England Team Thread

[Baseley09]

Rooney is deffo a 2nd striker, its pure fact, im not sure what Capello is trying to get at, but englands best performances in recent years have been with Rooney shadowing, the whole idea is that his presence provides a 5th midfielder or a 2nd striker. Otherwise with him on his own the midfield is too crammed with boredom, or there is a spearhead duo up front and the midfield struggles to retain the ball. Saying that, seemed to be a problem even with 2 holding mids the other night.

[toythatkills]

If you'd stuck Drogba, or any other striker up front, on his own for England, they'd struggle. This is a shortcoming of the national squad. Rooney is a quality player, but he aint no one man band.

They'd struggle, but they'd also stay in position. Half the time Rooney messes up the lone striker role himself by being in defence (hardly the best place for a lone striker to be), or just getting in a strop and getting himself sent off, or something.

I'm not blaming Rooney for the system not working, but he's not the man for the job

[rmoxon]

Yeah i agree with what everyone has said really, playing him up front on his own is a waste.

But he SHOULD be in the team, as in my opinion hes still probably England's best player. Which is why people saying he isnt good enough is completley ludicrous to me.

[VR46]

Anyone watching this ? are we really playing as poorly as it reads ?

[parkinho]

Yeah very poor but no real surprises. Team has no shape or balance.
We played with Gerrard on the left, Beckham on the right, Fat Frank and Barry in the centre with Rooney and Defoe upfront. Problem is Gerrard and Beckham always come infield, Rooney drops deep which effectively leaves us with 5 men occupying central midfield.

What is more baffling than the lineup is that Capello seemed happy with the performance. Might as well have stuck with that Dutch guy we had previously

[toythatkills]

I don't get the impression Capello was happy with the performance, more that he's happy what the performance tells him. On the plus side, his post-match interview was in English, rather than Italian with a cockney accent or something.

I only saw the highlights so I probably haven't got an accurate read of the game, but it looked very much like every time we got within 20 yards we panicked and just shot, you don't beat Cech too often from there. There was no patience. Polar opposite to the Czech Republic who were calm going forward and just looked entirely comfortable every time they had the ball.

England really need to start learning how to break teams down and score in open play.

[ezee ryder]

Czech Republic are a quality international team and England are an ok international team, that is the difference. Surprise we actually got a draw out of it to be honest, even if it was undeserved. The media will no doubt be highly critical in the morning because they expect the world from the England team, that is just never gonna happen. We have good players but they cannot play as a team, everyone should have realised this by now.....even the media with their high expectations.

[abigsmurf]

Yeah very poor but no real surprises. Team has no shape or balance.
We played with Gerrard on the left, Beckham on the right, Fat Frank and Barry in the centre with Rooney and Defoe upfront. Problem is Gerrard and Beckham always come infield, Rooney drops deep which effectively leaves us with 5 men occupying central midfield.

What is more baffling than the lineup is that Capello seemed happy with the performance. Might as well have stuck with that Dutch guy we had previously

I don't understand why Gerrard has an automatic place in the England squad. I never see him put in a quality performance and playing Lampard alongside him always ends in a mediocre performance.

He's never put in the performance to earn dibs on that spot and the refusal of two managers to change a broken system makes me wonder if there's outside interference taking place.

[hudson]

I reckon Gerrard was probably our best player there. Lampard on the other hand was simply gash.

[Number45]

Lampard genuinely seems to struggle when taken outside of the standard Chelsea system. If England aren't going to play that way (relieve him of defensive responsibility) then I don't see why he gets in there each time.

I'd take Gerrard over Lampard each and every time. But then I'm biased.

[toythatkills]

It doesn't have to be one or the other though, I'm sure there's plenty of players that could perform better than Gerrard or Lampard have for England over the last few years. Lampard especially, of course, but Gerrard has hardly set the world on fire with his performances.

Or if not better, then differently, in a way that pushes the team forward.

[hudson]

There's no doubt Gerrard along with many other players do not perform as good as they do for their clubs.

My reaction was to Abigsmurf, who seemed to strangely just target Gerrard.

[Baseley09]

Abysmal, we've had the same team since Sven's last tournament, this is getting silly.

[hudson]

It's time for a 'Your England XI' thread. I reckon a fair few of them players will surface.

[prinnysquad]

England have an embarrassment of riches in midfield - Fatty, Cockney Chimney Sweep, Hypocrite and Scouse Wannabe all excel at club. Put them in the white and they're ****e.

Maybe except CCS, played out of position all the time.