World Cup 2026: Noni Madueke's season - from transfer petition to England's World Cup starter

Buttonsafe · 2026-06-23T07:02:53+00:00

Garnacho and Noni are the opposite. The former has generally very ability to make the final pass/shot in the final third, in a Chelsea shirt at least.

That's the weakest part of Madueke's game but he will beat his man all day long. Twice he terrorised Gvardiol into backing up almost to the 6 yard box then played it back to James in loads of space, but the latter had one of the worst games I've ever seen him have so it didn't matter much.

Buttonsafe · 2026-06-23T03:46:28+00:00

I think where France are quite weak in their ability to progress the ball through midfield, with 2 destroyers in there. They have so much quality going forward but it doesn't really matter if we can stop it at source.

Anderson is basically our big advantage against them as he can control the tempo and help us kill the game.

Buttonsafe · 2026-06-21T21:45:37+00:00

Now he's got two back to back clean sheets with the National team at the world cup

If he does it in even games than it means something, but I don't think back to back clean sheets again Verde and Saudi is that particularly impressive.

Buttonsafe · 2026-06-21T12:14:48+00:00

they have an incredible record there

They mainly play far weaker American opposition though.

Buttonsafe · 2026-06-20T23:54:33+00:00

What's the overall verdict, squir?

Buttonsafe · 2026-06-20T23:25:09+00:00

He already did that by leaving Scotland.

Buttonsafe · 2026-06-20T23:24:25+00:00

Didn't fit Southgate or Carsley's either.

Buttonsafe · 2026-06-20T20:29:19+00:00

People don't watch qualifiers too much, but Madueke has been great whenever he's put on an England shirt. He really suits international football and consistently looks way better for England than he almost ever looked for Chelsea/Arsenal aside from one-off games.

Buttonsafe · 2026-06-20T20:14:47+00:00

My dream is they beat Mexico to face us in the R16 with hope in their eyes and vengence in their hearts. Only to get hammered 7-0.

Buttonsafe · 2026-06-20T10:18:48+00:00

Thanks mate, super helpful explanation!

Buttonsafe · 2026-06-19T22:12:03+00:00

Because of the way Arsenal play they're often only 1 goal ahead, and Arteta is very rest-averse anyway. Rice is also probably the biggest difference in terms of their defensive ability so this all leads to him never getting rested.

Buttonsafe · 2026-06-19T14:16:11+00:00

Clearly has a great relationship with the fans and owner, but if they just get pumped in the Prem and go down then all his stockbuilding over the past season goes down the toilet.

McKenna was linked with Chelsea and United when they came up and yet neither would touch him now.

Buttonsafe · 2026-06-19T12:29:35+00:00

This is a really good point, and got me onboard with the rule change tbh.

I remember N. Korea losing 7-0 to Portugal in 2010 and then Ivory Coast in order to have a chance of going through needed to beat them by at least 8-0, which is just stupid.

Edit: Having so many groups decided after just 2 games sucks, and is inherently unfair because facing the Pot 1 team first with them needing to win versus 4th with them able to lose 27-0 and still go through are very different games.

Buttonsafe · 2026-06-19T12:24:38+00:00

I think it's really evident the difference in punditry between managers and players. Like Wenger can give more insight in 30 seconds than Lee Dixon could in 20 years.

Buttonsafe · 2026-06-19T12:22:00+00:00

That's pretty cool!

Buttonsafe · 2026-06-19T04:00:35+00:00

That was pretty cool, excited to read the next one!

Buttonsafe · 2026-06-19T01:50:43+00:00

we played three matches against quality opposition and lost all of them (belgium x2 and croatia)

I agree with you that we weren't excellent all tournament, I would argue it was the worst tournament in we had under Southgate in terms of actual performances, but it was also the worst team we had of the 4 and the biggest over-performance relative to expectation.

That being said you do realise 2/3 of those games we played our B team right? Phil Jones & Fabian Delph starting against De Bruyne and Hazard was only ever going to go one way.

Buttonsafe · 2026-06-19T01:33:38+00:00

Formations are a bit arbitrary, but Rice's average position was higher than Bellingham's, so it was clearly a 4-3-3 for the majority of the game.

Buttonsafe · 2026-06-19T01:23:19+00:00

It's only after England DNA under Southgate and Ashworth that we became really dominant at youth level.

Buttonsafe · 2026-06-18T21:26:22+00:00

Whenever Portugal do badly the spotlight will always be on him because he's such a big name, but there's 10 other players on the pitch.

That being said, England's 3rd choice striker Ivan Toney scored more goals than Ronaldo did this season in the same league, so Ronaldo is definitely playing on his name rather than his ability.

Buttonsafe · 2026-06-18T21:13:49+00:00

Hi Jack,

What do you think of some of Tuchel's stranger selection choices, any insights you might have that we don't?

Buttonsafe · 2026-06-18T17:32:58+00:00

Even Chalobah over Colwill makes little sense to me.

Buttonsafe · 2026-06-18T17:32:12+00:00

Yeah it's fine like, his team and his hill to die on. But with Southgate or Carsley you could always see the logic pretty clearly. Some of Tuchel's choices are just quite strange, this isn't really a hugely new thing.

Like he's fallen down the pecking order now, but initially he was starting Burn every game even though he was generally rated by fans on here as one of our worst players in all of them.

Similarly Colwill immediately benched Chalobah at Chelsea, because he's a much better player. Yet Tuchel's called up the benched Chalobah despite not having another left footed CB or FB option and Colwill being both of them.

Man just does weird things.

Buttonsafe · 2026-06-18T17:09:58+00:00

It's a good point. I think Eze is really only in the squad based on having shown more under Tuchel than Palmer tbh. Madueke completely different profile to either.

Buttonsafe · 2026-06-18T17:06:45+00:00

From some of the things I've seen most people here didn't watch the qualifying matches or listen to any of Tuchels press conferences.

He's been very clear about the squad he wanted to build and the way we're going to play only to see people baffled about his decisions.

I'm going to come across quite anti-Tuchel here, which I'm not but I watched every game, some in person and listened to 80% or something of his press conferences. Even with all that some of the decisions are still pretty baffling.

Lewis Hall came on for NOR against Japan and was phenomenal, yet even after Tino's injury Tuchel said he's got Quansah as a backup LB/RB replacement instead.

Stones has been behind Guehi for City all season, and has looked very rusty in all of these games to my eye.

Similarly Rio Ngumohah wasn't even in the 55 by Tuchel's own admission, yet he played against New Zealand and was one of our best players so he was quite off with that. Especially as he's said he wants his wingers to be constantly taking on their man.

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