England Team Thread

[Kieran76]

How come footballers only seem to be called lazy, prima-donnas when they are playing for England, and not when they play for their club sides who actually pay them thei cast salaries?
It seems like double standards to me. Not talking about anyone in this thread, but i think the quality of football debate has slipped to below even tabloid levels. The average fan just seems to spout out a few well worn phrases when asked about anything to do with England. People don't seem to have their own opinions. football fans have always been guily of talking in cliches, myself included Brian, but lately they are even worse. Just try listening to 606.

[rmoxon]

Regarding the booing of that Ashley Cole geezer, someone on BBC 606 sums it up perfectly for me:



I can only imagine how dismal Wednesday's match will be, even without the aforementioned Cole twat: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/foot...ls/7666668.stm

Now isnt that odd, Capello complained about england fans booing having a negative effect before the match, Ashley Cole Got booed during the match, now he cant play in the next match.

Coincidence?

Guess we will see if he plays for chealsea this week.

How come footballers only seem to be called lazy, prima-donnas when they are playing for England, and not when they play for their club sides who actually pay them thei cast salaries?
It seems like double standards to me. Not talking about anyone in this thread, but i think the quality of football debate has slipped to below even tabloid levels. The average fan just seems to spout out a few well worn phrases when asked about anything to do with England. People don't seem to have their own opinions. football fans have always been guily of talking in cliches, myself included Brian, but lately they are even worse. Just try listening to 606.

Ive been saying for years I think gerrard is useless for both club and country, with him just ocasionaly winning a match for liverpool despite doing nothing else worthwhile for the rest of the game and people praising him to high heaven for it. But I generaly find that when you do that fans of his team, or any other players team you "insult", they too will attack you and the coversation will get nasty.

The fact is that we seem to love our club teams more than our country, so when people play for england its ok to hate them.

[Kongster]

So yeah, the game against Belarus? Who is gonna watch it?

[parkinho]

Good performance second half tonight, Heskey and Rooney superb again up top. 3 quality goals scored, Rooney's second being the pick of the bunch.

[Matt]

What kind of midfield were we fielding? It was horrible! Wilcot has pace but nothing else, he brings nothing to midfield at all - no tackling, no passing, nothing. Barry was absent. Gerrard (nice goal) and Lampard still can't play together! Let's get Hargreaves and Joe Cole fit and playing again

Up front was excellent. Everything went through Rooney, he's growing in confidence and finding his position. Heskey was great.

Defense was solid in the middle but both wide players were lacking.

A win is a win I suppose, but it's worrying how we played for parts, particularly the first half after the goal. They were much better in the second, but against a better team, we may have been down 4 goals by that point

[Red Hogg]

Bizarre. Under Sven people said England only performed in the first half. Now with Fabio we only bother in the second. Still, better than not performing either side of half time (McLaren).

[Ajay1986]

I don't know Wilcot, but Theo Walcott is great player and an amazing prospect for years to come. He has fantastic ball control even when going full speed, and can pick a pass. I certainly wouldn't pick the likes of Bentley or SWP before him.

[Matt]

I don't know Wilcot, but Theo Walcott is great player and an amazing prospect for years to come. He has fantastic ball control even when going full speed, and can pick a pass. I certainly wouldn't pick the likes of Bentley or SWP before him.

LOL sorry, typing too fast and not checking.

You must have watched a different player the last two games than me. He's a prospect up front, but I don't see him as a midfield player. I'm not saying SWP or Bentley would have done any better you understand, but it would have been nice for the guy to have turned up to the match.

[DeathAdder]

Ive been saying for years I think gerrard is useless for both club and country, with him just ocasionaly winning a match for liverpool despite doing nothing else worthwhile for the rest of the game and people praising him to high heaven for it. But I generaly find that when you do that fans of his team, or any other players team you "insult", they too will attack you and the coversation will get nasty.

I'm not a Liverpool fan, but to say that Gerrard is "useless for club" sounds like an extremely partisan fan of one of Liverpool's rivals talking. If I heard someone say that, I would assume they were on the wind up, had never seen Gerrard play, or were just plain insane / uninterested in football.

I could agree that he rarely produces anything like his club form for his country, much like Barnes 15-20 years ago. But obviously you think much less of him than that.

I bet United would snap him up if he wanted to go there and Liverpool were willing to sell.

[abigsmurf]

The press are going crazy about England again forgetting just how awful we were in the first half. This was a weakened Belaruz and they outclassed us! Our midfield was non existant with Walcott and Gerrard being especially bad.

We shaped up in the second half again and looked more organised but it makes you wonder if the superior fitness of the England side played a part. If we played against a quality side like that would we make it through a first half like the one yesterday? Would the opposing side let us play like that in the second half?

I suspect a lot of the press are going the build em up, knock em down route saying how amazing we are when we've still clearly got major problems.

[Leon Retro]

The Press have made with laugh this week.

England beat two crap teams - and as the one newspaper stated "England are on top of the world"

Roony is the greatest striker - because he scores a few goals against crap teams with bad defences and dodgy goalkeepers.

I didn't even bother to watch the matches; what was the point?

Anyway, when they convincingly play well against Spain, Argentina, Brazil etc... I'll take notice.

[Matt]

Against a better team with a good striker, we'd have been down 3 or 4 goals by half time. As you say, the press is ridiculous.

[rmoxon]

I'm not a Liverpool fan, but to say that Gerrard is "useless for club" sounds like an extremely partisan fan of one of Liverpool's rivals talking. If I heard someone say that, I would assume they were on the wind up, had never seen Gerrard play, or were just plain insane / uninterested in football.

Why would you think that? I'm sure if you look at his stats after every match he plays for liverpool he probabaly makes more bad passes than good ones and trys to run with the ball and loses it far too often.

So to prove you wrong, i am intrested in footbal, i'm just not intrested in Steve Gerrard running around like a headless chicken for 90 minutes.

[DeathAdder]

I have no doubt that you are interested in football - you are more in the partisan fan of another team category.

[SharkSkin-Man]

Why would you think that? I'm sure if you look at his stats after every match he plays for liverpool he probabaly makes more bad passes than good ones and trys to run with the ball and loses it far too often.

I think Gerrard's pass success rate was 77% last season. As a comparison, the highest in the Premier League at the moment is Xabi Alonso on 85%.

Gerrard will never have the discipline in his game to play conservative (some might say sensible) passes all the time. But I wouldn't change him, you might lose a small % extra of passes but I think you gain more over the course of a season in cutting edge when it does all go right for him. (This is for Liverpool of course, couldn't be any less interested in how it affects or works for Ingerland).