Seeing as sources close to the club say that Xabi wants to build the team around Jackson, he must be pleased that Senegal are out and ha can start the rebuilding with his main man

4 hours ago, TheCeleryKing said:

Altitude - I think it is a very interesting problem because as you say there is no way of knowing which players will be more effected by the issue. It is a pre-made excuse for England and well we all know that the English National Team just love their excuses. Because even if England win then they can then claim fatigue and injuries for the next game.

Do England fly in the day of the game? Is that our plan? Fly in and out the day of the game.

Attitude - Mexico city is a great place. I am tempted to fly down for the game. Wild place and lots of fun. And the Azteca will be intense. The noise and atmosphere will be amazing. Hopefully the England players can hold it together.

Altitude is a real thing, though: it affects both player performance and the speed of the ball. It's very easy to misjudge long passes, for example, or get overwhelmed on counterattacks—in those conditions, it's often a good idea to drop the defensive line a bit.

However, I agree that it cannot be used as an excuse. This isn't 3,600-meter-high La Paz. Mexico City's altitude is a factor, but not an insurmountable one. Just look at Denver: the city's teams don't automatically become great because they play at altitude. Bad teams still struggle, and good teams still tend to win.

4 hours ago, The Boehly Babes said:

I can confirm with 100% accuracy that Noni Madueke is acutely negatively affected by altitude and therefore should not be in the matchday squad. As a precaution.

Watching Pedro Neto for an entire season led me to hating modern wingers… 3 games of Noni at this World Cup is just too much though.

What a lazy, arrogant, talentless c**t he really is.

Best business BlueCo ever did was shipping him out. Not a single redeemable feature.

Neto suffers from the same curse as many "tactical" players: when they're compared to more exciting, flashy players, they almost always lose the argument, even though they do completely different things on the pitch and can actually complement each other.

That said, I agree that Neto has been poor lately. It does feel like a case of him not putting in the work and perhaps believing he's better than he currently is—at least that's the impression I've been getting.
I hope Alonso can help in this regard.

I don't envy the Three Lions playing a summer World Cup game in the Azteca against Mexico. If they make it pass that I think they could make the final.