Gareth Southgate faces his second game in charge this evening, surpassing Sam Allardyce’s tenure as England manager.
Michail Antonio was called up by Sam Allardyce for his one and only game in charge, the World Cup qualifying win over Slovakia but was disappointed after becoming an unused sub. Antonio was again in Southgate’s England squad for Saturday’s game at Wembley against Malta but again faced disappointment to find himself on the bench and remained an unused substitute.
Will Gareth Southgate stick with his winning team tonight or take a bold decision by including the West Ham wide man in the action against Slovenia tonight?
Slovenia have only lost one of their past nine qualifying games at home (W6 D2), although that came against England in June 2015. Seven of England’s nine goals against Slovenia have come in the second half, including the last six in a row so maybe a late substitution of Antonio could be on the cards to bring England something different and one of his famous headed goals in an England shirt.
I think maybe southgate would have used him for twenty mins or so,had Bertrand not got injured. As tonight goes I think Southgate will play safe and Antonio will only be bought on if its going pear shaped.England managers seem reluctant to use West Ham players. On the other hand at least he’s picked him.COYI
I think as the report says maybe 20 – 25 mins as a late sub unless one of the wingers gets injured or is having a shocker, to be honest I didn’t think Lingaard did anything special at the weekend or Walcott but who knows, also I think it is likely Rooney will be brought on at some point so that’s one of the subs already.
It would be advisable for Southgate to play him even for only 1 minute.It will help him not be labelled a ‘West Ham hater’ by some of our fans 😛
Sadly he didn’t get a chance despite Walcott and Lingaard offering nothing for the second game running, as predicted Rooney came on and looked out of touch and form, I thought in terms of pressing and moving the ball it was one of our better performances but without anyone running in behind we had about as much penetration as Vary’s from game of thrones.