England Team Thread

[prinnysquad]

Yeah, it was a bit crap.

The French ran the show for the first 20 odd minutes, when England invited attack after attack by humping the ball towards Carroll and surrendering it very cheaply. They started to get more into the game by half time. In the second half, France didn't really go forward much, bar the goal and the post, though they didn't have to. England caused a few problems in the last ten minutes.

The negatives ...
Carroll was just used as a punt magnet. He's better receiving from the wings, but the too-deep England defence just bypassed the midfield/wingers and lauched it up to him.
Final delivery was poor.
Not enough off-the-ball movement.

The positives...
It was a young side, who have barely played together, or, in some cases, barely played. I don't think any of the debutants were 'bad' bad, just over-awed. They didn't stamp their authority, but there was plenty of promise to develop. Carroll was busy and often effective, it was just a shame he was used for longballs. Gibbs was lively and got stuck in, just needs to work on better distribution. Henderson, to the casual viewer, would have looked anonymous, and I can see why, but I watched closely, and his on and off-the-ball work was often decent. I'm not saying he had a good game - far from it - but it was a competent performance. He played position diligently, forced play back, and played a simple passing game, with two quality balls of note through to Milner and Johnson. Seemed to get forward more when Gerrard went off. He's not a holding player - if this is what MuppetShow asked him to do then he's got it all wrong. Henderson bished on the tackle of Gourcuff, but he did pull back before contact, and boy, didn't that sap make a meal of it; writhing around one minute, up and off like a cock-starved nympho the next.

The whole-gamers played to the final whistle, growing in confidence rather than letting heads drop. Fergie's teams have always had good conditioning and play to the last, and this mentality must stick in the national team.

It was a pretty poor game, but there was enough to suggest a crop coming through. Not a golden gen, or insta-impact quick fixes, but a group who will take a good 5 or 6 years before they hit their stride. Once folk like Wilshere, Rodwell, Jones, Muamba and Cleverley get involved, there's a lot of potential knocking around.

[abigsmurf]

Stevie G. Total footballer. Gush unlimited.

Is rather amusing ITV giving man of the match to someone on the losing side who was at fault for one of the goals.

[toythatkills]

I didn't watch the game, haven't read anything aside from the score, and don't even know if Steven Gerrard played.

I'm still awarding him ITV's Man of the Match. That's his 70th in the last 70 England games!

[ShadowDancer]

England, I'm not trying to summarize, We're just a group, Mid Sven reign onwards of mostly technical players who lack imagination, play a boring as hell football, its tosh.

We then have Hargreaves, used to get booed (Scapegoat) has a few games, suddenly brilliant, he was brilliant, he is sadly missed, techinal and imagination.

SWP, imagination, not technical, bit of a championship player at best to be honest.

There are a few others, but we have sadly become, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring. Each boring written with contempt.

The Euro96 squad put these technical twats to shame.

I'm giving up, it isn't tonights result, its the play style. Infact, even if we got results from it, It would be boring, but we play like this and get no-where.

Load of ****.

[rmoxon]

What was with the gushing over Gerrard by ITV? You'd think he'd scored a hat trick rather than trying to be superman and leaving England horribly exposed mid field.

Commentators always gush over him, I think he must pay them all off or somthing, he can do know wrong in their eyes ever.

England were very poor today apart from the last 10 minutes, though i cant quite work out wether that was just becuase france got bored and nearly fell to sleep or becuase england actualy started to play.

Either way, they were not good enough by a long way, not that i expected them to be.

Andy Caroll was decent whenever he was on the ball though IMO.

[hudson]

So they should acknowledge World Class players. Even the best have bad days. Not sure if he pays them money like. I'll ask.

[ShadowDancer]

Gerrard is the best current England player by a country mile. It really does go without saying. Only plus point, No Frances Wayne Rooney Jeffers.

[vanpeebles]

Why do England always revert back to some slightly outdated indirect form of longball. I lost count of the times the defence just launched forward with a massive punt. Teams in the lower league don't play that kinda stuff now so why does the national team?

[nakamura]

We need to learn to play a bit more free form. It is always too rigid. Why cant the likes of Young and Johnson be allowed to swap wings? Why can't the likes of Milner push right up top if Carroll drops deep to pick the ball up? If Gerrard is deep, Barry needs to be up.

It all lacks movement and imagination. The formation is should be a basic guide of positions and players should be able to swap roles when needed. All it seems is to lump it to Carroll or another big man through the middle. When we work it wide we never cut in and look for the overlap. So many times I have seen both the right back and right mid running into each other, Glen Johnson is worst for that.
If someone like Adam Johnson picks the ball up wide, Glen needs to be down the wing offering the overlap, there needs to be a MF player in the centre and a striker on the edge of the box. There are never any basic options like this.

Another issue is despite the slow tempo of the game, our players seem to try to move the ball at breakneck speeds all of the time. They cannot recieve a pass and just put a foot on the ball. They always try to keep it moving and rush the pass whereas France we regularly rolling the ball around our 18 yard box.

We are very much kick and rush for the NT and we certain have enough quality individuals not to do that.

[MonkeyJuggleDX]

My mate sent me a text during the game saying he'd rather watch an Allardyce team over our national side. Made me chuckle.

[Baseley09]

My mate sent me a text during the game saying he'd rather watch an Allardyce team over our national side. Made me chuckle.

Heheh, I think id rather watch the national side than one of his outfits

[prinnysquad]

Reading various forums, there seems to be so much confusion about what should be done. Some people are saying that we should bring young players through, others are howling that you should always play your very best team in every game. Some are saying that England's coaches, etc, are to blame; others are blaming the lack of opportunties given to English players in the PL, because that route isn't the quick-fix that PL managers need to stay up or win trophies.

I'd like to see a balance of experienced players alongside young players. These young players should be calmly guided into international football - there should be no pressure to be an instant revelation. Fans should cut them some slack and expect tough games, especially against good teams. Wins against smaller teams should be greeted by a measured level of reserved encouragement. The media hysterics greeting wins and losses are inevitable, but if a young player is seen as having real potential, they should not be hounded out by a clamour to restore past long-tried failures.

As alluded to on here, the style of play must be flexible. Formations must find a balance that reflects the strengths of individuals and the team. They must be fluid, with constant movement into space to provide options at all times. Stylistically, longballs should not ever be Plan A, no matter how big your target man, especially in a 4-5-1 set up. There is a role for a fast passing game, but not at the expense of surrending possession cheaply. Nakamura is right - in a tight game, they must put their foot on the ball and use off-the-ball movement to create the space to play. Wingers can flourish when there's movement from everyone. It's the rigidity of the set-up, and the static options, that is so predictable and easy to defend against. Mind, there's absolutely no point in playing wingers if you spoon the ball 70 yards from the back, while under no pressure, as a primary tactic.

[abigsmurf]

It all lacks movement and imagination. The formation is should be a basic guide of positions and players should be able to swap roles when needed. All it seems is to lump it to Carroll or another big man through the middle. When we work it wide we never cut in and look for the overlap. So many times I have seen both the right back and right mid running into each other, Glen Johnson is worst for that.
If someone like Adam Johnson picks the ball up wide, Glen needs to be down the wing offering the overlap, there needs to be a MF player in the centre and a striker on the edge of the box. There are never any basic options like this.

Another issue is despite the slow tempo of the game, our players seem to try to move the ball at breakneck speeds all of the time. They cannot recieve a pass and just put a foot on the ball. They always try to keep it moving and rush the pass whereas France we regularly rolling the ball around our 18 yard box.

We are very much kick and rush for the NT and we certain have enough quality individuals not to do that.

At lot of the kick and rush stuff comes down to the fact that England usually seem to rely on Walcott or SWP for runs. Both of those players can run fast but the second they have to do something with the ball, they struggle.

Neither of them can deliver a decent cross with any sort of consistency and they both lose the ball easily to anyone not intimidated by their speed. They should be forcing last ditch tackles from defenders, instead defenders just stand their ground and stick a foot out.

Other players notice this and the long balls start.

He wasn't playing yesterday but why not make better use of Ashley cole? He's not as fast as wallcott or SWP but he's still fairly quick and he can actually deliver balls. England needs some fast movement but it's worthless if there aren't any quality balls at the end of it.

[Baseley09]

Why are players like Scott Parker & Lee Cattermole who have quality and experience under their belts being overlooked.....especially the later for that holding position considering he plays alongside Henderson and was a mainstay at U21 level?

[nakamura]

While I do agree Smurf, half the reason they always deliver such poor crosses is that they are always at full pace. The simply do not know how to slow down before delivery. This is one area where Lennon has improved. He can burst past defender and look up.

Cole has always been good at that, where he makes the overlapping run he gives himself time to measure the ball in. You don't see him trying to deliver a ball in while sprinting.