England

[Birchy]

Truth hurts?

Not really. Suppose we should take advice from the experts in failure though as you lot have the most experience.

Thanks :rofl:

 

[guest100718]

Agreed - Netherlands population, money, resources etc V England yet they outperform us all the time.

but havnt actually won the world cup....

 

[Papas1982]

I don't agree with goalkeepers being captain, I want a captain that is more in-field or in touch with the outfield players and can lead by example and rally the troops when needed, I didn't see any of that in England's last 2 games for anyone! As for SG, I think he should bow out gracefully, he will not be at the top of his game for 2016 or the next world cup so lets make the changes now and bed someone in that will figure more in the future, unfortunately SG won't.

Talks of Rooney being captain disappoint me, he's not the right 'character' again for me, he can disappear but more importantly he's not a motivator towards others IMO, who would I have, TBH I'm not sure, I'm not too bothered about how many caps they already have or experience per se, more a case of 'can they lift a team or any given player when needed' and will they be around for the next 5 years for an England place?

As for Lamps on Tuesday, SG has had 2 games and won't feature in the future years much, if at all, so why not, OK Frank won't either but you need an 'old head' at times still out their to support the young guns in their 1st campaign/s and he's been an excellent servant so it will no doubt be his swan song.

Im not advocating hart long term, and agree lampard has been a great servant. I just think it's tokenism.
I think Roy wants Rooney as captain, but for that I think he needs to pin his flag to him, play him as the lone striker (his best position) and stick to it.

Personally im not sure who else can be captain, if we go with a team if youngsters many of us have said we'd like I don't see manyborn leaders there.

 

[Birchy]

Depends on how you define talent really. If you define it as the ability to pull together as a team to do what you need to do to win/shut out a match then you could argue that Costa Rica have just as much talent as England.

If you are talking about the individual skills of each player then yes England probably have more than Costa Rica (but I'd argue you'd struggle to argue that against a lot of teams in the world cup). But that means jack if you can't make a team out of it. As England prove time after time.

I'd argue that you could not ask for a whole lot more from the players than England gave against Italy. But we still lost, not because we did not live up to potential, but because we were just not good enough when it mattered.

I did say talent, not teamwork (we clearly haven't mastered that yet )

Theres a lot of teams going through we have more talent than and resources but yet they have still outperformed us?

Theres no hiding the fact we should be expecting better. With the resources we have we should be producing better players and with the current talent we have we should be doing better.

 

[FairwayDodger]

Not really. Suppose we should take advice from the experts in failure though as you lot have the most experience.

Thanks :rofl:

Exactly, that is exactly my point! We don't turn up expecting to roll over teams that are better than us. We play a strategy that suits our strengths (such as they are) and gives us a chance..... And we've beaten teams like Italy, France and the Netherlands in competitive matches by taking a pragmatic approach.

England seem to go into every game thinking they are better than and can outplay any opposition. Might have been true against most teams in the past but certainly not at the moment. You're closer to Scotland than Brazil at the moment, accept it!

 

[Hacker Khan]

Exactly, that is exactly my point! We don't turn up expecting to roll over teams that are better than us. We play a strategy that suits our strengths (such as they are) and gives us a chance..... And we've beaten teams like Italy, France and the Netherlands in competitive matches by taking a pragmatic approach.

England seem to go into every game thinking they are better than and can outplay any opposition. Might have been true against most teams in the past but certainly not at the moment. You're closer to Scotland than Brazil at the moment, accept it!

To be fair we are not that far from Brazil as in the 2 games I've seen they played pretty rubbish for all the supposed talent on offer.

 

[Hacker Khan]

I did say talent, not teamwork (we clearly haven't mastered that yet )

Theres a lot of teams going through we have more talent than and resources but yet they have still outperformed us?

Theres no hiding the fact we should be expecting better. With the resources we have we should be producing better players and with the current talent we have we should be doing better.

So we are the US Ryder Cup team of the footballing world?

 

[Liverbirdie]

but havnt actually won the world cup....

Correct, maybe if they had one on home soil, they might. Been to more finals than us though.

 

[Birchy]

Exactly, that is exactly my point! We don't turn up expecting to roll over teams that are better than us. We play a strategy that suits our strengths (such as they are) and gives us a chance..... And we've beaten teams like Italy, France and the Netherlands in competitive matches by taking a pragmatic approach.

England seem to go into every game thinking they are better than and can outplay any opposition. Might have been true against most teams in the past but certainly not at the moment. You're closer to Scotland than Brazil at the moment, accept it!

I never said we were world beaters, I said we should be better. Nobody can argue with that, it is a FACT. With the amount of football teams, fans, money and the all the rest of it England has we should be better.

We don't turn up expecting to beat everyone at all, we just expect our players to actually perform and play as well as they can which rarely happens.

Fact is we are currently in Brazil so no we are closer to Brazil than Scotland :ears:

 

[FairwayDodger]

I never said we were world beaters, I said we should be better. Nobody can argue with that, it is a FACT. With the amount of football teams, fans, money and the all the rest of it England has we should be better.

We don't turn up expecting to beat everyone at all, we just expect our players to actually perform and play as well as they can which rarely happens.

Fact is we are currently in Brazil so no we are closer to Brazil than Scotland :ears:

I don't disagree. You should be better. But you're not, your world cup matches went according to form. Given the last round of fixtures, Uruguay really needed to beat England but a draw should have done you. If you'd shut up shop and tried to hit them on the break after the equaliser you'd still be in the world cup. Might even have won the match....

I knew it was a mistake to use "Brazil" in that particular jibe! :thup:

 

[Birchy]

I don't disagree. You should be better. But you're not, your world cup matches went according to form. Given the last round of fixtures, Uruguay really needed to beat England but a draw should have done you. If you'd shut up shop and tried to hit them on the break after the equaliser you'd still be in the world cup. Might even have won the match....

I knew it was a mistake to use "Brazil" in that particular jibe! :thup:

Against Uruguay on the balance of the game we were the better team but our players didn't finish the job. Rooney missed a couple of good chances and Gerrard/centre half cock up and see you later. That's all it takes at this level.

Usually Gerrard/Rooney et al wouldn't miss those chances or make them mistakes which is why we underperformed and should be still in it.

Even against Italy even people with a dislike of England could see the level of performance warranted more than a defeat and again individual mistakes cost us which shouldn't have happened.

Im in no way saying we are a great team but I didn't see anything from Uruguay or Italy that suggested to me we should be accepting defeat to them.

 

[Hacker Khan]

Against Uruguay on the balance of the game we were the better team but our players didn't finish the job. Rooney missed a couple of good chances and Gerrard/centre half cock up and see you later. That's all it takes at this level.

Usually Gerrard/Rooney et al wouldn't miss those chances or make them mistakes which is why we underperformed and should be still in it.

Even against Italy even people with a dislike of England could see the level of performance warranted more than a defeat and again individual mistakes cost us which shouldn't have happened.

Im in no way saying we are a great team but I didn't see anything from Uruguay or Italy that suggested to me we should be accepting defeat to them.

Apart from the fact that they took their chances and were more clinical in the final 3rd. Which at this level is sometimes all it takes. And as Rooney said in his press conference, they knew how to finish matches off. And much as I'd like to think this is a one off, it's not.

 

[Birchy]

Apart from the fact that they took their chances and were more clinical in the final 3rd. Which at this level is sometimes all it takes. And as Rooney said in his press conference, they knew how to finish matches off. And much as I'd like to think this is a one off, it's not.

Them goals were down to poor mistakes from our players which they don't usually make. I know goals generally come from mistakes but its not like they did anything special to score the goals. We had more chances than the oppo in both games yet squandered nearly all of them yet these same players gobble these chances up for fun for their clubs.

 

[Hacker Khan]

Them goals were down to poor mistakes from our players which they don't usually make. I know goals generally come from mistakes but its not like they did anything special to score the goals. We had more chances than the oppo in both games yet squandered nearly all of them yet these same players gobble these chances up for fun for their clubs.

Apart from the Suarez 2nd goal, I'm not sure the other goals were down to individual poor mistakes? You say they did nothing special, did you see Pirlo's step over dummy, the beautifully flighted cross for both the Italian second and Uruguay's first goals? They looked more down to clinical finishing and the opposition having a better footballing brain to me, rather than England mistakes.

 

[londonlewis]

The England team visited an orphanage in Brazil today.
'It's heartbreaking to see their sad little faces with no hope' said Felipe, aged 6.

 

[Birchy]

Apart from the Suarez 2nd goal, I'm not sure the other goals were down to individual poor mistakes? You say they did nothing special, did you see Pirlo's step over dummy, the beautifully flighted cross for both the Italian second and Uruguay's first goals? They looked more down to clinical finishing and the opposition having a better footballing brain to me, rather than England mistakes.

The Uruguay first goal and Italy second goals were down to defender letting Striker drift in behind him and no cover from fullback. Stuff you should learn at a pretty low level, if you cant see or feel the guy you are marking your pretty much in trouble and also covering each other etc.

The Italy first he could have sparked up a cigar he had so much time to strike the ball which should not have happened. Again that doesn't take a world class defender to stop that.

Uruguay second needs no explaining.

All poor errors which could and should have been avoided imo.

 

[dontfancythisputt]

To chuck my hat in the ring I'm going to add to this debate that nobody is going to tell me that the likes of Columbia, costa Rica, Nigeria, Algeria, Uruguay, Ivory Coast, Ecuador and so on, are technically a better footballing team than England or that they have a better pool of players from which to pick a national team.

For me the one thing these teams have that has kept them in the completion so far and something that England have long since lost is desire...

 

[Hacker Khan]

The Uruguay first goal and Italy second goals were down to defender letting Striker drift in behind him and no cover from fullback. Stuff you should learn at a pretty low level, if you cant see or feel the guy you are marking your pretty much in trouble and also covering each other etc.

The Italy first he could have sparked up a cigar he had so much time to strike the ball which should not have happened. Again that doesn't take a world class defender to stop that.

Uruguay second needs no explaining.

All poor errors which could and should have been avoided imo.

But surely if it happened twice as it did with the headed goals then that slightly negates the argument that they were isolated individual errors and more likely that they are just not good enough to compete with world class strikers? Ergo we got what we deserved and that is kind of where we are?

It's kind of where does a string of individual errors stop (and if it wasn't for them, we would/could/should have won etc etc) and the fact that they are just not good enough at that level to beat the likes of Italy and even Uruguay start?

Anyway, I'm off to watch some proper football, Holland V Chile, bring it on

 

[Birchy]

But surely if it happened twice as it did with the headed goals then that slightly negates the argument that they were isolated individual errors and more likely that they are just not good enough to compete with world class strikers? Ergo we got what we deserved and that is kind of where we are?

It's kind of where does a string of individual errors stop (and if it wasn't for them, we would/could/should have won etc etc) and the fact that they are just not good enough at that level to beat the likes of Italy and even Uruguay start?

Anyway, I'm off to watch some proper football, Holland V Chile, bring it on

The fact it happened twice just illustrates how far their heads were up their own arses

 

[HomerJSimpson]

I thought against Italy we dictated the pace and were on top for periods. We conceded two sloppy goals and if you don't defend at this level you will get punished. Against Uruguay we were so scared of losing we played like "old" England, slow, ponderous and predictable. The defending again let us down but we didn't get on top as we could and should have.

Maybe years of being teased with a whiff of success and then having it snatched away again as a Fulham fan has hardened me to the fact that England are not world beaters. Never will be until the FA change from grass roots up and that won't happen in my lifetime. We'll continue to have a few good players, fail to gel as a team and flatter to deceive.