Rival watch

Frank de Boer, wearing a mixture of confusion and anger, apparently.
Is that supposed to be a smile?

 

He's obviously never seen Croydon before.

 

This also seems to be the first time Palace fans have seen their new kits for next season, as a fair few of them are raging on Twitter about the choice of sponsor.

"ManBet X"?!!!

 

That "dilemma" kind of sums up the problems with England since the start of the "golden generation" and England managers in particular. None of them has had the guts to make the big decisions, like playing one or the other of them instead of mucking up the formation to "accommodate" both. And more recently (but it should have been resolved years ago) the problem of dropping Rooney - instead of again messing up the rest of the team to keep him in. And I also guess that is just the type of manager the FA want.

 

The biggest travesty of the whole Gerrard/Lampard saga was that a player superior to both of them ended up playing most games as a left winger, despite being right footed and having very little pace, which was a major contributing factor to his early retirement from international football.

 

Thought I would be able to guess who you are referring to, but this opened up the list too wide!!

 

Pity the England players now.
Forced to play in positions so that you can link up with
the Spurbacks or serve those one season wonders
Kane and Alli.

 

Scholes?

 

Then when he retired we shoe horned another player who preferred to play through the middle into that left sided role.

The great shame is that the 2 of them could and should have been able to play in the same side but we never had a manager work out that it had to be in something other than a 4 4 2

 

All the while during the Lampard/Gerrard saga, Scholes and Carrick were doing it week in week out at United. Never have got my head around that, but as a celt I'm forever grateful for it

 

Can some fecker put me out of my misery and tell me who the feck you're talking about!!

 

Perhaps the bigger problem was the total lack of a decent left footed midfielder born between Penzance and Carlisle - Trevor Sinclair being the closest we ever had to an 'option' over there. Scholes was shifted over for the simple reason that he was far more gifted than Lampard or Gerrard, and various managers reasoned that he would 'cope' more capably than they out of position. For all his talent, you simply cannot play at the highest level with even a single player out of position and get away with it. As we found out after Harry shoe-horned Modric onto the same flank, you get to a point where the opposition will expose and exploit the imbalance relentlessly.

It's interesting you mention that, as I sometimes think that the 'Golden Generation' would've been better served playing one of the more 'modern' formations that have popped up in the last few seasons. I would've gone with 4-2-3-1 as:

Neville Ferdinand Terry Cole
Gerrard Butt
Beckham Scholes Lampard
Rooney

EDIT: Looking back at that team, I realise that I may have mixed players from two different 'eras' Also a shocking lack of pace throughout the side - but in all honesty with that much technical talent and at the slower pace of intl football, that really shouldn't be an issue. Look at the all-conquering Spain side that won 3 tournaments back to back. Apart from Torres in his prime, no-one stands out as having electric pace.

 

No-one tell him

 

Bastards! You're all bastards!!!

 

It's Barton. We're talking about Joey Barton.

 

Of course!!! Why didn't I realise?

 

I feel bad for you mate. It's the bloke Henry chooses as the one player from the PL era he wishes he could've played alongside. Also telling that he notes how England had "the best midfield in the world on paper at one point". We've been discussing how and why that midfield failed to deliver on the pitch. Welcome to the conversation

 

That team could have played together (with a 'keeper) c.2004, although some would have been late 20s by then.
The problem with it - as with all England teams for generations- is the likelihood that it would be found wanting without the ball. How would they ever get the ball back from Spain?

 

You mentioned it later, Spain won plenty with playing everyone "out of position" in the sense they had no natural wingers or wide men whatsoever. In fact even Euro 2012 they didn't bother with any forwards.

We just didn't make the best of use of our team but i also think a lot of the english players are overrated. The most important thing really is to make a really cohesive team, something we just haven't been able to do.

 

Well if you're picking 2004 (makes sense from an 'era' perspective, it's probably the only tournament all of those players could've shared), that was a year alarmingly short on quality. Tiki-taka hadn't quite conquered Spain, who failed to get out of their group on Goals Scored. Germany, Italy and Croatia made up the other high-profile failures from the other groups. Would that team have had enough to beat Portugal, Holland and Greece en route to the trophy? Probably.