[England Thread] Who's to blame?

[MattS]

Alright then, let's have it. Who is the main reason that England are flying home tomorrow?

I think it's the lack of leadership on the field.

[IainG]

I think it was SGE's odd midfield choices, which resulted in poor leadership.

But as I've only got one vote I'll go with the midfield. Didn't really seem too fussed on the whole.

[tonyh29]

went for Sven

negative tactics

long ball football

poor squad selection ..Phil Neville ,Hargreaves, out of sorts Owen, Heskey , Terry not being fit but still picked etc

you cant go into a major tournament without a left sided midfielder ..he played enough pointless friendlies to at least check out a few other players but decided against it

playing Beckham when obviously not fit , Dyer is not a bad player and would have been a better bet in tonights game

Scholes had a poor tournament so did Gerrard yet they will still be our first choices and you can almost bet your life savings that we will start the World cup road to Germany with the same starting 11

[kiddybloke]

once again a foriegn ref had an appaling game. All the way thro the game he was utter shite and the dissallowed goal was just one of many truely awful decisions. Can england ever win with a foreign ref if its not colina? I think not.

[darryl]

Sven, he should be english, then we'd have won

i think his tactics were just bizarre. We got dominated by france for putting 10 men defending and one in goal, so we do exactly the same against portugal, idiot. lol

[lexicon]

SGE. Putting Phil Neville on for Scholes - Id rather have an anonymous scholes than a neville on the pitch. He ignored Barry and JLS for the call up. He called up Heskey. Id say as coach, its his responsibility that we lost at teh end of the day.

[darryl]

oh, and lets blame james as well, hes a nice easy target

[kiddybloke]

how can you give a free kick to the other side if a player loses his boot?

How can you claim pushing when terry jumps away from the keeper and campbell jumps above terry to nod in with the keeper under no pressure??????? how????

FARCE!!!

[ianrobo1]

rubbish, it was not a crap showing first ever quarter final on foreign soil.

The plain fact is that we have no midfielder in this country who can keep hold of a ball and pass it to a bloke in the same shirt. They are all hustlers and bustlersand that is what our football encourages.

At international level our game is not sosphicated enough

[tonyh29]

he cant incorporate Lampard ,Scholes , gerrard and to an extent Beckahm in the same midfield

Scholes is over rated and has been in decline for some time ..so Beckham on the right , Gerrard & Lampard in the middle and maybe Barry on the left ..at least it's balanced

[JuanPabloAngel]

I think my sig explains my views...

[TomIsADeftone]

You didn't have that sand pit of a penalty spot in the options.

I really feel gutted tonight, not so much because england lost but because it was once again a villa man missing a penalty.

Lets hope Vassell is stronger for this.

I hope DO'L and Aitkin get on the blower, and give Vass a good talking to, and make sure he's ok.

[Anthony]

Saw the ref smiling at the end of normal time. How dare he? We won. End of discussion.

[ozvillafan]

Ok. I can appreciate that you are all gutted tonight. But, really, does there need to be anything to blame? Do you really, really need a scapegoat (again)?

You made the semis

You were the highest scorers in the tournament to this point

You scored 2 excellent goals tonight

You were unlucky not to have won - you had the clearer opportunities - even though you were outplayed.

You were up against the hosts - never an easy task - and only lost due to the penalty shootout lottery.

So why do you need to blame anybody? Would you still be blaming somebody if you had won the shootout lottery?

[JohnCresswell]

You made the semis

Nope.

And we're English. Someone is always to blame

[ozvillafan]

You made the semis

Nope.

Oops. Meant Quarters. Apologies.

And we're English. Someone is always to blame

No argument there.

[Dale]

I blamed James for that Postiga penalty which actually was so slow it bounced

[John]

Has to be the ref for me. If he had given the goal and that's what it was we would be in the semi's now.

It's terrible that Vassell joined Southgate as a Villa player who missed a vital pen, but I could see it coming. Beckham missed the first one as well, so he must take an equal share for that part of our exit, as must James who looked as likely to stop a penalty as Shilton used to. We could also look at the condition of that penalty spot as well. But, to be honest our midfield did not perform and shoot out's are sadly our usual exit route.

A sad end....thanks for nothing ref! :cry:

[LancsVillan]

ahem BOTH Beckham's missed pens cost England

if the one v France had gone in England would be playing Greece tonight

hunt for scapegoat over

[dalton]

Big Phil took "portugese legend" Figo off (for what would have been a linekeresque end to an international career until postiga intevened) - This showed big big balls & proved to be be the right decision with postiga getting the equaliser.

SVG persisted with certain players like Beckham when he should have been taken for his poor displays & it end up costing the english big time.

Also, on another front, as being from ireland i watched the games on our national tv station, which to me, has the best pundits around (i include bbc, utv & sky in that) They have it, that the english team did "pre-season training" in the build up for these championships, which included a 7 mile run with weighted backpacks less than a week before the french game-dunno if its true or not....might explain why they all looked extremely unfit (cept cole/rooney)