Creeping in Beddy??? It's been there for years! We are soooooooooooooo bad at keeping the ball it is embaressing. It is like it all through English football and one of the reasons is that the fans insist on getting the ball forward quickly, so players are pressured into knocking it long or hitting a 50:50 pass. I call it the English Disease. Take Saints fans as a small example: you can hear the agitation in the crowd at St Mary's when Kelvin looks to pass it to the CB's or a midfielder. But it is the way to play the game.
"working" ??? What is working? We played poorly and nicked a win against a really, really bad international team. I am delighted we won, because I am an England fan; we just have no idea on how to play the modern top quality game. Rooney is our best player .... get him in the team and hope he doesn't get frustrated by the poor passing.
An optimistic way of looking at things is that the way we played in the last 20 minutes was good, and we will probably aim to start the next game that way. To me, it's really obvious: get the wingers (Walcott and Young, NOT Milner) into more advanced positions and put an extra man in the middle. It's really, really simple.
It is, but we are too scared to be that adventurous. We will always prefer to play someone like Milner, who can "do a good defensive job as well as go forward", when the reality is that we have better attacking players. Why Chambo wasn't brought on for Young with thirty to go I don't know. Young was poor yesterday.
I don't like Johnson and he played them onside for the first goal last night, being stood on the six yard box while all the other defenders were pushed up. His passing was poor too, but he did get himself back and get some blocks/tackles in a couple of times.
If you're talking about the two last ditch tackles/blocks I'm thinking of, watch them again, you will see that it was his errors that lead to him having to make them tackles. He really should give up as a right back and move to right midfield.
I don't understand why it's such a high priority to have wingers who can do a defensive job. Put three in the middle and they'll do the job, allowing the wingers to just go and do what they do best. You'll never get the best out of a player like Ashley Young if you're asking him to track back that much. I'm not condoning the horrible new style of playing two holding midfielders that Man City have adopted, but three central midfielders - one who sits back (Jones), one workhorse (Parker), and one with the freedom to come forward (Gerrard), seems the best way to do things.
The whole "England are playing just right!" idea is a wholly terrible one relying on the fact that because England are winning, the gameplan is working... let's ignore the fact that we're not playing well (looking on the same level as Sweden, behind at times, better when Theo was put on) because hey, we're (barely) winning! Really, a proper team like Spain or Germany would put double figures past the England side from last night.
Just to add to my rant, it's not that I have anything personal against the likes of Milner and Barry, who I have slated A LOT in the past, but I just ****ing hate the style of football that they play and they make me want to claw my own eyes out. Right, I'm off to play football the way it's meant to be played.
Oh how I would like to see the return of the 5 forwards 3 midfield and 2 defenders at the back. Made for more exciting football!! Alf Ramsey has a lot to answer for in regards to new formations. (1966 world cup and all that) He won that using a 2 4 4 formation which was new then and has been improved upon by others since. The trouble in my view with football today is they seem to be making it more technical with formations and are concentrating on them rather than just getting out there and hitting the back of the net as often as possible. The disguises of passes was as much then a normal daily training exercise as it should be today. It seems though all footballers are having to be technicians as well as developing the other skills that are obviously necessary in today's professional game. Good old fashioned effort and ball skills are just not enough any more. In some ways this technical stuff is making the game more boring.....as contoversial as that may be it is my opinion. To a lot of you, you will not have a clue what I'm talking about as you have been brought up to this, shall we say modern way of doing things. I have yet to be persuaded that it is a better game today than yesteryear!
I'd shudder to think about what Spain or Germany will do to us .... oh I know, they'll hammer us 4-1 and we can blame the linesman for not spotting a good "goal"
You did well there Beddy, as you didn't even mention an old leather brown ball with stitching in it ...
I don't tweet, it just feels like talking to yourself. It is a good way of organising all of the news and stuff that you're interested in into one feed though. It's been cancelled now but we actually play some pretty good stuff.
I don't like holding midfielders. Ideally you want 2 central midfielders putting themselves about, a number 10/attacking midfielder/playmaker/man in the space (or whatever you want to call him), 2 wingers and an incisive goalscorer. Sacrifice something there and chances are, either you won't score many or you'll concede a lot. A holding midfielder as I understand it is someone who sits and sweeps in front of the defences and rarely gets forward. Sitting deep, they can't make much happen in the final third. For a 433 with a holding midfielder to work, you need wingers who are also playmakers or a playmaker who is also an incisive striker. Most clubs don't have those, let alone England. Holding midfielders are the new sweepers, they had their day, but teamscan play better without them. Steven Gerrard these days with the best will in the world, shouldn't be mentioned in the same sentence as Fabregas, Iniesta, Snijder or Ozil and I have to kick myself for doing it there. He doesn't have the legs to run at defenders anymore and he needs to be clever in using what he does have to avoid being consigned to the scrapheap.
