[England Thread] Who's to blame?

[Afros]

I'll give you poms some credit, at least your blaiming your own men rather then blaming everyone from Thomas Sorrensen to George W to Shane Warne for your exit.

[ligs]

A lot of the blame has to be placed at Sven's door. Defending all out for 87 minutes thinking we weren't going to concede against a strong attacking team? Did the France game not teach him anything?

[drat01]

Does anyone think Portugal actually deserved to win - going on number of shots etc?

[ligs]

Yes they did, they took advantage of our negativity.

I also love the way everyone calls the Italians boring and negative, saying how they deserved to go out. But England were unlucky? :? How's that work?

[Denis_B]

Dyer. Beckham, Gerrard and Barry ( in that order) in midfield and we would have won!

[blandy]

It wasn't a poor showing. it was about par for the course given the squad and team selections, then the level of talent to choose from, then the nature of English football and a load of other reasons.

It would (in my untutored view) have been better not to have played out of form players out of position (Scholes, crap for 2+ years and on the left ) not to have omitted the likes of Barry, Shaun Wright Phillips, James Beattie, in favour of the "I've made my mind up" Sven choices of Phil Neville, Ian Walker, Emille heskey etc.

The tarting about in friendlies has been daft - as most people seem to agree. Why bring Beattie on at the same time as taking off Beckham Gerrard etc the players most likely to provide chances for him to show his ability? Same goes for Barry - against S. Africa he was put on at Left Back by Sven and Neville (P) moved to wide left about 12 months ago. Daft, and deliberately aimed at sending the message "I've tried him and ruled him out because he didn't do 'owt" to the press.

I really hope SGE now changes his approach, tactically and in selections and is more adventurous. an 8-0-2 formation against any team remotely half decent is stupid isn't it. the England strenght, other than resilient spirited defending under pressure is going at teams. it isn't sitting on 1-0 leads for 88 minutes. No one can do that any more, the rules, players falling at the slightest touch, lighter balls etc have meant that chances will come.

Teams that do well in the league, in Internationals, are those that are brave, that have players who can move the ball at pace, move quickly and keep the ball. Teams that have a coach (or Captain) that can alter things to a plan B if needs be.

England hasn't made the best of it's assets for a long long time. Mostly due to daft coaches with the long ball tripe and players who just hoofed it.

Anyway, I'm enjoying watching the games enormously.

[Dale]

Blandy I really hope Sven changes his job maybe take over Man U to hold them back a bit!

[bigwheels]

I was thinking about all this and it does boil down to a simple fact - when in possession, England tend to lose the ball far too quickly and when under pressure, the option taken up is to hoof it towards a little and large forward pairing.

Whatever the squad is, they are simply not going to compete with the best.

[blandy]

I was thinking about all this and it does boil down to a simple fact - when in possession, England tend to lose the ball far too quickly and when under pressure, the option taken up is to hoof it towards a little and large forward pairing.

Whatever the squad is, they are simply not going to compete with the best.

You're right I think on the first point, but wrong on the second. The defeat was the narrowest of ones, but look at the Greek team - player for player nowhere near as good as our squad, yet their coaching has been fantastic. Portugal, though at home, I admit, have exceeded thei previous showings, again because the coach has changed their outlook. it can happen to England too, - even the frenzied nature of Prem League fotball is no longer a handicap - most of the games have been played at the same fast pace.

One day, one day....

[kiddybloke]

i was actually very pleased with our fine 2-1 AWAY win. It was all a bit dodgy for long periods as we got all excited on the counter and just hoofed it anywhere but when postiga decided he could actually score, did we showed that we could just go down the other end and score another. Big Sol with a commanding headder to win us the game. So you cant complain at anyone really as we won the game, sign of a good team when they can play poorly and still win.

As there is nothing wrong with our winnning goal and clearly the ref was shit all night to the point that he should have been arrested for crimes against football after the game, i take it as a 2-1 win. Just gets darius home early so he wont be AS knackered for next season.

[LancsVillan]

too many training sessions playing three touch football at the age of 12. It only encourages you to get rid of the ball too quickly

and where was the Lee Hendrie option ;-)

[Poll-AVFC]

I'll say Beckham.He was not the Beckham I knew...

Another joke:

[bigwheels]

Blandy, this is what I was getting at