancid, but if you’re giving me rancid versus the lowest ranked team in the tourney, give me rancid exclusively in their half please.

Bellingham still hasn’t learned to stop chirping I see. If he’s doing that with a NZ defender in a meaningless game seconds after coming on, odds are he’s going to take the bait from the designated WUMs in a proper team. I heard someone say there’s a theory Henderson is there in part at least because he’s “the Jude whisperer”. Give me strength. Bellingham needs to wind it in and grow up. Fast. Madriditis is a terrible affliction. Very similar symptoms to Kopites (unjustified feelings of self-importance, shocking double standards, revelling in being “unbearable”, shunned by everyone else, etc) only far worse.

Ngumoha is a man on a ruthless career driven mission. Don’t think he’s remotely arsed about anything else. Good for him. I said it when he worked his way out of Chelsea to join Liverpool. Got ‘abuse from the Kop when he’s successfully used Liverpool as a stepping stone to the proper current elite team’ written all over him. That said, even I was surprised to see he’s been attempting to better himself at Bayern ALREADY mind you. Will be Sterling all over again. YNWA indeed.

Ivory Coast at 7/1 to win their group is generous af based on squad and their performance against an absolutely arsed France. Germany, Ecuador, Curaçao are all eminently beatable. Doué’s brother 33/1 ew for top Ivory Coast goalscorer looks generous too

Don Carlo by his own admission may have already screwed the pooch picking his squad based on a 4-2-4 given how they were shite v Panama until going 4-3-3 second half.

Drinks breaks, probably hour plus long lightning breaks, the f**king half time show in the final (BTS? F**k off), the orange nappy wearer (literally & figuratively) and his hillbilly sidekick, American fan chants (Jaysus) replacing proper fans priced out by the horrific ghoul that is Infantino, and the very existence of the horrific ghoul that is Infantino mean I suspect this WC will be instantly forgettable.

Potential upside to the above though, given the stupid conditions we might see more upsets than usual. Infantino will claim this was the plan all along in order to “grow the world game”, because he’s a c**t.

9/1 Portugal will win it. And not just because I have them in an ew double with the aforementioned 7/1 Ivory Coast group win either. Look the most balanced squad by a mile, if they can keep the preening prat’s minutes down, even more so.

Shout out to Panini for keeping stickers at a very reasonable price in the era of everything being a rip off. F*** knows how I used to know EXACTLY what I’d already got and what I needed when I was 8 and watching another kid flip through his swaps at light speed though. RHT/TS x

(If not Portugal, then Brazil beat France 2-1 in the final, Neymar will score one of Brazil’s, and probably Raphinha the other since Antony wasn’t picked. Some mope’s Insta post said so ages ago)

Huge England let-down

Massively disappointed by Saturday night’s warm-up game against New Zealand.

Far too many people just going through the motions and not stepping up ahead of the biggest tournament of their lives.

Not the team, they were fine and I totally understand what Tuchel was trying to do to get them all acclimatised.

I’m talking about the England fans.

Not one chant of “Donald Trump, is w*nker, is a w*nker!”. Not a single bloody one…

A glorious opportunity for terrace culture’s finest hour is in danger of being squandered

You need to up your game, people. Rob, Bristol Gooner (I know the politics of far too many England fans make Tommy Robinson look like Jeremy Corbyn, but there is a bigger principle at stake here folks)

Who could host World Cup based on morals?

So William from Leicester is worried about Saudi Arabia hosting the World Cup. He then goes on to list a number of criteria to hit to be considered for hosting… which is nice. Its nice until you realise that every single host of every recent World Cup was involved in some sort of reprehensible behaviour during their hosting of a World Cup.

Russia – Annexing of Crimea Brazil – Excessive Police force, destruction of the amazon. South Africa – Massive Inequality Germany – Involved in Afghanistan and other military occupations around the world. Active support of Israel. South Korea/Japan – Some of the lowest acceptance rates in the world for refugees. USA – Pre Gulf missions, Haiti, generally being a pest all around the world as per usual.

I don’t recall outrage when Japan hosted the World Cup? Their refugee intake is near zero. A rich prosperous country providing zero assistance to the worlds most needy. I’m assuming we were all outraged when they hosted the World Cup? No? Why not? Were you not spoon fed your daily ration of outrage that day by your regular news source?

Are we to assume that William thinks that England would be a suitable country to host a World Cup? England who currently actively support the genocide of Palestine?

Nations’ morals don’t exist in a bubble within their borders. You can treat everyone within your nation well, but be actively destructive elsewhere. This doesn’t give you any moral high ground. It makes you a hypocrite. Anyone claiming colonial Europe are morally superior to dictatorships in the middle east are braindead. It’s a battle to be the lesser of two evils.

I am however all for William from Leicester’s proposal… as all World Cups would then need to be held in Ireland, a morally superior nation compared to all the rest. Shz

The English love the English

Something I keep noticing lately is the way English people talk about their players and how high regard they hold some of them in. It confuses me a fair bit because I feel like English people believe this is an opinion held by the world of football.

Like people like Isco, Fabregas, David Silva even Cazorla would be held in a lot more of a higher regard than Gazza if you went around the globe. Most people outside England probably have no clue about Bobby Moore either. But if you ask any England fan he’s sitting beside Baresi in an all time XI. It’s just something I notice quite a lot and it makes me chuckle how adamant people are about these players being so good.