England Team Thread

[EJG1980]

Gotta give Sven credit for the 2002 qualifying. As On The Edge said, we'd lost at home to Germany and drawn with (Finland) I think, before Sven took over, and we looked ****. We ended up winning the group so he has to get credit there. And even if Greece had beaten us, we'd have been in a playoff, not out completely.

Sven was decent at qualifying. The occasional unexpected draw, but on the whole we never looked like not qualifying under him. Sven's downfall was when it came to the crunch matches in the finals, he didn't have the extra tactical nous to get us past the best teams. And, tbh, our players weren't quite good enough against the best either.

[DeathAdder]

Ah, fair enough but at least Sven didn't have to rely on the likes of Isreal and *ahem* Andorra to throw him a lifeline.

No argumemt there. And in Sven's defencel in 2002 finishing second would have been seen as failure, unlike this time.

[EJG1980]

Fabio Capello is interested in the job, according to the BBC. Bit of an inaccurate article though. Says he left Roma when they were in danger of being relegated, when he actually left them in the summer just after coming 2nd! They had relegation problems the season after he left. The BBC need better fact checkers.

[rmoxon]

Was watching sky sports news this morning and as bad as we all thought sven was the stats seem to prove he was one of our best managers.

Mclearen is one of the worst, losing 38% of his games, Sven only lost 15% which was the lowest percentage out of all the managers they listed.

[DeathAdder]

El Tel lost just one, I think, to Brazil, not that I want him back in the job.

[Dazzyman]

Pff I could have got pushed about in wheelchair with a paid carer and done better last night on the pitch. Bunch of overpaid idiots. Bowt time they got rid of Venables as well before they end up like Leeds UTD!!!

[davesol]

Largely comes down to that old chestnut of too many foreign players in the Premier league. England's first XI is quality, but the squad is wafer thin on quality once we get a few injuries. Look at the players who were playing today, how many games have the 3 strikers out there played this season between them?? Two of them can't even get in the Spurs side for christ sake, and this is the best we have?!
Too many foreign players is without doubt damaging the national game, not enough English players are getting the chance to play regularly at the top level. Just look at Arsenal's squad ffs, Gooner supporters might as well follow Lyon and be done with it.

But then this raises the argument as to whether English players are good enough, if they're not forcing their way in. I've always thought there should be a cap on foreign players in domestic team's squads, the EPL stands for the English Premier league after all...

I disagree. I think the problem is the other way round. It is not that the Premiership has too many foreigners, it's that the England team hardly has any players with experience of playing outside of England. If you look at all the other good teams in the world (Brazil, Argies, Germany, Portugal etc etc) they all have players who who play in a mix of countries, and where many of the players have inidivdually played in more than one country so have picked up experience playing different styles. Other than Beckham, who do we have in the squad that has ever played for a club outside of this country?

I can't think of a time when the England squad has ever had more than a couple of players with foreign experience, so it is not suprising that we struggle against foreign styles of play. Obviously people like watching the Engand players week in, week out playing in this country, but if we want to be a top international team then surely our players have to expand their horizons and get experience of playing football in other leagues.

McClaren was critised on the BBC last night for playing an 'unfamiliar' system (i.e. not 4-4-2), but when England do only play 4-4-2 (e.g. under sven) they are accused of being unflexible and only having one option. Encouraging our players to play abroad would give them the ability to play under different systems and be comfortable in them. Limiting the number of foreigners in the premier league may give our players more game time, but will not teach our players different syles of playing.

[toythatkills]

I disagree. I think the problem is the other way round... etc

Totally hit the nail on the head. But it's never going to be sorted because we pay our players way too much. There's absolutely no reason for them to leave here, unlike Brazilian or African et al players. Until we start paying them less, or other countries start offering them more, the greedy sods are going nowhere. Very few players seem to play for a love of football anymore

As for overseas experience in the current squad aside from Beckham, there's Hargreaves, Crouch and Owen, off the top of my head, but very poor.

[Team Andromeda]

Any manager that plays a 22 year old keeper who has never played in a competative international match before, in such a crucial game, deserves to be sacked though. For once it really was the managers fault.

Oh please , England played a rookie keeper against Macedonia , Isreal ?. Yeah sure if Mc was going to put Carson in he should have played onthe weekend too , but lets not cover how poor your players were/are.

You can blame the systems , the tatics and the manger (me and van said ages ago what a joke McLaren ) , becasue we in Wales to do the same with Rubgy . Blame the systems , the manger, and go through them like they're sweets Instead of waking up to the fact that the players are more than 50% to blame, and we aren't quite as good as we think we are .

So you can blame the sh8t system , because yes it was crazy to play 1 up front , but still the so called golden generation did nothing , and were played off the park . The only players that even tried was crouch and Bechkam . And you haven't got players that can hold the ball, not compared to other teams on the world stage

[saif]

World Champions Italy. Serie A. Players outside Italy. Few.
Re-arrange the words, add a few and make into a pargraph. Italy do seem to do OK without the external influences. Spain did OK in the quals too and they have few that ply outside the Spanish Empire.
I do agree that it would help a lot of players improve but, all players saw what happened to the players that did leave other than the criminally overrated Beckham phenomenon. Steve McManaman became a better player at Madrid, played regularly (even though that did not stop the media reporting otherwise) and added plenty more nous. Didn't play for England 'til he helped rip Man U apart before being MOTM at the Champs KLeague final. He never got treated well by England management as he never had the media behind him.


In the England swquad, there are plenty of players that have [played well against continental opposition regularly so I do not accept they are not good enough. Yesterday for instance, not only did the players not play that well, they, more importantly did not play in a similar fashion that they do for their clubs.
Midfield: Barry played very conservatively (as ever for ENG) unlike AV.
Lampard hardly got the ball wheras t Chelsea he is always involved.
Gerrard did not run ONCE with the ball. I don't mean dribbling but just carrying it.
In attack, Crouch does not usually have ball after ball for him to flick, at Liverpool he collects, holds and distributes.

That is setting up the wrong system for talented players.

[toythatkills]

Mourinho has ruled himself out, it seems, along with Allardyce.

Harry Redknapp at 14/1 must be worth a bet, surely? It'd be a popular choice too so it'd really help get the press back on side.

[MarioMark]

Don't blame them. With Sven's brilliant record of 15% of games lost and all the stick he got, who'd want the job?

[vanpeebles]

Say what?!?! Sven was paid supermegabucks to be a winner and he was a massive loser. He played negative awful in tournaments which were there for the taking. Lets not all get misty eyed over that cretin.

[rmoxon]

Other than Beckham, who do we have in the squad that has ever played for a club outside of this country?

Hargreeves as well, and hes always done well for england, yet for some reason couldnt get a game latley.

.
So you can blame the sh8t system , because yes it was crazy to play 1 up front , but still the so called golden generation did nothing , and were played off the park . The only players that even tried was crouch and Bechkam . And you haven't got players that can hold the ball, not compared to other teams on the world stage

Thing is when they changed the systems to 4-4-2 England looked like much the better side, they all played pretty well. Then when it was 2-2 the manager decided to play defensive and they let another goal in. So if you are gonna blame the players then you have to say it was that they dont work well as a team when a defensive system is in place, they are all far too attacking minded and it just becomes a big mess. I still cant blame them for being attacking minded when the the manager did not realise their potential correctly though.

Someone like Hargreeves would have actualy been a good pick to balance out the team, but the manager couldnt see that lack of balance.

[ShadowDancer]

Hargreaves still isn't fully fit. He has had injury problems for a while.