It reminded me of Roy's ill fated time at Anfield, his post match interview stating that he wished they had beaten us in normal time rather than pens!? I know what he was trying to say but he really doesn't help himself sometimes. And he was smiling a little - I want my manager to be ****in gutted when we lose (see Gerrard's reaction) whether we deserved it or not. Btw same thing applies to subs laughing on the bench when their team is getting beat - 5 game ban from me sunshine!
Yeah, I was hoping for some rubber legs as well but it wasn't to be :-( Hart has to be my favourite player outside of Liverpool. He's a decent player but also someone who is probably a laugh in real life."
I think we all knew we wasn't going to win the tournament even though some got a bit carried away with the hype after winning the group though. Knowing we wasn't going to win, I'd have preferred us to have a go at teams playing some decent football and failed to get out of the group than what happened. I find it very frustrating seeing players like Sturridge, A.Johnson, Kyle Walker (out inured so no ones fault) and Micah Richards left behind. these should be in and around the England first team!
Exactly - we're not world beaters but at least go out and play some football. Then again, this is Roy's team so I wasn't expecting fireworks. Going back to the OP - I am grateful for the job Kenny did in restoring faith and even though the results went against us, we played good attacking football. Hopefully BR can get us playing and scoring. I'm very optimistic for the season ahead!
England suffer from the demands of English football, our players are not good enough to compete with Spain, Italy or Germany, but they could at least be given a fighting chance. We need a smaller Premier League, take the top flight Clubs out of the League Cup and give them a midseason break.
If you were to do this, would you keep the Europa League spot as part of the competition? If not then the competition is useless If so, surely you are rewarding failure? Also, the teams that would then get in to europe would not be prepared and this could effect our co-effcients. The smaller clubs need the League Cup as it provides prize money, tele-money and the possibility of large gates in the later rounds but they need the big clubs to be a part of it otherwise the sponsorship would get pulled and we'd have another Debenhams Cup scenario on our hands
for the record; 1. while the sentiment that getting shut of the face rubber is right a better thing to say is thank god we can buy foreigners who can pass the ball.. rather than pinning any hope on an untried manager. 2. england were really poor all tournament, they got a goal off gerrards great cross v france against the run of play, then france had a row and threw the group away. we played sweden who were awful but scored twice from a geriatric and the ukraine were only there with old fellas as hosts... in other words 7 points in that group was only what anyone should expect.... it was a huge bonus that france threw it away and we avoided spain. 3. england always lose the first good side they meet, this time was no different. 4. i'm glad no lfc player (bar johnsonmaybe ) can be in any way blamed for it... yet the mancs who were bloody awful seem to be getting away scott free. what does sir rooney the grannybasher, lord Young the diver or welbeck the wannabee have to do precisely to actually be dropped i wonder.... carroll had a good impact on every game he played. gerrard made more goals than anyone and ran himself out... not that he can run mind... 5. our boys can go on their hols now, be back for 14th july and off to the us on tours now... good... no real injuries either... 6. the talk of just playing less football is DRIVEL. england will not improve and cannot improve as long as they are producing henderson types and no pirlo types. the best will in the world guys but we are journeymen and our league is chock full of foreign imports that take up all the premium roles. 7. pens... gotta love them. No matter what we do to lessen the games lads like young and rooney will bottle it and we'll see keepers like hart guessing which way to dive cos the fa fail to do any homework on more than 2 Italian players! buffon was close to most of ours and you know he was given a dossier on every england player once we were playing them.... prepared nodoubt over six months and on every team possible to be met on the route to the final in knockout action..... england... ho who'll take one lads? ashely... or what about you ashley... top lads, never taken one in training? that don't matter lads.. big joe will save one we told him pirlo always shoots to the left....
@jnorthcroft: @TonyBarretTimes Btw, at England training watching keep-ball drill on Fri. Startling how good Henderson, technically, outside game situation Sunday times sports writer tweeted this. This would lean towards (for our player at least) that it is mentality rather than technical ability. This is not the first person to state Henderson is technically very good; so how do we "big him up" head wise to replicate it it on the pitch when it matters? Do we think he's the perfect experiment to see how good BR is?
may i add one thing here... the single only time england strung a few passes together and actually moved it to one side of the pitch and then back to the other was when Johnson got in and nearly scored... after that we just kicked it away. .... re: smaller clubs... an away day to a big club = a cost... having an extra match at home is always increased revenue... fans i agree its a very weak show indeed with mancs turn up with rubbish kids but there you go..... the league cup for league clubs = auto windscreen shield... literally the cup would die to that. its a throwback 3rd cup and it doesn't sit well in the calender but you know what... its getting more attention from big clubs than the fa cup!!! the time it is on around the CL means you can be in the final by january. I would love to see the bloody internationals forced to either preseason or end of season totally as mini tournaments and those dmaned firendlies banned, then there is two choices, expanded the champions league format to a euro super league for the rich OR move the league cu pto run it off pre christmas totally.
"There are 34,790 coaches in Germany holding Uefa's B, A and Pro badges compared to 23,995 in Spain and 2,769 in England." http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/18579009 Well there's an answer to my question. Ironic that Germany's response was to results against England in part & that they copied our academy set up & enforced it at every club. Think outside the box. What about: 1) you have this new FA centre who hopefully hire the best coaches, nutritionists etc. It becomes a true football college. 2) kids (pick an age) are offered places at this football college (which also excels at academic studies; (no excuses have to pass the academics each year to play) they get premiership quality, coaching for the following price; 3) they are "owned" by the FA not a club until a certain age or the FA believes they are not of standard. The FA will be responsible for providing the continuation of high level academic education for the rejectees if wanted.so youngsters aren't just thrown on the scrap heap. 4) depending on age & FA coaches recommendation, these players can be loaned out to clubs; say for free if the club adopts the same models of play & style as the FA centre, preference will be given to top ten of championship, bottom ten of premiership to attempt to improve the entire league (sort of like the American draft system) Add in that if the club pays the wages for that time (pay as play) they get first dibs on signing the player when they reach the qualification age. 5) the other provision is that the players are always available for Brazil level (amount of games) of internationals a year. Clubs will get extra support/bonuses for taking groups; a back four or at least centre back pairing for example. These players will always get the preference for senior England team selection. Players that came from club academies have to prove they can fit into the selected international system & be an improvement on the FA player before they're selected. Advantages of this system: Players are together playing the same style of football at all levels right up to international level. They are team in every way. They are educated intelligent players who have been taught to love & respect their national team (because it gave them their pay or at least opportunities and from a young age it's become their main identity. It helps clubs because they have less of the players on expensive wages missing club games for international duty or from related injuries or they can't complain because they have benefited from a talented young player/s on the cheap. And hopefully a good few of the players when reaching qualification age (say 23) will be good enough to attract the big clubs anyway; because who wouldn't want ready made technically gifted players at a limited price (covers the cost of FA training) This should also have the knock on of bringing down prices & agent fees as foreign players are now competing with cheaper just as gifted options who have to be sold for the first year to an English club. This is ridiculously rough as an idea but if I can come up with this over a cup of tea(imagine how much better it would be on beer!) surely others can come up with better!
