The alarming slide in the quality of the England team, can largely be traced back to when the big foreign owners started splashing their cash in the PL, and consequently the pool of English players that can be called upon has shrunk to virtually nothing.
There are so many issues at stake here, but one of them is that the young players at this big clubs (particlularly Chelsea) never seem to get a chance, so end up being loaned out and stagnating at a lower level, before withering away on the vine of the lower leagues (See Josh McErcharan, Loftus Cheek, Tammy Abraham and many others).
The knock on from that is that those English players that do make it to the top, get so highly rewarded and so much smoke blown up their arse, that their hunger to improve seems to fade away very quickly (see Walcott, the Ox, Sterling, Walker etc)
As other have said on here, it is no use blaming the manager, he can only choose from whom is available, and if Livermore and Henderson are the best two centre midfielders available to England, then that in itself speaks volumes.
France may have had a poor result against Luxembourg, but whose squad would you rather be in, if you fancied winning the World Cup?
got back last night good few days, plenty of drinking and lots of sun, the game itself well pretty dire, the ground is in the middle of nowhere, fortunately blagged our way 3 of us back onto a minibus from one of the pubs, was some of the 1st back to the pub and ive never seen people finish a meal so quickly as the expected 100's of fans started arriving back to the pub playing cheer up sleepy jean and changing the words to cheer up gordan strachan... im sure people know the rest.
malta itself lovely place, visited valette on saturday and had a couple of drinks in the pub where oliver reed had his last session lots of navy memorabilia in there aswell and very welcoming.
Excited for tonight. Hope we actually have a good match and get some confidence in the team. Would like to see our midfield improve by next summer. That's where the real issue is.
Excited for tonight. Hope we actually have a good match and get some confidence in the team. Would like to see our midfield improve by next summer. That's where the real issue is.
Tonight is big, if we win we're 5 points clear with two games left and are pretty much through, if we lose Slovakia go above us.
Interesting for the Scots too... they should beat Malta tonight and if we win then Scotland will be one point off the Play-Offs with a home game themselves against Slovakia to end Qualifying.
Could quite easily have Scotland - Ireland (or Wales) - Northern Ireland all in the Play-Offs
Tonight is big, if we win we're 5 points clear with two games left and are pretty much through, if we lose Slovakia go above us.
Interesting for the Scots too... they should beat Malta tonight and if we win then Scotland will be one point off the Play-Offs with a home game themselves against Slovakia to end Qualifying.
Could quite easily have Scotland - Ireland (or Wales) - Northern Ireland all in the Play-Offs
It'll be really good if Scotland can qualify for the next World Cup
So that they can lose humiliatingly, and give us England fans some consolation for when we under-perform yet again
I said all along, make the qualifiers Southgate's interview - by my reckoning he is failing it! The FA are clueless, they are a bit like our regime, making the same mistakes over and over again.
I want us to qualify , but if we didn't it'd be entertaining watching the FA trying to explain another horrific appointment.
They have well paid jobs whatever they do - that is part of the problem. England are only playing Slovakia though and they will probably scrape a draw or win. I'm more worried about when we get to the World Cup finals,
First England game at Wembley since the last game at the old Wembley, I now remember why I don't bother, queues outside made us miss the first 10 mins, get in and we are 0-1 down....sitting in the very back row and it's shit
Comments
against the French
Mbappe, Pogba, Lemar Giroud, Griezman, plus Coman and Lacazette off the bench, and no goals!
There are so many issues at stake here, but one of them is that the young players at this big clubs (particlularly Chelsea) never seem to get a chance, so end up being loaned out and stagnating at a lower level, before withering away on the vine of the lower leagues (See Josh McErcharan, Loftus Cheek, Tammy Abraham and many others).
The knock on from that is that those English players that do make it to the top, get so highly rewarded and so much smoke blown up their arse, that their hunger to improve seems to fade away very quickly (see Walcott, the Ox, Sterling, Walker etc)
As other have said on here, it is no use blaming the manager, he can only choose from whom is available, and if Livermore and Henderson are the best two centre midfielders available to England, then that in itself speaks volumes.
France may have had a poor result against Luxembourg, but whose squad would you rather be in, if you fancied winning the World Cup?
malta itself lovely place, visited valette on saturday and had a couple of drinks in the pub where oliver reed had his last session lots of navy memorabilia in there aswell and very welcoming.
Could quite easily have Scotland - Ireland (or Wales) - Northern Ireland all in the Play-Offs
So that they can lose humiliatingly, and give us England fans some consolation for when we under-perform yet again