This last week down under I have been out and about in my England tops and have been asked by various nationalities why we have not won the world cup since 66 as we have had the players to do it,,and all said we have the best league in the world ,,Are they right have we had the players and did we miss the boat ?
Haven't really had the players in my eyes, yes we have had terry, beckham etc that have shown pride putting on the shirt. But then we have had lampard and ferdinand and all the other players that have never shown their club form for England. Trouble is all the England managers we have had or now have, never pick on form. Its always by name which is pretty sad tbh when players like le tiss never got a look in. This ends up with the same players playing for England without any real merit. So they just coast each match knowing their get picked if they play sh*t anyways. Until we get a manager with a backbone we will never come close to even winning. I would love to see a young England team go to the euros, to gel in time for the world cup. But this will never happen under capello.
England have perennially underachieved. It's not a modern fault, it's been going on for donkey's years, even under Ramsey in 1970. Then they have failed to qualify in tournaments, when they've had the players, to do that, at the very least. What is different nowadays, is that the underachievement is even more pronounced than it used to be. In comparison to other countries, the players are, on average, of a better standard. I don't expect England to win tournaments [I have long since stopped caring anyway], but I do expect them to be semi-finalists, or finalists. They should be capable of that.
Whethe the Premier League is the best in the world is very much up for debate. The Champions League shows the top English, Spanish and Italian sides are roughly the same, Germany are a little behind because of finacial restrictions in the Bundesliga. Most of us have a very limited knowledge of European football outside of the Champions League elite. Most of us take the marketing bullshit as gospel because we don't know any better. The truth is that we enjoy games more if they are meaningful to us. I've enjoyed some awfully drab Saints games. Each respective country probably thinks their own league is the best unless it's so obviously poor like the SPL.
I think in 1998, 2002 and 2006 we had squads that were capable of winning the tournament - 1998 in particular, but we were knocked out by one of the best teams in the world each time. I think in 2006 we underachieved and should have beaten Portugal, but in the 1998 and 2002 tournaments we were very good and played well. People are too quick to jump on the team and call it crap. We always have a chance, but so do 8 or so other teams.
It does not matter even if it was the best league in the world. There are so many foreign players in the league that many of the English players do not get the opportunity to play and the clubs are more likely to buy a cheap foreign player rather than wait and spend the money on developing their own.
2004 and 2006 we had good players, but the team never really worked with Sven and Lampard/Gerrsrd. I guess because we were used to failing, it didn't ring alarm bells. Neither of those were anything like as damp as our failure to qualify in 2008 or our exit last year. Right now though, we are crap though and we need to lose the expectations and realise that a valiant effort (wherever that happens to take us) is the best we're going to get.
If you have a misfiring league side, you can get in some new players and work on them. England managers have no time to build a team, so take the most experienced players and hope they can play together. It's good to have players who already play together, like Scholes, Beckham and the Nevilles. Few teams now have a group of Englishmen playing regularly together. As I said before, I favour the idea of players coming through the age groups together.
This debate will rage on and on forever. The best chance England had to win the World Cup was in 1990. Since then we've had the formation of the Premier League which over the last 20 years has brought with it a massive influx of foreign players, managers and investors. This has only served to weaken the development of English players and managers, thus hampering the overall ability of the national side amongst other things.
Once again, I use Germany as an example. We're forever being told they aren't as capable, as individuals, yet they consistently outperform England. When you know the answer to that one, you'll know the answer to why England under perform.
There's no doubt we've had the players to win things on club form but they just can't replicate that for country! I'm desperately hoping (as much as I'm going to hate myself for saying this and I'm sure a few of you will hate me aswell) Harry Redknapp takes over after the Euro's! He is personally the best English manager we have available these days and the last of a generation. After him who do we really have, almost half of the Premiership managers are Scottish and due to the fact most Scottish can't stand England I can't see many - if any - of them wanting to take over, most of the other half are foreign which personally completely rules them out as England should have an English manager in charge. Personally I would say the best English managers behind Redknapp is probably Big Sam and our own Adkins!
This question was put to Ray Clemence a few months back, and I thought his answer was interesting. It was something along the lines of To win a world-cup, a team needs two things. Firstly it needs to include two or three world class players, and I believe we have those. Secondly, it needs those players to be in a rich vein of form for the duration of the tournament, and this is where we have fallen down over the years, you only need to look at Rooney in South Africa. You also need a little bit of luck, as well, of course. Not verbatim, but it made sense to my ears.
I'm currently reading a book called "Soccernomics" by Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski and it's fabulous. The whole 2nd chapter (or thereabouts) is about why England hasn't won, and it's VERY convincing. I recommend the book to everyone. It's from 2009, so slightly outdated, but I heard in an interview that there will be a 2012 version, so maybe wait for that. It's really quite educational. Full title Soccernomics: Why England Loses, Why Germany and Brazil Win, and Why the U.S., Japan, Australia, Turkey - And Even Iraq - Are Destined to Become The Kings of the World's Most Popular Sport
England have had players but have not had the manager/coaches. There is no current English manager capable of steering England to win a major trophy, Agent Redneck and Big Sam have both linked their own names with the England job for their own gain. Neither in my opinion are capable enough or have any real pedigree compared to our previous two foreign managers. Sven and Fabio have far better CV's (Fab in particular) and it is only after taking our national post that they're records have been questioned. Agent 'arry is not as appealing as the papers would have you believe, he is just after the big paycheque the FA are prepared to hand out. Also i fear appointing ol' twitchy would mean a regular start for Lampard. As English managers go Hodgeson would be better than either of the two mentioned but i still stand by my first statement and would not expect a trophy from any English manager for a long time to come. However if a certain Saints manager continues progressing as he has then in 5/6 years time maybe my opinion would change...I didn't say that out loud did I?
In reality the only club 'Arry hasn't succeeded at in 1 way or another was us but that was to be expected, Big Sam can go suck himself and if he was EVER to be England manager I will become a Wales fan (I have Welsh blood) so personally 'Arry would be a good choice apart from obviously Lamps getting more playing time as you said yourself
Yes ok i do not dispute your point about his relative 'success' previously but the sort I expect of a World class manager is titles and european honours don't you?
Quite a few Scots in the PL. Top English managers: Harry Redknapp Alan Pardew Neil Warnock Roy Hodgson Steve Bruce Mick McCarthy Nigel Adkins Sam Allardyce Redknapp, Warnock and Hodgson are all over 60, so they will probably retire fairly soon.That leaves you with Pardew, Bruce, McCarthy, Adkins and Big Sam when Twitchy gets the boot. If they still want an English manager, it's quite likely they'll knock on Nigel's door.
Leaving aside our own particular miracle worker [I wish posters wouldn't mention him in this category - best kept secret, and all that] and the usual suspects of Redknapp, Hodgson, etc... I think England could do a lot worse than Alan Pardew. He's there on merit. Go on, make a proper case against him. I dare you..!
