Total rubbish. Apparently we were thwarted by the ref not sending the Israeli player off. Everything would have been fine if that had happened. In reality we had
- no tactical superiority
- no pace (except for the occasional show by Lennon)
- no cutting edge (except when Judas came on too late)
- no balance (Gerrard again played out of position)
- no effective play down the right (with Ugly Neville. Poor old Luke)
WE WERE PLAYING ISRAEL FOR F*CK SAKE!!
I even find myself looking wistfully back at the Sven era. At least we scored occasionally.
Useless ex Manure pillock.
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Another theory is that the way Chelsea play around Lampard is different to how we use him. Same with Gerrad. Yet this is no excuse they are £80,000 a week footballers.
IMO I think England should be picked on your form players of English nationality.
Jamie Carragher has been playing better than Rio for the past 6 months yet is given a makeshift left back position.
Luke Young (maybe being bias) has played right back week in week out for Charlton, a premiership club for the past five seasons and can fill in for Gary Neville.
Gareth Barry same as above, could easily have replaced Ashley Cole.
It seems to me that the FA are like that "clicky old mans club" where you have your favourites and thats that.
On another depressing note the amount of English talent we have being produced at the highest level compared to 8-10 years ago is worrying and is something that say come the 2014 World Cup we will notice.
Agreed.
And the Robson era was a bloody nightmare! It is easy to look back with rose tinted spectacles but if you actually experienced it, you'd know his record does not tell the truth.
European Championships were a joke under Robson. '86 World Cup was not good, ok we got through the group stage but not without some trouble.
1990's semi I'm afraid is given too much creedence. We were shite against ROI, Eygpt and NL. Only Lineker's pens and Shiltons saves got us through. Of course there is also the alleged story of the players switching the system.
Bobby Robson - Nice bloke but bloody awful England Manager if you were there!
I'm sorry but this has all to do with McClaren. He is the manager, he picks the team, he decides on the tactics, he sets the balance in the team.
He chose to play two players who are not natural full backs. He could have played Luke and Barry. That would have given us much more energy down the flanks.
He is the manager who continues to play Gerrard out of position and alongside Lampard. How many times must he and he predecessor make the same mistake?
He picked Andy Johnson, a striker who has never scored for England.
He was faced with a 5 in midfield but came up with no solution to out wit it.
Rooney was given a role that just frustrated him by allowing him to be crowded out.
You didn't need Hargreaves playing in a defensive holding role in that game because for the most part Israel did not create anything to break up. What happened when playing him in that role is that because we had huge freedom in our own half, we tended to build slowly from the back between Hargreaves and the centre backs rather than move the ball forward quickly. What about getting Hargreaves bursting forward with his energy and strength. I think that he only did this once in the game.
Lennon looked lively in the first half especially but playing him on the left meant that his only option when wide was to cut inside. Fine until the opposition realised this, blocked this off and forced him to track back. Why didn't McClaren get him and Gerrard to swap sides?
What I am saying is that getting the formation and tactics right is down to the manager and he is sh*t at it. He's a coach, not a tactician or manager. Fine he's got El Tel to help him but he's only an advisor. McClaren is the decision maker and he continues to make the wrong ones.
Get him out now while there is still some time left and get somebody with some nous in.
He wasn't THAT bad. What you call a bloody nightmare was heaven compared to the Turnip-Head era that followed - just qualifying for the 1992 European Championships, playing poorly in it. After that tournament I immediately wrote to Peter Swales (then chairman of the FA's international committee) asking for Turnip-Head's immediate resignation. I seem to recall that Mr Swales spouted some nonsense on TV about how we needed him to qualify for the 1994 World Cup and how we were succeed in doing so. The team were still crap, didn't deserve to qualify and not surprisingly, didn't. Oh and and they went 1-0 down after 8.3 seconds to SAN MARINO of all teams.
True - and I wanted him to go after the tournament.
We got through the group stage by finishing runners up which was actually the best position to do so. If we actually won the group then I don't think we would have go so far. In the second round we would have played West Germany and very likely lost.
At least we got to the semi - also NL were actually quite a good side at the time.
But I'd say the he was a genius compared to some of the muppets who have held the post since then.
A fully fit Lionel Messi who is now fully fit runs rings around the tub of lard that is Rooney.
We have gone backwards as a footballing nation.
However when we will beat Andorra 5-0 the "pride is restored, Gerrard is great, we are going win Euro 2008 easy, bring on Italy" headlines and quotes will return.
Hargreaves is a quality holding midfield player. He was ignored for too long as he was not Gerrard or Lampard. He is not the problem, they are. McClaren and Sven's bizarre team selections just made the problem worse but the root cause is a lack of real class other than Rooney and any strength in depth (we are arguing Neville, Young or Richards FFS) plus English players who, stripped of their overseas club colleagues, revert to square ball, square ball, long ball.
We expect Rooney to win a game single-handedly when no one player can do this especially when he plays with a different and mainly mediocre striking partner every game.
Two words - Steve Coppell.
Steve Coppell -Two words - No bottle.
Steve Coppell proved in his 9 hour reign at Man City that he does not have the stomach or desire for a high profile job.
Terry Butcher's the man.
Strange thatCoppel is damned for his time at City but people like Clough and O'Niel have they bad times (Leeds, Brighton, Norwich) overlooked.
He wasn't happy at City and walked. Not the only decent manager to fail at the Massives either. Otherwise he's had success at every club he's managed, played for England and has the right age and experience. His teams try to play attacking football as well.
or Curbs, or Pearce, or Warnock, or Boothroyd? Lots of English managers in the relegation fight.
No wind up on Butcher.
You cannot compare Coppells City nightmare with Clough at Leeds. Coppell admitted he couldn't cope with the size of the expectation at City, how big is Englands?
I tink he's a fantastic bloke. Good player and a remarkable manager. However he knows his limitations.
We don't need some technical or tactical wizzard. We don't need someone who has won loads of domestic honours. We need someone to kick some arse on and off the pitch and pick 11 players in a balanced team. Your best national side is not necessarly the best 11 footballers. You ever listened to Butcher on 5Live? He talks a lot of sense. Pearce is in the same mould.
I know you like a manager who shouts and jumps up and down on the tocuhline and sounds good on the TV (Dowie!!!!!!!!!!) but I prefer someone who's good at their job and actually has some success.
Next time you watch England play watch Lampard's corners. They loop about 3 miles up in the air and take half an hour to drop, PONY!
Lennon put some crosses in but most of them went straight off for a corner or throw. Beckham puts his crosses in someones pocket nearly every time.
Some people will say 'Becks had a nightmare world cup blah blah blah. But the fact of the matter is that so did everyone else and they are still playing. And our only goals came from him.
I don't know how such a dangerously technical player isn't in the team.
All the talk of the big players not doing it for their country winds me up too. If they aren't doing it why haven't they been dropped?!!?!?!?! The likes of lampard and rooney have their feet wedged firmly under the table.
Do us a favour and put Hargreaves in the middle with Gerrard and drop lamps. Get Becks back on the right.
Whilst I have never been a great lover of Beckham, that statement is'nt acurate. They dropped Beckham at Real & then went on to have a mare! They brought him back & he scored on his return, played a blinder & they won! Then he went & got injured. They are not the same side without him. They know that & the worst thing about it is that he's now gone & sold his soul to the devil & we'll all be the worse off for it.
How can we achieve anything in International football with a manager who continues to play people out of postition?
I have been saying for ages I'm not going to watch England anymore, but I always do. Wednesday....................I'll be washing my hair & this time I think I really will be :-(
How long is it going to take for Mclaren to realise that playing Lampard and Gerrard in the same team does not work. The midfield has no balance at all. One of them should be stuck on the bench now. Neither of them have truly earned the right to be in the starting lineup - most of their England performances have been dire - put one on the bench and give the other a chance to shine.
For too long, England managers have picked what they consider to be the best 11 players rather than picking the best for each position (far too many play out of position). Luke Young or Micah Richards (I know he had a slight knock) should have started at right back, Carragher in central defence with Terry (fully recovered from injury?). Why was Lennon on the left? - if you want a left winger, put Downing on...play Lennon where he could do the most damage - on the right...
Still, we'll thrash Andorra by the odd goal and everything will be rosy in the garden...
If you watch any Spanish football you'll know that Beckham is seen largely as Reals most important player since Capello put him back in the side.
In what way? The ball is still round. Yes, you have less preparation time and can only select certain players but you still have to motivate and organise your team and beat the other team. By all means get a manager with international experience but that rules out Butcher and Pearce
What I would say is managing a national team is different from talking about international football on the radio and saying "when I played for England blah, blah, blah" every five minutes Ala Butcher.
Big fat Sam would be my choice of the English but with the bungs scandal hanging over him it's not going to happen so you either go for an experienced foreign manager like Hiddink or a realistic English candidate such as Coppell.