Ollie Watkins

[Bully2345]

At the risk of this becoming a Southgate thread ...

It's a competitive England international, not a kick about in the playground. Imagine not bringing the record goalscorer on at 1-0 down after an hour.

People have issues with Southgate and I get that but whacking him for bringing Kane on is wild.

Watkins had significant time on the pitch and wasn't having his best day but he and they will have learned a lot from it. I doubt even he will be that cheesed off with being replaced

[Risso]

At the risk of this becoming a Southgate thread ...

It's a competitive England international, not a kick about in the playground. Imagine not bringing the record goalscorer on at 1-0 down after an hour.

People have issues with Southgate and I get that but whacking him for bringing Kane on is wild.

Watkins had significant time on the pitch and wasn't having his best day but he and they will have learned a lot from it. I doubt even he will be that cheesed off with being replaced

I agree with your general point, but Watkins looks severely pissed off if one of his team mates scores, so I reckon he'll be apoplectic at being subbed.

[Dave]

At the risk of this becoming a Southgate thread ...

It's a competitive England international, not a kick about in the playground. Imagine not bringing the record goalscorer on at 1-0 down after an hour.

People have issues with Southgate and I get that but whacking him for bringing Kane on is wild.

Watkins had significant time on the pitch and wasn't having his best day but he and they will have learned a lot from it. I doubt even he will be that cheesed off with being replaced

I agree with your general point, but Watkins looks severely pissed off if one of his team mates scores, so I reckon he'll be apoplectic at being subbed.

Agreed with the thrust of all of the above. I'd also add that if there is anything to be annoyed at with the Watkins / Southgate dynamic last night is that rather than try and play to Watkins' strengths he just asked him to do a bad Harry Kane impression. It should have been balls to run onto in the channels rather than it bouncing off him on the half-way line.

[Risso]

Agreed Dave, getting other players to replace Kane when required means getting the best out of either Watkins, Wilson or Toney. Expecting them to drop deep into midfield like Kane does isn't going to do that.

[Somniloquism]

You also have the issue that if Kane is injured, and the whole team is built around his play, he doesn't have the imagination to change the team to capitalise on the other forwards style of play.

Although it is noticeable that Kane is getting all the credit for dragging a defender into a position for the ball to bounce off him and go into the net. Obviously I don't know if Watkins was also making the same runs into the box at corners which is normally coached in to the teams anyway, ("If I stick this hand in the air, it will go near post") but people stating "that is why Kane is needed" is doing a massive disservice to the others.

(Edit: slow typing means beaten to the punch by Dave as usual)

[Clampy]

At the risk of this becoming a Southgate thread ...

It's a competitive England international, not a kick about in the playground. Imagine not bringing the record goalscorer on at 1-0 down after an hour.

People have issues with Southgate and I get that but whacking him for bringing Kane on is wild.

Watkins had significant time on the pitch and wasn't having his best day but he and they will have learned a lot from it. I doubt even he will be that cheesed off with being replaced

He'd have probably done the same thing had it been a friendly.

[PeterWithe]

Thought he was poor. The ball didn't 'stick' to him in tight areas. Don't think he did himself any favours.

[Drummond]

12 touches in an hour. It's hardly a surprise that he'd find it hard to score.

[nick harper]

12 touches in an hour. It's hardly a surprise that he'd find it hard to score.

But that’s no different to how he plays for us. He’s commented that he stays within the width of the penalty areas and doesn’t run the wide channels any more. Emery wants his touches in and around the penalty area.

I’ve no idea what Southgate asked him to do but Kane has quite rightly moulded a role that brings out the best in Harry Kane for England. It’s extremely difficult for any striker to replace him, and would be a massive problem if he ever got injured.

[Risso]

I think it was the first half against Chelsea when Ollie touched the ball about 5 or 6 times, so he has games like that for us as well.

[Mister E]

12 touches in an hour. It's hardly a surprise that he'd find it hard to score.

But that’s no different to how he plays for us. He’s commented that he stays within the width of the penalty areas and doesn’t run the wide channels any more. Emery wants his touches in and around the penalty area.
I’ve no idea what Southgate asked him to do but Kane has quite rightly moulded a role that brings out the best in Harry Kane for England. It’s extremely difficult for any striker to replace him, and would be a massive problem if he ever got injured.

if Southgate doesn't recognise the fact that players are not all the same, we really do have a problem. Having said that, he failed to deploy JG to his strengths. He appears, as ever, to be fitting square pegs in round holes ...

[PeterWithesShin]

Southgate said this before the game, and yet we looked exactly the same against Malta, and when Kane replaced Ollie.

England manager Gareth Southgate to Channel Four: "Clearly Ollie Watkins' game is different to Harry Kane's. It is for us to adapt to his way of playing and we're not expecting him to build in the same way that Harry does. He's good at build-up play but of course he has great strength running in behind teams and pressing from the front. We want to play to his qualities, not the other way around."

[Smithy]

Southgate said this before the game, and yet we looked exactly the same against Malta, and when Kane replaced Ollie.

England manager Gareth Southgate to Channel Four: "Clearly Ollie Watkins' game is different to Harry Kane's. It is for us to adapt to his way of playing and we're not expecting him to build in the same way that Harry does. He's good at build-up play but of course he has great strength running in behind teams and pressing from the front. We want to play to his qualities, not the other way around."

I think his pressing abilities are what will keep him around the squad in the run-up to the Euros (as long as he keeps scoring at a moderate rate).  He does that job better than anyone, and I'm certain Southgate being the negative coach he is, will value having someone like that available should he want to focus on preventing teams having time to build patiently from the back.

[coreyfeldman]

He's rarely played for England and his game is very different to Kane's so it's not a surprise that last night went as it did, especially against a team sitting deep and our lack of cohesion

[amfy]

I have never seen him sit so clearly and definitely in the number 9 centre forward position despite him previously saying Emery doesn’t want him wandering about either.
It made me think that was exactly where he was told to be, yet for the vast majority of the game, no one seemed to be able to send the ball there.
I am not convinced the low number of touches was entirely his fault!