Us oldies had to suffer missing out on Euro '84 too, under Bobby Robson, then to suffer worse under him in '88 when we finished bottom of our group after losing all our games. '92 under Taylor just set the tone for our non-qualifying for USA '94. To be fair though the Euro's didn't really take off until '96 when it went to 16 teams. So you youngsters, be grateful that although we are shit, we've been shitter!
But you saw us win it in 1966 so its not all bad is it
It is wrong to complain about it. As you say, we might not qulaify in a harder group. But we do have to factor in the quality of the opposition before patting ourselves to hard on the back. England are developing a record of qulaifying easily (which is good) but failing in the actual tournament (which of course is not so good).
I know he isn't doing anything to really deserve a place but if I was Southgate I would be seriously looking at Shelvey. He needs to balance the midfield somehow.
People aren't knocking the fact we're a top seed, as you say our record over the years deserves that. But we're lucky with the other teams we got.
France got Sweden and Holland Portugal got Switzerland Spain got Italy Croatia got Iceland, Turkey and Ukraine
If we were the top seed in any of those groups we'd be struggling because we've only just managed to scrape through a very shit group. 95th minute winner in Slovakia, 93rd minute equaliser at Scotland and a 94th minute winner last night.
People aren't knocking the fact we're a top seed, as you say our record over the years deserves that. But we're lucky with the other teams we got.
France got Sweden and Holland Portugal got Switzerland Spain got Italy Croatia got Iceland, Turkey and Ukraine
If we were the top seed in any of those groups we'd be struggling because we've only just managed to scrape through a very shit group. 95th minute winner in Slovakia, 93rd minute equaliser at Scotland and a 94th minute winner last night.
Other than Spain / Italy / France / Holland / Portugal / Iceland we've had those other teams in our Groups though and have barely struggled against any of them ?
Switzerland: Beat them both times in Euro 2016 Qualification and got a win / draw against them in 2012 QF
Croatia: Apart from the Wally with the Brolly we had them in World Cup 2010 Qualification and finished with an aggregate score of 9-2 against them
Iceland: Yes; haha... We lost a game in Euro 2016 to them, other than that we've never played them yet up until the last few years have been no where near a force to be reckoned with.
Turkey: Havent played them for a few years apart from a friendly in 2016 but they've never beaten us
Sweden: They've got a good record against us; apart from the 4-2 friendly loss we beat them 3-2 in Euro 2012
Ukraine: Last time we had them in our Group they got two draws out of us, they've only ever beaten us the once though
Would be better to look at our head2head record against sides... Barely any of them have a better record playing against us (only five which dont include any of the difficult teams mentioned other than Italy)...
We qualified, that's the main thing. Regardless of us not being top tier at the moment, I couldn't bear watching another World Cup without England involved
I’d quite happily watch without England and probably enjoy it more.
So whose prepared to post the thread “Do you think England can seriously win the World Cup”
Actually maybe it should be me, as I appear to be “The Strange One” around here;)
That's a simple one Martin. Don't watch the England games - no one is forcing you to. Meanwhile I live in a stupidly optimistic cloud cuckoo land where we do a Greece or Portugal...
You do live in cloud cuckoo land, Algarve!
I always find myself asking three questions when considering watching England.
1.Do I want to watch this? 2.Why am I watching this. 3.Why did I watch this?
And yet I still fall for it every time, thinking it will be a better performance/new dawn.
Of course I want England to do well but not by boring me to death along the way!
The use of the of the same players game after game who consistently fail to deliver, Sterling is the scapegoat at the moment. Why play him, he doesn’t do/bring anything to the team?
I realise we have an appalling lack of quality players seemingly throughout the land and that also applies to managers and coaches who only know how to play sideways football.
Maybe FIFA should insist that for all major finals, players/managers/coaches have to over 50 and then insist on playing walking football.
England got an easy group, and unlike with some previous qualifications we've scraped many wins with last minute goals. It shows good character, and winning when you don't play well is an important attribute, but this isn't a good team, the sort that would be expected to progress significantly next year.
The fact that English teams have been so poor in the Champions League recently is perhaps symbolic, yes foreign players were important to previous success, but there were also key English players in those teams which won or did really well, the likes of Gerrard, Lampard, Cole, Ferdinand, Neville, Beckham, Scholes etc
Are we not always playing for the following competition ? sure seems that way to me
No, quite the opposite.
IF we don't win a game or win it well or do badly at a tournement then it's all change, sack everyone, get some pride back, bring back the aging players who didn't do much when they played but hey, they play for big clubs, get stuck in, let's copy whoever won the last tournement, repeat to fade.
Long term = 10 to 15 or even 20 years. Look at Iceland or Germany. Long term plans and I think we are seeing something with the youth tournement success. Taking youth tournies seriously at last, not pulling players out of youth tournements for meaningless first team friendlies, have a manager who comes from the system and understands it.
went last night, made full use of the 50% off vouchers on all pre match purchases, clowns behind me decided to tie knots in the tshirts given to them in the seats for the st georges cross and throw them at the cameraman and also hitting people on the back of the heads. ( nice souvenir actually folded mine up and put in pocket ), will be the last time i sit in the "home" end. literally attended for caps purposes only, done all home qaulifies and slovakia, scotland and malta away, have enjoyed my 1st campaign following England away, wont be at the freindly against germany we play them too often now its no longer special, as for russia will head out if we were to get to the semis or final as such low numbers of travel club members id be virtually garanteed a ticket. think we are going to head tenerife for a week of the group stage for a bit of a boozy holiday.
We qualified, that's the main thing. Regardless of us not being top tier at the moment, I couldn't bear watching another World Cup without England involved
I’d quite happily watch without England and probably enjoy it more.
So whose prepared to post the thread “Do you think England can seriously win the World Cup”
Actually maybe it should be me, as I appear to be “The Strange One” around here;)
That's a simple one Martin. Don't watch the England games - no one is forcing you to. Meanwhile I live in a stupidly optimistic cloud cuckoo land where we do a Greece or Portugal...
You do live in cloud cuckoo land, Algarve!
I always find myself asking three questions when considering watching England.
1.Do I want to watch this? 2.Why am I watching this. 3.Why did I watch this?
And yet I still fall for it every time, thinking it will be a better performance/new dawn.
Of course I want England to do well but not by boring me to death along the way!
The use of the of the same players game after game who consistently fail to deliver, Sterling is the scapegoat at the moment. Why play him, he doesn’t do/bring anything to the team?
I realise we have an appalling lack of quality players seemingly throughout the land and that also applies to managers and coaches who only know how to play sideways football.
Maybe FIFA should insist that for all major finals, players/managers/coaches have to over 50 and then insist on playing walking football.
He's not a scapegoat for me... I just dont see what he does to be called into the England team... He was unlucky at the end not to score against Slovenia when the ball was cleared off the line as it was a nice low driven shot
Yet looking at his club game recently his passing and touch has been bloody awful!!... Against Everton it was getting to the point of being laughable until he received the ball and was able to put it in the net (same against Bournemouth) - Thats probably the one aspect of his game that he can do (i.e. score) but as with the main issue last night we need someone who can get the ball and pass it up to the Strikers!!
Opponents know how fast the likes of Rashford | Sterling | Walker are... So to counter they just have the two lines of Midfield / Defence and let us try to break them down - When we fail and they regain the ball, the opposition approach is to quickly try and counter attack whilst we've got half the squad up the pitch - I still claim we do better against the bigger nations because they dont play the two lines and try to attack themselves which creates the gaps for our own attack to exploit
Are we not always playing for the following competition ? sure seems that way to me
No, quite the opposite.
IF we don't win a game or win it well or do badly at a tournement then it's all change, sack everyone, get some pride back, bring back the aging players who didn't do much when they played but hey, they play for big clubs, get stuck in, let's copy whoever won the last tournement, repeat to fade.
Long term = 10 to 15 or even 20 years. Look at Iceland or Germany. Long term plans and I think we are seeing something with the youth tournement success. Taking youth tournies seriously at last, not pulling players out of youth tournements for meaningless first team friendlies, have a manager who comes from the system and understands it.
Aim for 2022.
As @SDAddick said the other day... Hopefully they're finally doing this by having the Youth Teams coming through together which'll breed familiarity - What we'll need though is a Senior Manager who is prepared to drop underperforming / aging players for those ready from the U21s. As at the moment, the youth are coming through to the U21s together and then it suddenly stops
What we need is a really good central midfielder, as without that class in midfield, we will always look ordinary. Sterling is a good player, but having the likes of David Silva and De Bruyne around will make anyone look better than they really are
Scapegoat, wasn’t a good choice of words Forever, I just meant the fingers being pointed at him at the mo and rightly so.
I don’t think he’s scoring ability is anything to write home about either, certainly not for England anyway. The only thing I’m aware of when he shoots, is the ball sailing way over the bar and landing in row Z
Some of the England shooting, corners and free kick techniques are bloody dreadful. Can’t beat the first man on corners or over hit, cant get it on target, make the goalkeeper make a save or get it over the wall at free kicks. And shooting, they either need to make the goals taller and wider or put them in row Z.
Us oldies had to suffer missing out on Euro '84 too, under Bobby Robson, then to suffer worse under him in '88 when we finished bottom of our group after losing all our games. '92 under Taylor just set the tone for our non-qualifying for USA '94. To be fair though the Euro's didn't really take off until '96 when it went to 16 teams. So you youngsters, be grateful that although we are shit, we've been shitter!
But you saw us win it in 1966 so its not all bad is it
I was alive! My parents were at my mum's cousin's wedding (you can imagine how popular she was!!), I stayed at my Nan's in Tewson Road, Plumstead. She had a telly but I don't know if it was on. I was 11 months old.
Too much negative football on show. 2/3 passes forward then it went backwards repeat ad nauseam. Lingard came on and received the ball and ran forward creating a chance. Kane and Rashford were positive too. But the rest looked like Sunday league players (no offence to those that play sundays but you are not paid thousands a week and not classed as professional). England gave the impression that they only had to turn up and win without putting any effort - I'm particularly pointing out Walker for the arrogance award - he did fuck all during the game apart from that final pass. Absolute shyte and an embarrassment to professional football. And a complete con to those that paid out a lot of money to go and see it.
Kane is brilliant. The only England player who would have a chance of getting into a top European team.
Sun has a piece of him today comparing him to Ronaldo in terms of his dedication. I often argue that Wayne Rooney underachieved in his career yes he has won the lot but if he had ronaldos dedication he would be in the same bracket as him and Messi.
People aren't knocking the fact we're a top seed, as you say our record over the years deserves that. But we're lucky with the other teams we got.
France got Sweden and Holland Portugal got Switzerland Spain got Italy Croatia got Iceland, Turkey and Ukraine
If we were the top seed in any of those groups we'd be struggling because we've only just managed to scrape through a very shit group. 95th minute winner in Slovakia, 93rd minute equaliser at Scotland and a 94th minute winner last night.
If we play very well and lose in injury time, on penalties, because we had a perfectly good goal disallowed, to the opposition's only shot on target or to a goal that should not have been allowed we are shit then too...
Us oldies had to suffer missing out on Euro '84 too, under Bobby Robson, then to suffer worse under him in '88 when we finished bottom of our group after losing all our games. '92 under Taylor just set the tone for our non-qualifying for USA '94. To be fair though the Euro's didn't really take off until '96 when it went to 16 teams. So you youngsters, be grateful that although we are shit, we've been shitter!
Good points mate. It's amazing how Robson turned it round for Italy in 90. I was serving in Germany in 88 and went to the 3 group games. Absolutely shocking! Last night's performance was up there with the worst of them though. It reminded me of England under Graham Taylor with the likes of Carlton Palmer 'dominating' the midfield!! Henderson now ably fills that role!!
It is wrong to complain about it. As you say, we might not qulaify in a harder group. But we do have to factor in the quality of the opposition before patting ourselves to hard on the back. England are developing a record of qulaifying easily (which is good) but failing in the actual tournament (which of course is not so good).
I know he isn't doing anything to really deserve a place but if I was Southgate I would be seriously looking at Shelvey. He needs to balance the midfield somehow.
If I was Southgate I'd seriously be looking at my lack of ability as a football manager, tactician and coach! He merely masquerades as someone who knows what he is doing.
I know England are pony but there is better out there than Southgate to take us to Russia. He is so excruciatingly dull and nothing more than a sycophantic 'yes man' to the muppets who run the game.
With the team that played yesterday, the tactic has to be to shackle Rashford and Kane. Slovenia had to win the game which should have helped us, but they wisely didn't go gung-ho and should have had a penalty which would have vindicated their tactics.
I think Alli was a real miss given the set up. Was suprised Southgate didn't swap Sterling and Rashford early doors but he really doesn't inspire as a manager. Playing the formation we do, we need has many goals in the team as possible. That is a big reason why we missed Alli so. Henderson is not a bad player but his goal record is terrible. If you are an average team, you know if you stop two or three of our goal threats - possibly only two - you have a good chance of preventing England from scoring!
It's a good point. Sterling is not a number 10 in a compact, tight game.. And while I'm not wholly convinced Dele is a 10 at international level where he'll get far less space than in the Premier League, he is an important creative player.
By the way, credit should go to Southgate for changing formation, albeit it quite late, freeing up the wingbacks which led to the goal.
Sterling is an important player for England - needs to start on the wing though!
Agree, in principle but several times last night he had a chance to run at the full back but held it up and came inside - at one point I was wondering if Southgate had told him not to test the full back and not to try and get down the line at pace behind him - but then I thought, why would he?
Slovenia sat very deep and defended in numbers but certainly he could have done more damage if he'd started on the wing.
Us oldies had to suffer missing out on Euro '84 too, under Bobby Robson, then to suffer worse under him in '88 when we finished bottom of our group after losing all our games. '92 under Taylor just set the tone for our non-qualifying for USA '94. To be fair though the Euro's didn't really take off until '96 when it went to 16 teams. So you youngsters, be grateful that although we are shit, we've been shitter!
Good points mate. It's amazing how Robson turned it round for Italy in 90. I was serving in Germany in 88 and went to the 3 group games. Absolutely shocking! Last night's performance was up there with the worst of them though. It reminded me of England under Graham Taylor with the likes of Carlton Palmer 'dominating' the midfield!! Henderson now ably fills that role!!
Was it Robson or was it the players? We were shocking in the group games with lame draws against the Dutch and the Irish. Legend has it that the players insisted on going 5 at the back with Mark Wright as sweeper and Robson apparently relented.
Comments
I know he isn't doing anything to really deserve a place but if I was Southgate I would be seriously looking at Shelvey. He needs to balance the midfield somehow.
France got Sweden and Holland
Portugal got Switzerland
Spain got Italy
Croatia got Iceland, Turkey and Ukraine
If we were the top seed in any of those groups we'd be struggling because we've only just managed to scrape through a very shit group. 95th minute winner in Slovakia, 93rd minute equaliser at Scotland and a 94th minute winner last night.
Switzerland: Beat them both times in Euro 2016 Qualification and got a win / draw against them in 2012 QF
Croatia: Apart from the Wally with the Brolly we had them in World Cup 2010 Qualification and finished with an aggregate score of 9-2 against them
Iceland: Yes; haha... We lost a game in Euro 2016 to them, other than that we've never played them yet up until the last few years have been no where near a force to be reckoned with.
Turkey: Havent played them for a few years apart from a friendly in 2016 but they've never beaten us
Sweden: They've got a good record against us; apart from the 4-2 friendly loss we beat them 3-2 in Euro 2012
Ukraine: Last time we had them in our Group they got two draws out of us, they've only ever beaten us the once though
Would be better to look at our head2head record against sides... Barely any of them have a better record playing against us (only five which dont include any of the difficult teams mentioned other than Italy)...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/England_national_football_team_all-time_record
I always find myself asking three questions when considering watching England.
1.Do I want to watch this?
2.Why am I watching this.
3.Why did I watch this?
And yet I still fall for it every time, thinking it will be a better performance/new dawn.
Of course I want England to do well but not by boring me to death along the way!
The use of the of the same players game after game who consistently fail to deliver, Sterling is the scapegoat at the moment. Why play him, he doesn’t do/bring anything to the team?
I realise we have an appalling lack of quality players seemingly throughout the land and that also applies to managers and coaches who only know how to play sideways football.
Maybe FIFA should insist that for all major finals, players/managers/coaches have to over 50 and then insist on playing walking football.
The fact that English teams have been so poor in the Champions League recently is perhaps symbolic, yes foreign players were important to previous success, but there were also key English players in those teams which won or did really well, the likes of Gerrard, Lampard, Cole, Ferdinand, Neville, Beckham, Scholes etc
IF we don't win a game or win it well or do badly at a tournement then it's all change, sack everyone, get some pride back, bring back the aging players who didn't do much when they played but hey, they play for big clubs, get stuck in, let's copy whoever won the last tournement, repeat to fade.
Long term = 10 to 15 or even 20 years. Look at Iceland or Germany. Long term plans and I think we are seeing something with the youth tournement success. Taking youth tournies seriously at last, not pulling players out of youth tournements for meaningless first team friendlies, have a manager who comes from the system and understands it.
Aim for 2022.
Yet looking at his club game recently his passing and touch has been bloody awful!!... Against Everton it was getting to the point of being laughable until he received the ball and was able to put it in the net (same against Bournemouth) - Thats probably the one aspect of his game that he can do (i.e. score) but as with the main issue last night we need someone who can get the ball and pass it up to the Strikers!!
Opponents know how fast the likes of Rashford | Sterling | Walker are... So to counter they just have the two lines of Midfield / Defence and let us try to break them down - When we fail and they regain the ball, the opposition approach is to quickly try and counter attack whilst we've got half the squad up the pitch - I still claim we do better against the bigger nations because they dont play the two lines and try to attack themselves which creates the gaps for our own attack to exploit
I don’t think he’s scoring ability is anything to write home about either, certainly not for England anyway. The only thing I’m aware of when he shoots, is the ball sailing way over the bar and landing in row Z
Some of the England shooting, corners and free kick techniques are bloody dreadful. Can’t beat the first man on corners or over hit, cant get it on target, make the goalkeeper make a save or get it over the wall at free kicks. And shooting, they either need to make the goals taller and wider or put them in row Z.
Lingard came on and received the ball and ran forward creating a chance. Kane and Rashford were positive too. But the rest looked like Sunday league players (no offence to those that play sundays but you are not paid thousands a week and not classed as professional).
England gave the impression that they only had to turn up and win without putting any effort - I'm particularly pointing out Walker for the arrogance award - he did fuck all during the game apart from that final pass.
Absolute shyte and an embarrassment to professional football. And a complete con to those that paid out a lot of money to go and see it.
In that game he was the standout player. He worked his nuts off... reminded me of when he was here.
I know England are pony but there is better out there than Southgate to take us to Russia. He is so excruciatingly dull and nothing more than a sycophantic 'yes man' to the muppets who run the game.
We are gonna win it next year I tell ya.
Nurse, nurse! Can you hear me? We are gonna WIN IT !!!
By the way, credit should go to Southgate for changing formation, albeit it quite late, freeing up the wingbacks which led to the goal.
Henderson's weight of pass and technical inability to side foot the ball along the
deck in a straight trajectory were comical.
Problem with Shelvey is the lights are on but no one's home and he gets into trouble more often than England possibly dare risk.
I'd give him a run, for sure.
Slovenia sat very deep and defended in numbers but certainly he could have done more damage if he'd started on the wing.