International Watch 16/17

Italy France should be worth a watch?

Giroud has scored again for France. He played 46 minutes.

France have one more game in Belarus on Tuesday. Maybe he'll get 60-70 mins in that one so he'll have some minutes behind him ahead of his inevtiable start against Southampton.

Can anyone tell me how good bennacer is? Have no idea who the kid is but he got called up

He is decent.. I recently saw him play in our U23 loss against Liverpool U23.. He was among the better performers that night, though it may not say much..

https://arsenalyouth.wordpress.com/youngpros/ismael-bennacer/

He's not gonna start over bentaleb. Nabil is kicking ass with schlake and a lot of spur supporters are pretty pissed he doesn't have the backup spot for dembele and dier.

Taider is another story though

Xhaka needs to control himself better on the pitch. Got sent off in a really stupid way.

I like having steel in our midfield but we're not Chelsea and he's not Diego Costa. He won't get away with being reckless. He's got the potential to be one of the best mids in the league but his temper could be a huge liability. He cited weak prem refereeing as one of the things he was looking forward to because he got sent off so often in the Bundesliga lol.

Monreal called up by Spain to replace injured Jordi Alba.

Jay29 wrote:Monreal called up by Spain to replace injured Jordi Alba.

Long time coming.

Great goal by Serge Gnabry for Germany U21 against Russia. Leroy Sané with the assist pic.twitter.com/GFAmuxMv4q

— Bayern & Germany (@iMiaSanMia) October 7, 2016

We are going to regret this so bad ffs

With how Gameiro has played for France. Giroud may have had lost his place for Arsenal AND France..

Kieran Gibbs called up by #eng to replace Ryan Bertrand (hamstring) for trip to Slovenia.

RealGunner wrote:With how Gameiro has played for France. Giroud may have had lost his place for Arsenal AND France..

Not to mention Le Graet has opened the door for Benzema to return. Giroud may be #3 on France.

He was cashing in on his perceived compatibility with Griezmann... but Gameiro and Griezmann are killing it at club and country. So that is out the window for Giroud.

Still useful though. There are some very good CFs coming up in the youth ranks (Augustin, Edouard and Celtics' Moussa Dembele) and you have some other ones that are fighting at club too (Lacazette and Ben Yedder).

Giroud is under extreme pressure.

At 30, I am sure he will fight back to try and win his place for both club and country. I mean he is still a good player and should most definitely go to WC18 but he might have to play the role Gignac did in the euros rather than start. Can't see Benzema staying out for long either.


But I am actually 70% sure he is going to leave Arsenal this summer.

You guys are on Celtics' Moussa Dembele you know.  He's pretty good... only 20 too.  

I can't believe France U23 aren't going to make the U23 Euro.  Finishing 3rd in their group  They have Ousmane Dembele, Thomas Lemar and M Dembele/Augustin on the attack...  Tollisso, Bakayoko and Rabiot in midfield...  Laporte, Diop, Amavi, Lucas Hernandez and Pavard on defense...  yet they bottled it

Problem is that most of these players were playing for U21s and weren't really this prominent for U23 as they are now. A little too late sadly.

Iwobi just scored for Nigeria

Monreal played 90 minutes for Spain against Albania, didn't have to anything defensively but got an assist in the end.

Koscielny's prime is an absolute joy to watch. Guy has been so good since the start of the season. Another great match for France against Netherlands.

Going to be impossible to replace him.

Ozil off for Gundogan at HT. Not sure if injury or just rest

urbaNRoots wrote:Monreal played 90 minutes for Spain against Albania, didn't have to anything defensively but got an assist in the end.

They played a 3 men defense. Ramos push off to right, Monreal on left and Pique in middle. The end result they were able to push Koke (initial lineup sounded like Koke was the RB) up to control midfield. Actually the whole defense was pushed up as well for majority of game.

It worked well, never would have been able to do that with Alba (nor against a top team like Italy). It was good to see different tactics from this new club.

There are now two prime changes in tactics (besides new younger players) by Spain.

First is they are always playing with a winger (Vitolo, Nolito or Lucas or Morata) with Silva pushed up front as well. - result is better and more scoring opportunities.

Second is this defensive adjustment, although it will very much depend upon who is opposition.

Tbh Monreal is excellent technically so he can play in that position compared to Alba.

But I really can't see Spain dropping or even benching Alba so this might be Monreal's last call up for a while

Love Ospina ffs

RealGunner wrote:Tbh Monreal is excellent technically so he can play in that position compared to Alba.

But I really can't see Spain dropping or even benching Alba so this might be Monreal's last call up for a while

I wouldn't conclude that. Carvajal was benched to play this new tactic of 3 man defense and Carvajal is better defensively than Alba. And bear in mind this is not the 3 men defense that Italy uses. Ramos and Monreal pushed up a lot to give team width, not as much as normal FBs do, but certainly more so than Italy.

To be honest I think only Monreal and Nacho (original plan) can make this work. The options for next couple of years are Alba, Monreal. Azilipi and Nacho (as reserve CB as well as reserve LB)

Aaron Ramsey is already back in the Wales squad for November's qualifiers.

I expect there'll be England call-ups for Chamberlain and Walcott as well, assuming the latter is fit.