Are England one of the better teams at the World Cup?

thai malaysia addick

Based on the one game played so far, England's goal attempt stats are better than many winning teams - and comfortably better than all the losing teams. With 18 shots at goal and 5 shots on target, we look to be on one of the most dangerous teams if you believe statistics. I don't have the stats for periods of the game, but my feeling was that Italy closed the game down very effectively in the last 25-30 minutes during which period we probably had few attempts.

Cause for optimism? Clutching at straws? Or, will Uruguay and Costa Rica be different games?

tangoflash

They showed that they certainly have the ability, but the big test will be the Uruguay game. This will show if they have the mental strength, knowing a defeat will send them home...............

paulie8290

NO next question please

lordromford

tangoflash said:

..........knowing a defeat will send them home...............

Not necessarily.
As I said on the England v Italy thread:

"This group is now set up for that rare beast - a team loses the first two games and still goes through.
Just needs:
Uruguay to beat England by 1,
Italy win their 2 remaining games,
England beat Costa Rica by 2

Not beyond the realms of possibility. Sorted.

:-)"

cafcfan

If you like stats, you'll also be interested to know that England are 10th in FIFA's world rankings, while Italy are 9th, Uruguay 7th and Costa Rica 28th.
Meanwhile in France's group for example, we have Switzerland at 6th, France at 17th, Ecuador at 26th and Honduras at 33rd.
So, how did the seeding for the draw work out? How did we end up in a group with 3 of the top ten teams in it when there really ought to be no more than two groups with two of the top ten and the rest having just one?
Why are there 6 South American countries in the finals when they are only 10 teams in their qualification process? Whereas in Europe we have 53 teams competing for only 13 places. How does that work?

ForeverAddickted

Going forward... I'd have to agree we played fast flowing passing against the Italians and it was just one of those games (like when we played Birmingham at home in March) where the ball just didnt want to go into the back of the net.

Defensively though I'd say we're a worry and its what'll send us out of the World Cup if we're not careful... Trouble is its not been a World Cup for Defenders:
- Brazil conceeded a silly own goal and never looked great at the back
- Spain conceeded five goals
- Argentina never looked brilliant at the back
- England of course let in the two silly goals
- Uruguay looked terrible at the back against Costa Rica and were lucky it wasnt more.

So far only Italy (Apart from turning off briefly when we scored), Holland and France have been secure in Defence

ForeverAddickted

lordromford said:

tangoflash said:

..........knowing a defeat will send them home...............

Not necessarily.
As I said on the England v Italy thread:

"This group is now set up for that rare beast - a team loses the first two games and still goes through.
Just needs:
Uruguay to beat England by 1,
Italy win their 2 remaining games,
England beat Costa Rica by 2

Not beyond the realms of possibility. Sorted.

:-)"

I would say the worry is that Italy could rest players for the knockout round and deliberately to try send us out when they play Uruguay (After all Prandelli himself said England were a much better team than in the Euros)... Trouble is...

- If Uruguay beat us they go to three points
- If Italy beat Costa Rica they'll go to six points... Uruguay beating Italy would also take them to six points
- Then you've got Costa Rica... Even if they lose to Italy they can beat us go to six points

Dont think there is a Group where there are going to be two standout teams this year... there will be three teams (and in some Groups all four teams) with a chance of getting through

lordromford

ForeverAddickted said:

lordromford said:

tangoflash said:

..........knowing a defeat will send them home...............

Not necessarily.
As I said on the England v Italy thread:

"This group is now set up for that rare beast - a team loses the first two games and still goes through.
Just needs:
Uruguay to beat England by 1,
Italy win their 2 remaining games,
England beat Costa Rica by 2

Not beyond the realms of possibility. Sorted.

:-)"

I would say the worry is that Italy could rest players for the knockout round and deliberately to try send us out when they play Uruguay (After all Prandelli himself said England were a much better team than in the Euros)... Trouble is...

- If Uruguay beat us they go to three points
- If Italy beat Costa Rica they'll go to six points... Uruguay beating Italy would also take them to six points
- Then you've got Costa Rica... Even if they lose to Italy they can beat us go to six points

Dont think there is a Group where there are going to be two standout teams this year... there will be three teams (and in some Groups all four teams) with a chance of getting through

Yeah, I get that.
To be fair, I'm not saying I think it will happen, just that it could happen.

ForeverAddickted

lordromford said:

ForeverAddickted said:

lordromford said:

tangoflash said:

..........knowing a defeat will send them home...............

Not necessarily.
As I said on the England v Italy thread:

"This group is now set up for that rare beast - a team loses the first two games and still goes through.
Just needs:
Uruguay to beat England by 1,
Italy win their 2 remaining games,
England beat Costa Rica by 2

Not beyond the realms of possibility. Sorted.

:-)"

I would say the worry is that Italy could rest players for the knockout round and deliberately to try send us out when they play Uruguay (After all Prandelli himself said England were a much better team than in the Euros)... Trouble is...

- If Uruguay beat us they go to three points
- If Italy beat Costa Rica they'll go to six points... Uruguay beating Italy would also take them to six points
- Then you've got Costa Rica... Even if they lose to Italy they can beat us go to six points

Dont think there is a Group where there are going to be two standout teams this year... there will be three teams (and in some Groups all four teams) with a chance of getting through

Yeah, I get that.
To be fair, I'm not saying I think it will happen, just that it could happen.

Nah sorry I know what you meant... Am agreeing with you that when you think about the perumtations absolutely anything can happen

Swisdom

I was thinking this the other day - only a few teams have really looked good. Given we were playing a strong Italy team there were reasons for optimism. Perversely our defence is usually rock solid and we let ourselves down by being far too predictable going forwards. This time we appear to be the complete opposite! Still, it's great to see us causing the opponent a few problems. Sterling looks like he'd going to be a bit special and I think Oxlande Chamberlain on the other side could be inspired. Chuck in Lallana and his flair and we have the makings of a very exciting forward line. We just need to sort out a few young defenders befcause both full backs were pants.

As for other teams - you could argue Holland were shite up until the 40th minute - then it was an exhibition of attacking play and Spain in self-destruct mode.

France looked good last night. I can't wait for Germany vs Portugal today as I think the Germans are going to go well in this tournament.

The Red Robin

Better than us so far: Brazil, Holland, Italy, Spain (in the first half at least), Chile, Colombia, Argentina (poor first half but the manager had the balls to admit it wasn't working and tweak it). After tomorrow night we can probably add Germany, Portugal and Belgium to that list.

ValleyTalkBlog

I don't think England are one of the better teams.

But I think Italy are. They were excellent on Saturday. My feeling is that by the end of the tournament a fairly close 2-1 loss to them won't look too bad...

ValleyTalkBlog

Agree with all the above Red Robin, apart from Chile. They looked brilliant for 25 minutes but then for large parts of the game were dominated by Australia.

Their centre-back pairing is made up of two out of position players. One attached to a Championship club, the other recently released by one.

Mortimerician

As an Italian supporter I think that team the worst ever. Stick the immobile chiellini at left back, play in a tropical sauna and lose Buffon and it's scary how bad they are. The ability to churn out a production line of rampaging right backs and the great Pirlo aside I think England's encouraging performance came against a spent force. Both teams looked decent playing against poor opposition. The good news is Uruguay are in a similar boat, their defence is horrible. Costa are fantastically mobile and attacking, but its a small country, and I think they'll lack depth. It really isn't a group of death. Anyone could still go through and anyone could go out. Nobody from this group is amongst the best in the world.

cafctom

If I were a neutral, I'd have been excited by watching England based on Saturday's game. Not afraid to take shots from distance and take players on. When you look at the top sides that have played already, only Holland and arguably Italy have looked significantly better in my opinion.

sam3110

I was surprised by the team Italy put out against us, once they said de sciglio is out I thought they'd play 3 cb's and wingbacks, but instead they stuck probably their best cb at lb. Sirigu was a proper flapper too, and yet as we saw they still beat us. I think Italy, Holland, Spain, Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and France look better than us, we're on a par with Mexico, Uruguay, Switzerland and Chile, and better than Bosnia, Cameroon, ivory Coast, Japan, Costa Rica, Croatia, Greece, Australia, Honduras and Ecuador so far

The Red Robin

Mortimerician said:

As an Italian supporter I think that team the worst ever. Stick the immobile chiellini at left back, play in a tropical sauna and lose Buffon and it's scary how bad they are. The ability to churn out a production line of rampaging right backs and the great Pirlo aside I think England's encouraging performance came against a spent force. Both teams looked decent playing against poor opposition. The good news is Uruguay are in a similar boat, their defence is horrible. Costa are fantastically mobile and attacking, but its a small country, and I think they'll lack depth. It really isn't a group of death. Anyone could still go through and anyone could go out. Nobody from this group is amongst the best in the world.

A spent force? They're a relatively young team.

ValleyTalkBlog

I did think Italy looked a little shaky with a back four - Chiellini especially awkward at left back - but I wouldn't be surprised if they changed that around for the next game. Prandelli seems to be pretty tactically flexible.

Plus Insigne, Cassano, Immobile and Cerci all look like exciting options off the bench.

dabos

thai malaysia addick said:

With 18 shots at goal and 5 shots on target, we look to be on one of the most dangerous teams if you believe statistics.

The quality of the shots and how good the opportunities are is undoubtedly a more reliable indicator of dangerous teams, rather than the number of shots.

We clearly had a shoot on sight policy, and I would say created only 1 exceptional goalscoring opportunity - the goal itself. Rooney's chance was a good opening, and Sturridge (I think?) had a nice run in the first half but beyond that the shots from distance were fairly comfortable saves.

MuttleyCAFC

We don't know quite how good Italy are though. I don't see them as tournament winners. The game against Uruguay will tell us what we nee dto know - I suspect that Suarez will play but will be a massive risk - the sort of risk that rarely pays off and they will be without Maxi Perreira due to his sending off. It feels to me that we ought to win this and then we will most likely only need a draw in our last game- but Uruguay can't be as bad again - can they?

Wheresmeticket

.

Wheresmeticket

I wouldn't say we were world class.

The Red Robin

They don't need to be world class to win a tournament. They are capable of stopping and beating any team out there. Pirlo = world class. Buffon = world class. Balotelli can turn it on when he wants to and don't forget he was joint top scorer at Euro 2012.

kentaddick

we are good, but not the best. I still think we'll get knocked out at the quarter finals

SELR_addicks

No we're not.

Long distance shots does not mean that we were close to scoring. Our shooting stats might look impressive but that's because Italy were happy to sit back and let us fire long shot after long shot either wide or straight at the keeper.

thenewbie

Good enough to qualify definitely, and if/when we get through there won't be any teams who'd get England in the draw and think 'that's a banker' - but equally none would be all that scared, and would probably fancy their chances based on how an understrength Italy managed to hold us off.

dizzee

So far, we are ok. It is the best I've seen us play in years, but it still wasn't enough. It wasn't that special. Also Italy's defence had crisis beforehand with them having to play a centre back at left back and their second keeper, and I think it was their second choice right back, and we still could only score 1. So I think we are definitely going in the right direction and believe we will qualify, but lets not get carried away.

PL54

We're deffo in the top 32

The Red Robin

dizzee said:

So far, we are ok. It is the best I've seen us play in years, but it still wasn't enough. It wasn't that special. Also Italy's defence had crisis beforehand with them having to play a centre back at left back and their second keeper, and I think it was their second choice right back, and we still could only score 1. So I think we are definitely going in the right direction and believe we will qualify, but lets not get carried away.

One second choice Italian centre half is probably still better than two first choice English centre halves. We've gone from Tony Adams, Sol Campbell, John Terry and Rio Ferdinand to Gary Cahill. They're just not good enough at the back.

kentaddick

The Red Robin said:

dizzee said:

So far, we are ok. It is the best I've seen us play in years, but it still wasn't enough. It wasn't that special. Also Italy's defence had crisis beforehand with them having to play a centre back at left back and their second keeper, and I think it was their second choice right back, and we still could only score 1. So I think we are definitely going in the right direction and believe we will qualify, but lets not get carried away.

One second choice Italian centre half is probably still better than two first choice English centre halves. We've gone from Tony Adams, Sol Campbell, John Terry and Rio Ferdinand to Gary Cahill. They're just not good enough at the back.

bit harsh on cahill who i think is our only true quality cb. But i agree, we've gone from having 5 or 6 world class centre halves to only having maybe one or two that are good enough for international games.

_MrDick

Watching England on Saturday was a frustrating as watching Charlton on occassions. Didn't play badly but you just knew that they were going to lose.