LancsVillan

coffee meet keyboard

I think the real reason has more to with the hugely inflated transfer fees involved with signing talented, established English players rather than their quality as players. Recently Beckham was very successful in Spain as was Owen both of whom moved without Real risking any money on a transfer fee........... (the media product "Beckham" paid for itself). During the late 70's and 80's British sides owned Europe, won everything going - every year.......... You could count the foreign players in the league on one hand. Yes the FA is to blame I agree, they have no relevant experience to select a coach for the National job. But the issue is several fold for me......... There needs to be a culture of nurture and support around the England team and good dose of humility which doesn't exist. The hacks at Fleet Street seem to call the tune which the football supporting country follows. The attitude exists where England is expected to beat everyone and lift up trophies and if this doesn't happen heads should roll............. This is clearly a pile of arse biscuits. Why is there this insistence that every player selected has to be "world class". Why has the concept and ethic of "the team" vanished from the British tabloid impression makers....... This is the biggest issue for me. If everybody involved would stop having such high opinions of themselves and "Team England" then we might be able to start thinking about developing a competitive England Team right from the FA bigwigs to the ballboys at Wembly... JG a good post and I agree about the hole in my argument, yet like I said there are very few, Owen and Beckham being obvious examples of success albeit not that much considering who they went to. As with Lineker and Hughes from an earlier generation. You refer to the 70's and 80's yet this was a desolate time for the English national side, at the time it was said to be because of the number of ..... ooh foreigners only at the time it was the Scottish, Welsh and Irish that were to blame. As for 'world class' I totally agree there is a misconception that if you are good in the Premier League you are world class, this is simply not the case. We both fondly remember a squad with no stars, and certainly no world class players, gaining domestic and European glory but like you say there is no I in team, so the present crop of players would not understand.

nah whoever gets it, gets to poison the FA ;-)

A phone conversation from yesterday.... Mc – Right, Tel, thanks to Israel I can still get us through to the Euros and can't afford any mistakes. Goalkeeper – who's the best in the country? TV – Rob Green Mc – Don't know him. Is he in the squad? TV – No. Mc – Who have we got – I can't afford to play that clown Robinson again? TV - James and Carson. Mc – Who would you go for? TV – Well James is in good form and has more experience. Mc – Hmmmmm, James cost Sven a few games, I'll go with Carson. Defence picks itself; Nev, JT, Rio and Ash. TV – They're all injured, Steve. Mc – Oh. Well, Micah at right back, Ledley and Carra in the middle and the other fella who can only kick with one foot on the left. TV – Ledley's injured, Steve - and Carra refuses to play for his country. Mc – Who does that leave me? TV – Lescott and Sol. Mc – There must be other centre halves? TV – They're all foreigners, Steve. Mc – Lescott? I thought he was a left back, never mind, he's in. Midfield is easy Becks, Lamps, Stevie G and Joey. TV – I wouldn't start with Becks, Steve. Not fit and playing in a Mickey Mouse league. Mc – Well I saw him a few weeks ago and he scored twice in a 14-4 win. TV – Save him towards the end in case we need a get out of jail card like against Greece. Mc – Good idea – so we'll play the little fella on the right. You know,quick with no end product. TV – Lennon? Mc – No, the other one. His Dad will be in the TV studio, so that should go down well. So that's SWP, Lamps, Stevie G and Joey. TV – Steve, you know Frank and Stevie G can't play together, even my old mum knows that. Mc – Only because neither one is defensive. I'm going to put another man behind them, Barry. That'll fool Bilic. Now, up front. I think we should play the two that caused Russia so many problems here. TV – Heskey and Owen? Mc – Yep. TV – They're both injured. Mc - $hit – who would you play? TV – Rooney and Ashton. Mc – Excellent, two class players, they're in. TV – They're both injured. Mc – Fck me, have I upset the big man up there? TV – Who, Barwick? Mc –No THE big man. TV – Crouchy won't let you down. Mc – How many goals has he scored this season? TV – None Mc – None? Is he the best we've got? TV – We've got Defoe and Bent as well. They've got one goal between them. Mc – One goal between 3 of our best players, why is that? TV – Too many foreigners in the Premiership. Mc – Tel, I'm struggling here, do you think I'm out of my depth? TV – Don't be silly, look at your CV, how many trophies have you won? Mc – None. TV – I've just remembered, I've got to speak to my solicitor about redundancy compensation. I may be late tomorrow night [/code] stolen from another forum, betfair IIRC.

Severe flood warnings in Scotland as 5 million jocks piss themselves laughing at England. Whats the difference between England and Lewis Hamilton? Lewis will put his faith in McLaren next year.............

And like I answered in the other thread I believe you are looking in the wrong place. Look through the last 30 years and except for a couple of players, Arse, ManU and Redscouse have always bought players, at Chelsea things have changed. Money changed the English game and whilst the domestic league is undoubtedly better entertainment all that happened is that mediocre players who used t o get by in the English First Division were replaced by better talents. There is a reason why very very few English(can expand that to British) players even get signed by foreign sides, they have not been and still are not good enough. Well so far in the other forum we've come up with 1 player Al, David Bentley who had to move to develop fully. That's it. Are you really saying there is no difference from that to the preceeding 5 years? And the 5 before that? No I'm saying that the problem is not that the top four clubs aren't signing English, it's not the rest of the Premiership fro signing non English players. There is no simple answer to it that proper coaching from an early age would not have seen IF this was in place many many years ago. Clubs sign the players that win them, the clubs, trophies the simple fact is that for too long these players have not been English. I can think of only one club in the last 20 years who has brought through a good number of English players and that was United and the 'you'll win nothing with kids' and even then they were propped up by players who would not / could not cut it at international level.

I put the yes option in for you VB!

And like I answered in the other thread I believe you are looking in the wrong place. Look through the last 30 years and except for a couple of players, Arse, ManU and Redscouse have always bought players, at Chelsea things have changed. Money changed the English game and whilst the domestic league is undoubtedly better entertainment all that happened is that mediocre players who used t o get by in the English First Division were replaced by better talents. There is a reason why very very few English(can expand that to British) players even get signed by foreign sides, they have not been and still are not good enough.

Would be very funny, he hates us, most of us Villa fans hate him. Perfect appointment. BUT the thing is, it matters not a jot to me who is appointed as the players are simply not good enough.

Me too Si, me too.

Thanks for the updates General. If Means a single tier with no upper and lower then I think that would be fantastic and create a superb atmosphere as the shelf in between currently affects the acoustics.

Nope, it was a hatchback with the door at the back opened. You even saw it on two or three occasions. Watch the repeat if you dont believe me! the hatchback is one of a couple placed on the route to take pictures. A motorbike was tailing him, and even then it couldn't get through all the gaps he did and had to wait

Is his email just simply John.Greenfield@avfc.co.uk? Anyone else know besides the General? that should get to him - yes

Indeed it was, I remember being very thankful of getting on our coach in one piece. Came on the back of us getting stuffed by Liverpool on a frozen pitch 4-2 IIRC. A game that was played as it was live on the box, one of the first times a league game was again IIRC. Made up for it by beating them in the return game where a certain Alan Curbishley made his debut.

I knew that orange shirt , red jumper combo wouldn't look good, oh well.....

Can we not wait until after this weeks Cowboys @ Giants game as it is a bit of a decider for me. In the Fantasy thing I've just replaced Big Ben with Romo....

so Jones was a indisciplined fighter who couldn't control his weight - cheers :-)

The American special is currently being shown on 'Dave' more commonly known as CH19 on Freeview

sat right behind it, I pointed to Aston where it would go. He moved straight away and got a strong hand on it, should have touched it over.

But surely his confidence comes from being selected and scoring, which now that he has (albeit in the reserves) can only be good for us. Excellent report Scott, as usual. Nice to hear that Erik played well against the one player most of us have heard of for them.

Passports are just over £70 now cheers for the reminder mine runs out in November...

Hmm hindsight tis a wonderful thing. Coming off the back of 5 successive 3-0 wins I never saw many questioning the team selection BEFORE the game yesterday. For me he could have swapped to James instead of Robinson as Robinson was lucky to get away with dropping another one on Sat. To play Carson would have been stupid in such a game. The only other thing yesterday was the playing of Lescott at Left back, which looking at the game was a mistake. I still feel that England will qualify and if they don't then the fans and media will be screaming for Jose (thus meaning we will be stuck with Fat Frank too); MO'N will not get the job even if he wants it as I think Curbishley is the next English manager if Jose doesn't get it.

Jam doughnuts - you try warming one in a microwave without creating a volcano

but slow There is always that which will be thrown against him i think he's quicker than he looks, in a chrissy waddle type of way. not having blistering did not really hamper Sheringham or a class act like Bobby Moore either. Thing is watching GB, he has always had the 'pace' for International football as it does seem to be played at a much slower pace than the Prem. Watching / listening at the weekend it is obvious that England's style suits him more than the high paced pressure game MO'N prefers too as he was always with play, something that we haven't seen over the last couple of Villa games with our desire to get it forward so quickly.

like that bicks, what were the settings to get the show of speed?