England thread.

[Drazen Muzinic 1,445]

[quote user="ricardo"]Wellbeck reminds me of HeskeyBut without the same sharpness in front of goal[;)][/quote]

I just don''t get how he manages to retain a place at the top club side in England and the national side.

He must have some very revealing Polaroids of some important people.

[Scooby 0]

[quote user="QHcanary"]This is a cracking game, but that first half shows how open and susceptible to the counter attack a team can become when they throw so much forward in attack.

Poland could/should have scored, but England could easily have had 2 or 3.

You have to love the way Townsend plays. Much like our Nathan.[/quote]

2 or 3 ??!! More like 5 or 6 if Sturridge and Wellbeck would stop fannying around. Baines has obviously been ordered to stay back 2nd half, no threat at all down the left which was where our best attacks were coming from 1st half.

[BroadstairsR 2,163]

We need another goal as the Poles keep insisting upon being dangerous and we could do with being a bit tighter all-round.

What would the Hoots do now? Bring Bradley Johnson on. that''s for sure.

Wellbeck is having a decent game but is not a natural goal scorer like ..... er? Gary Hooper.

[Juggy 0]

[quote user="Gingerpele"]I love people like you Le Juge.

England don''t have a poor team. England have a pretty decent side [/quote]

I said that we have "the least inspiring group of players that I can ever remember lining up for England".

And I stick by that. 

There is a reason why we have given 18000 tickets to Poland, it is because there are plenty of people like me, who are bored of our national team.

You haven''t really presented any argument to the contrary to make me change my mind. The earliest England team that I can remember is the 1990 World Cup (fourth place), the most excited that I have been is Terry Venables 1996. 

The we had a stellar period which included beating Germany 5-1 and two World Cup quarter finals.

And if you can look at this England team and compare them with any other era then you need to wake up and smell the coffee, never have we been this void of talent. 

Cahill, Smalling, Jagielka......... give me Tony Adams, Gareth Southgate, Sol Campbell and Martin Keown.

Teddy Sheringham, Alan Shearer, Michael Owen. 

We have never been this weak, not my fault that you can''t see it. 

[Juggy 0]

 Brazil will be an embarrassment unless we get extremely lucky with the draw.  

[Drazen Muzinic 1,445]

Need a change now.

Lets hope Roy doesn''t leave it too much longer, there are some tired legs out there.

[Herman 9,757]

Get in!!!!

[chicken 0]

The New Boy wrote: "Cahill, Smalling, Jagielka......... give me Tony Adams, Gareth Southgate, Sol Campbell and Martin Keown.

Teddy Sheringham, Alan Shearer, Michael Owen."

The problem is that in the past England were one of the leaders in terms of football.

These days you have a lot of nations that are more than able, the money in football around Europe has increased and so the various football associations have invested more into football.

It is as much about other nations catching England as it is English football falling behind.

You mention Michael Owen and Sheringham.

Sheringham was 27 when he made his first England appearance and whilst he should rightly be remembered as a classy player he made 51 appearances scoring 11 times.

In many ways I would have an in form Rooney ahead of both Sheringham and Owen. Why? Rooney plays a role more similar to Sheringham but has a scoring record more like Owen''s. Owen scored 40 goals in 89 appearances Vs Rooney had scored 37 goals in 85 appearances before tonight.

He has more to his game than Owen ever had and has the pace that Sheringham always lacked.

And then you look at the defence. You mention Adams and Keown. In the modern game these would be more your John Terry''s. Not necessarily great technically gifted players but in terms of ball winners they were second to none.

It seems to me what you are confusing is the character and personality of players compared to their actual footballing ability.

And if it was that I would agree. I think the issue is the money and the profile of the premier league. In the past for some players, playing for your country meant everything - and it probably still does now, but due to the premiership being such a high profile league and the fuss and commotion about it, the players are conditioned and perhaps don''t express as much emotion as in the past.

I would also agree that the most exciting tournaments in my lifetime were 1990 and ''96 but I wonder if the latter was more so due to it being ''here''.

[Juggy 0]

[quote user="chicken"]The problem is that in the past England were one of the leaders in terms of football.

These days you have a lot of nations that are more than able, the money in football around Europe has increased and so the various football associations have invested more into football. [/quote]

I disagree with your reasoning. I believe the reason is that there are less English players playing in the top flight of the English league system than at any time in our history. It has nothing to do with investment by other nations, it has everything to do with their being too much money in our own league. The strongest European nations have strong leagues, but they also have teams full of their own players - Germany, Italy, Spain.  

[quote] Sheringham was 27 when he made his first England appearance and whilst he should rightly be remembered as a classy player he made 51 appearances scoring 11 times. [/quote]

That''s because he was a deep lying forward and often used from the bench. 

[quote] In many ways I would have an in form Rooney ahead of both Sheringham and Owen. [/quote] 

You are getting my point all twisted up, which is that we only have one player who is anywhere near world class and that is Rooney. My point really is that we had lots of quality attacking players, and now we have one. Forget about whether you would choose Rooney over Sheringham, think more about whether a young Owen and Sheringham would be valuable to our setup right now and the answer is without a shadow of a doubt "yes". Not really sure why you are leaving Shearer out of the equation though, Sheringham was at his best alongside Shearer. We had Shearer, Sheringham, Ferdinand, Owen, Andy Cole, Robbie Fowler - at one point we had top class strikers not getting into the England squad. Chris Sutton got one cap, would he get caps now? Of course he would, he is a superior version of Andy Carroll. 

[quote] Owen scored 40 goals in 89 appearances Vs Rooney had scored 37 goals in 85 appearances before tonight. [/quote]  

Again you are doing nothing to argue against my statement that we have one world class player - Wayne Rooney. England are desperately short of talent, particularly strikers. 

[quote] He has more to his game than Owen ever had and has the pace that Sheringham always lacked.  [/quote]

Still trying to compare Rooney with every other player. That is not the point, which is that we once had many great strikers, and now we have one. Followers of other national teams often say that we have one world class player - Rooney. You aren''t disagreeing by only talking about Rooney. We have no more Beckham, no more Scholes, no Tony Adams (not even a Rio Ferdinand), we have no Alan Shearer. We don''t even have a David Seamen. We have one top class player, Wayne Rooney, and Gerrard who can still turn it on. In the early 00''s we had a fantastic team and should have done better, but at least we had enough talent to have hope. 

[quote]  And then you look at the defence. You mention Adams and Keown. In the modern game these would be more your John Terry''s. [/quote] 

Well actually I mentioned Adams, Campbell, Southgate and Keown. Martin Keown not very frequently being the first choice. But "more your John Terry''s"...... well what we would do for a new John Terry hey? None of the current centre backs are anywhere near as good as even Terry or Ferdinand, yet alone Adams and Campbell. Smalling doesn''t deserve to be mentioned in the same breathe as any of those players, even Southgate or Keown. 

[quote]  It seems to me what you are confusing is the character and personality of players compared to their actual footballing ability. [/quote] 

Nope. I''m talking about us not having any midfielders with the quality of Beckham or Scholes (or a young Gerrard), I''m talking about having one quality striker when once we would have three or four. I''m talking about Chris Smalling and Gary Cahill being mediocre centre backs and wishing that we could still call upon the likes of that famous Arsenal back five. 

We aren''t very good.  

[Juggy 0]

18 months ago Norwich fans were calling for Grant Holt to get an England call up. Surely that says it all doesn''t it?

[Carrow_Road_Canary 0]

I agree with pretty much all you say... but 1996 aside, and that was on home turf, we haven''t really set the world alight have we? What we need is a good coach who can mould a team and get the best out of mediocre players. Hodgson seems to be doing that - undefeated in the group, only 4 goals conceded, the third highest scorers in qualifying. That seems to be the way alot of the time and then we crumble at the tournaments. I don''t expect us to win it but if you have a united team who respect the manager you can do things. Anything can happen in football. No English manager had reached a quarter final since Terry Venables in 1996 until Hodgson did it in 2012 and he''d just joined. How refreshing was it to see him jumping about in joy? he may have got a reputation as a conservative manager, but not in the last two games! You don''t give Andros Townsend his debut in a vital game if you''re conservative.

You mention how bad the current young players are - before, lots of people have been saying we should blood the youngsters in tournaments to give them valuable experience for the future - would you say that is wrong then? To play the Cahills, Smallings, Jones'' etc? Do you not think they have the potential to learn and get better?

I agree though that Welbeck is a bad version of Heskey!

As ever, i have no expectations but plenty of hope!

[ferthebeast 0]

Was at Wembley on Tuesday night for my first ever England game and I was very impressed. Thought Carrick bossed the midfield and made us tick. Rooney had a cracking game and Baines was getting a lot of joy down the left hand side. Had it not been for Szczesny in the Poland goal we could have had 4 or 5 I just hope he isn''t in the same form on Saturday!

[It's Character Forming 1,160]

[quote user="Carrow_Road_Canary"] No English manager had reached a quarter final since Terry Venables in 1996 until Hodgson did it in 2012 and he''d just joined. [/quote]

 

This is hardly a ringing endorsement though is it ?  The English managers in that period were Hoddle, who was knocked out by Argentina on penalties before he was forced out for non-football reasons, then Keegan and McLaren - both of whom would easily find a place in most peoples'' 3 worst England managers of all time.

 

Personally I think it''s a good thing the expectations for next year are low, it''s a knock-out and if you can get to the quarter-finals anything can happen.  But our strength in depth is so limited compared to Spain.  The key weakness is up front - compare our best lineup now to the days when we could field Lineker and Shearer ?  So I share the general pessimism.