England Team Thread

[Jebus]

I've never been a Beckham lover, I'll admit it, but I would never argue he isn't good on his day.

The England team should be 11 form players, Beckham is a form player, there really is no arguement.

McLaren was wrong to treat him how he did HOWEVER, you could argue that it spurred Beckham on to get it back, he hardly been setting the world alight beforehand.

Crouch is another I'm not a fan of but for England he just turns it on.

What's the old saying..."Form is temporary, Class is permanent"...Beckham is class and at the end of the day, he's probably the best dead ball kicker in the world, why the **** wouldn't you want that in your squad? (SQUAD, not neccesarily always the first eleven, but the squad for sure).

Going to the USA could ruin his England career...he needs to be playing somewhere like Spain, England etc, not the USA...I fear for him to be honest, it's an atrocious decision and one I'm certain his wife made for him. He's one bloke I think isn't doing it for the money, and playing out there will not be good for him, wads of cash or not.

[Nu-Eclipse]

McLaren was wrong to treat him how he did HOWEVER, you could argue that it spurred Beckham on to get it back, he hardly been setting the world alight beforehand.

That's all well & good, but did McLaren really have to axe Beckham from the squad completely to gee him up? Why not take the captaincy from him & just relegate him to squad/bench status after the World Cup? Now he's had to perform a complete grovelling U-Turn (the likes of which that would make Sven look like a free-thinker) and now has no other choice but to play him. Love or hate Beckham as a player, but any moron could see that he's one of the 23 best English players around at any time.

I'm no Beckham fan myself - I honestly don't believe him to be a world-class player, but even I have to credit him for his dignity in this situation, as McClaren has just taken outrageous liberties with Beckham's love of playing for England. Lesser players would have called it a day with International Football in the face of such piss-poor man-management, so it says a hell of lot about Beckham as a character.

[Jebus]

What's the old saying..."Form is temporary, Class is permanent"...Beckham is class and at the end of the day, he's probably the best dead ball kicker in the world, why the **** wouldn't you want that in your squad? (SQUAD, not neccesarily always the first eleven, but the squad for sure).

I did kinda say that Nu-Eclipse...I think the way he was treated was shameful, no matter how poorly he was at times, he always gave 100% which is more than can always be said for some of the other players who coasted through games, considering Beckham was undroppable during the Sven era, I think that shows a lot about the kind of person David Beckham is. The way he has conducted himself recently has pretty much won me over now as well.

Beckham would be in my squad if I was the England manager, hell, when there was rumours that Sam would be trying to bring him to Bolton I was absolutely ****ting myself with excitement, which goes to show that although I thought I didn't like him, I always rated him deep down.

If I were Beckham, the deepest insult would have been players like Downing in the starting eleven over me, that would have hurt the most.

[EJG1980]

Personally I think Steve McClaren went way too far by dropping Beckham from the whole squad. If he wanted to show he was different from Sven he should have dropped players like Beckham, Lampard, etc., from the team but keep them in the squad if they were under performing on a regular basis. Not kick them out of the whole squad and say they're never to return!

Dropping a player from the team but keeping him in the squad says to the player that he's good enough, but not the way he's playing right now, so he'd better buck up his ideas. Maybe if he'd done that Beckham's would have found his form and been firing on all cylinders after a couple of games out of the England team instead of ten or eleven.

[saif]

Sometimes I think players like downing being ahead of anyone in the pecking order is an insult to ME!

Actually, downing is not too bad - just he is not that good. Room for improvement but at heart a decent player methinks.
In the same way Beckham's disappearance covered the biggest shambles of English football (Phil neville in England squad!) his reappearance has deflected away from a few things.
Estonia did manage to get through the right hand side fairly often...Beckham wandering inside too much as ever and the fact that Wes Brown is just not very good. How does a player like him come on for a few minutes against Brazil, be UTTER GASH and then get into the first team?!?
The players that McClaren puts in his squad are laughable and I don't understand it at all.

PS I wanna say that while the Beckham crosses were of the highest order, they were not "on a plate" by any means. Owen and Crouch had a lot to do and are not given the credit for their finishes imho. Crouch's looping header is a tricky skill and gave the keeper no chance. Owen's off the outside into the side netting is class incarnate. Give full credit where its due.
Also, I wish people would shut up about Crouch being good against lower level opposition.
What exactly is tabloid Wayne's record against good teams? Whilst we are expected to hear about how Wayne Rooney (not scored for England competitively for 3 years; did nothing in premier against big 4; very poor record in Champs League) is the new pele but who ha he performed against?

[RBelmont]

beckam was used as a "scapegoat" during the world cup, or rather at the end of the world cup. a way to make a major statement about the direction of the team.

what has mclarren done apart from drop beckam? they still use the same piss poor straight 4 midfield that always failed us with sven.....? he needs to try dropping lamps all together, and play diamond shape with

joe cole, gerrard(pushing up behind cf's), beckam, carrick/smith holding.

its a shame shcoles retired as early as he did, we never replaced him in the squad.

overall lamps never seem to produce much for england, and seems to always be the weakest link so to speak.

maybe they could play rooney behind the 2 cf(crouch and owen) and play gerrard holding.

there are really good options for mclarren, but there seems to be a total lack of vision on display........why replace sven with an understudy who uses the same formation, but boots one of our best players.

and beck was only poor during the world cup because the arsehole of a manager at madrid wasnt playing him regular.......a total stubborn arse by all accounts.

[saif]

Beckham was a regular at real pre world cup, it was capello that dropped him (and not straight away either).
He was used as a scapegoat but I still feel he restrict the play somewhat (and he is not the only one). After the world cup, the only experiment that was being cried out for was "resting" frank. That seems to be the one thing that has not happened.

[RBelmont]

he's never been amazing for england so they should rest him for sure now.

the midfield being shared by gerr and lamps is/always has been the problem.

if i remember when lamps didnt play last gerrard came forward, and played the role of striker, central midfield, and holding all in one game lol, and he scored 2 goals.

it proved that stevie at least benefits from the change.

[saif]

to be fair, it was against andorra.

However good Lampard is, and he is very very good for Chelsea and superbly effective, there cannot be a sensible person that really thinks he is anywhere close to the completeness of steven gerrard. Surely.
That is why it was always bollocks to say that they shared defensive duties, stevie did the tackling and tracking back, frank did the speculative shots. Their movement is sometimes similar too and often for england, gerrard will get the ball but lampard is actually just a bit further forward, not ioffering a different option but just the same one 1 second earlier. Their understanding is poor although they have played together loads. TBH, not convinced with Rooney's understanding with Owen myself. Gerrard and beckham can dovetail (i guess stevie can track out wide when beckham wanders in), the two coles can and lampard *should with them too. But it is all so disjointed.

[RBelmont]

to be fair, it was against andorra.

However good Lampard is, and he is very very good for Chelsea and superbly effective, there cannot be a sensible person that really thinks he is anywhere close to the completeness of steven gerrard. Surely.
That is why it was always bollocks to say that they shared defensive duties, stevie did the tackling and tracking back, frank did the speculative shots. Their movement is sometimes similar too and often for england, gerrard will get the ball but lampard is actually just a bit further forward, not ioffering a different option but just the same one 1 second earlier. Their understanding is poor although they have played together loads. TBH, not convinced with Rooney's understanding with Owen myself. Gerrard and beckham can dovetail (i guess stevie can track out wide when beckham wanders in), the two coles can and lampard *should with them too. But it is all so disjointed.

yeah i think rooney would be good just behind owen and crouch, there are loads of options just begging to be played.......but mclarren has no balls.

lamps should deffo be dropped though, when ashley cole plays, joe cole should be able to play deeper, and interestingly enough.....while a.cole hasnt played....joe cole has looked slightly off his game.

[Jebus]

Actually, something has just occurred to me...scanning this thread I've seen no mention of it, but...the biggest scandal for me is :

Where was Jamie Carragher? The guy is a LEGEND at centre back for Liverpool, he and Gerrard are Liverpool's key men...and Wes Brown and Ledley King are picked over him? Hell, even if McLaren genuinly believes (and he's ****ed in the head if he does) that King is better, then at LEAST play Carragher as right back over Wes Brown.

[Kieran76]

I agree, Wes Brown is a joke.

[MarioMark]

Eng U21's are about to have Peno's for a place in the Final. You can listen to it here

[toythatkills]

This is a bit tense...

[MarioMark]

I know! Mega tense! 9-8 now. Eng were winning 3-1

Edit: after 24 penos it's 10-10