England Team Thread

[rmoxon]

That's what he's like at club level when he knows he has to contribute in the goal department. It's easy for him. He just goes "biff boff baff" and it's in.

While he often makes those runs that seem to leave defenses flat footed I cant remember many times that Ive seen Gerrard carry the ball into the penality area and dribble not just past but also around about 7 players and score in the premier league, certainly not against the better teams anyway.

The fact is that while the first goal was a corker, he only scored that second one (which was obviously still pretty good) becuase the defenders didn't want to tackle him in the penalty area. Had he been against a team of higher quality I'm sure someone would have at least tried to stop him from putting the ball in the net.

All the game England had been getting the ball in the area and moving it around pretty easily. Hungary were just extreamly cautious in this regard for the whole game, certainly a bit more than the average team would be I feel.

[hudson]

I probably see more of Gerrard than you. The lad has excellent dribbling and trickery to his game outside of his exceptional passing and shooting. What I saw from him last night was typical. He's the complete football player and for me, is still improving.

[nakamura]

I probably see more of Gerrard than you. The lad has excellent dribbling and trickery to his game outside of his exceptional passing and shooting. What I saw from him last night was typical. He's the complete football player and for me, is still improving.

Totally agree. He is such a huge talent and still getting better. Let us hope he retains that role for England.

[prinnysquad]

Although I totally agree with you, Sir Alf Ramsey didn't announce his team until 2hrs before a game so I think there must be some merit to it.

Owned.

I forgot about that.
It worked for him and that group of players I guess! I suppose with the WC being in England, they felt more relaxed maybe?
But not seemingly MuppetShow and his posse on foreign soil.

[Kongster]

Don't you think his English is improving though?

[prinnysquad]

Only when he's not asked an awkward question.

[Flabio]

Picked up a lot of injuries over this weekend, going to make the defensive situation pretty tricky to pick for the two qualifiers.

Might have to recall Upson and play him with Dawson at the back...

[abigsmurf]

Can't find the team info but apparently it's going to be 8 of the 11 players who played against Germany.

I would bet on a performance typical of England under Capello: few decent attempts up front despite constant deliveries there, lots of possession given away in mid field leaving them incredibly vulnerable on the counter. A strong individual performance by one player for 15 minutes saves the game and the press go wild over him and ignore the 75 minutes of bad football.

I think a lot of people and pundits need to take the blinkers off and realise that England in the WC wasn't much different to that in the qualifiers. The only difference was we were playing against defensively stronger teams who could punish us on the counter. The England players were so terrified and de-motivated you didn't get anyone 'stepping forward' and putting in strong individual performances.

Terry has lost all his pace and the manager didn't seem to notice (and played him like he can run up and down for 90 minutes like Ashley Cole does), now would be a good time to see if there's anyone who does have the pace to play like but who also has a good footballing brain so the defence isn't a disorganised mess like it has been without Terry and Ferdinand.

[Baseley09]

Yes it's that time again. The new England is probably still the same team Sven was putting out.

I need more Parker & Zamora in my England life, the line up is so boring these days.

[Flabio]

I think a lot of people and pundits need to take the blinkers off

The press guys they had on radio 5 last night were all sharpening their knives...

Was so one-sided the radio presenter found herself trying to defend Capello to try and get some balance. She failed.

[abigsmurf]

How many of these pundits were heaping praise on him during the WC qualifiers? Most of them I bet. Everyone can see we were bad in the WC. But the press acted like England were somehow a different team to the one in the qualifiers.

It was the exact same team with the exact same problems. The good results against bad teams and bad performances papered over by a short period of good play made the pundits ignore that there are/were fundamental problems with the team England put out and the way they play.

Walcott gets a hat trick and everyone forgets that he can't deliver a cross to save his life and that smart teams let him run around all he likes then easily win the ball when he stops.

Gerrard scores a couple and everyone ignores the huge gaps he leaves behind him in midfield when he runs all over the place trying to be superman every game.

[Matt]

How many of these pundits were heaping praise on him during the WC qualifiers? Most of them I bet. Everyone can see we were bad in the WC. But the press acted like England were somehow a different team to the one in the qualifiers.

It was the exact same team with the exact same problems. The good results against bad teams and bad performances papered over by a short period of good play made the pundits ignore that there are/were fundamental problems with the team England put out and the way they play.

Walcott gets a hat trick and everyone forgets that he can't deliver a cross to save his life and that smart teams let him run around all he likes then easily win the ball when he stops.

Gerrard scores a couple and everyone ignores the huge gaps he leaves behind him in midfield when he runs all over the place trying to be superman every game.

Sums up my thoughts. Walcott has had a good three games and now he's the saviour of the national side. Everyone seems to overlook the fact the goals this season have been against crap teams....

[toythatkills]

Amazing. LET'S CHANGE HISTORY. You know the '66 cup final? Rubbish performance that, lucky to score at all. We only won because of Germany's wacky defending. Maradona? Yeah, blatantly a header. We had a crap world cup, you can't just backdate that into a crap qualifying campaign ffs.

The games against Croatia in the qualifiers were brilliant performances, not just The Walcott Show. As were many of the other games. Sure, we didn't play the best teams in the world but...

We didn't play against teams that were better defensively in the world cup, we just played ****. Honestly, the teams we played in SA are no better or worse than the teams we played in qualifying.

Except Germany, and even they weren't much cop defensively. We just sucked.

Can't find the team info but apparently it's going to be 8 of the 11 players who played against Germany.

As if we know the team eight hours before kick off

Eight minutes more like.

[toythatkills]

Hart;
G Johnson, Dawson, Jagielka, A Cole;
Walcott, Milner, Barry, Gerrard;
Defoe, Rooney.

[NW2013]

World beaters, yeh! I thought JD was crocked and was off for an operation or has he already recovered (I'm a rubbish Spurs fan!)?