Not in the future given he'll have a reasonable amount of time to work with a squad and some younger players. Given the lack of preparation, a conservative squad and tactics made sense and he got as much out of them as anyone could expect apart from the obvious under-performers.
England were lucky to get seven points from that group, France dominated the game and wasted a lot of opportunities, Sweden got in behind the defense a good few times but failed to take advantage, and let's not forget it took a shocking goalkeeping error from Isaksson just to get England back into that game, even an average Ukraine side got the better of England. Then there's the Italy game, England were lucky that the Italian's couldn't hit a barn door with machine gun that night, they should of had 3 or 4 goals at the very least, probably more, England may of got some points but they played a lot worse than a very poor Greece team, even the Greeks realize that if you want to play that ultra defensive style at the highest level you need to have 3 people in the center of midfield, the 2 we played there in that static 442 setup were overrun constantly, and the fact the entire midfield was sitting so deep meant that it was almost impossible for any of them to get up to support the attack.
That's not how I saw it. I thought we were comfortable in shutting up shop against France and that they never really looked like getting a second. We were the better side for the whole Sweden game bar a mad 15 minutes. Ukraine was similar to France- got what we needed and shut up shop. Italy we were outclassed and the tactics were wrong. I'm not accusing you of doing so, but I think a lot of people confuse playing defensively with playing poorly.
That's exactly what I'm doing because we played incredibly defensively but still failed to stop teams creating a lot of shooting opportunities, France (who played poorly in that game) still had more than enough shots on target to win that game, the Sweden game was more even but they still managed more shots than France, and they scored 2 goals after some poor defending from set pieces, they weren't lucky (like England were with the Walcott goal) the defending was just poor, even an average Ukraine side managed twice as many shots as England. Then there's the Italy game, they had 3 quarters of the possession and almost 40 shots, that's shocking at any level, even more so considering England were playing with a back 8 most of the time.
3 assist.......... not much else though, like maybe keeping the ball and having an impact in midfield. Rooney scored, he was still poor as has been pointed out. The only good thing is we did better than expected, much much better. 7 points from our group doesnt tell the whole story, not once were we the better side, outplayed by footballing minnows in some parts and out passed by Italy, I mean **** sake.
Its clear we have higher standards and expectations. We expect the very simple things like ball retention to be used and if you play defensively that you actually defend when it matters. Otherwise its pointless.
A bit harsh on Gerrard there. Other than the assists, he did for once do what was asked of him by the manager and kept his position while working hard and intercepting the play alongside Parker. Keeping the ball when playing that deep is not easy. There is a lack of options and therefore he was always tempted to try and find the killer pass. Playing that deep was not Gerrard's fault. It was a clear instruction from the manager. Rooney on the other hand could not even do the basics and his touch was again shocking. The amount of times he lost the ball in those two games he played was shocking.
Yep, supply the issue for his poor touc time and time again, supply is the fault not his bad passing poor positioning and poor technique. England were poor but Wellbeck looked twice the player rooney did, and CArroll scored too, n his wasn't a practical og either. Wellbeck won header after header against italy and got that important goal agaist sweden with some quick thinking. He was Uniteds best player there by far n spain and bad, well bad got himself into those positions at least, rooney didn't have the brain to get himself free like that. as great as he is supposed to be, yet again when playing the best he comes up short
Not blaming Gerrard or any one player, the team failed to do the basics and thats the issue. We set out to be hard to et and while it seemed we were the fact is we played 3 poor teams and when we came up against any quality they literally played us off the park. We have better players than that but literally no idea how to use them. Also dont think we learned much from it. Our relative success from it will mean we once again over hype our chances next time sadly.
Rooney was bad, but only as bad as the whole team. If your making Rooney your focal point then play to his strengths, if you dont then you cannot expect him to dig you out of every hole. That is what England fans expect him to do. We United fans expect that at United and we get it more often that not.... because the teams built to suit him. Want the best out of your best player? set up to benefit him then, every other club does, either have players who take others away for space, defensive midfielders to cover others, a free role to exploit their assets. England did none of this at all and thus we performed like a bunch of amateurs who pulled off a shock.
Now look at the supply and support those three get and you will see the difference, even an average Ukraine side attacked with pace and numbers, something England failed to do at any time throughout the tournament.
Look at Rooney vs Barca in 2011. One half chance, one goal, and Barca were far better than Bayern in that game. And Drogba never does it for the Ivory Coast. They've been favourites for three of four of the last few ACONs, and have bottled them big style, usually with Drogba going missing in the semi or the final against an inferior team like Egypt or Zambia. Good club form and being a great player for your club rarely translates into good international form. Dunno about a tidy side. I'd say a very limited but defensively well organised side. We were lucky to win against Ukraine, and how Italy failed to put three or four past us is beyond me. The defence did well, but that was largely thanks to having Gerrard and Parker shielding them virtually all game. In contrast, the attacking players generally did badly cos they got little direct support from the midfield and ended up being very isolated against France, Ukraine and Italy. I think that's just part of being a second tier national side. We can either sit back and defend and try to nick a goal hoping we don't concede, and probably ultimately end up at a shoot out again, or we can try to be a bit adventurous and attacking and end up getting tanked 4-1 by Germany or any other decent side. Either way, we aren't going to win anything unless we get lucky (i.e. Greece in 2004 lucky).
What's you point exactly, just his goals scoring record? Yes he has managed to score a lot of goals (remember he takes all penalties and direct free kicks) for a team that is considerably stronger than 99% of their African Cup of Nations opponents, but African players like M'Boma, who failed at Sunderland, has managed to score 33 in 57 appearances, even Abedi Pele scored 33 in 67 appearances for Ghana and he's a midfielder! The point about Drogba was about him not "doing it" for Ivory Coast at the tournaments, which he often doesn't when it gets to the knockout stages, he has managed to get 10 goals during one ACoN, which is impressive, but Eto'o once managed 18, even United failure Manucho managed 8 for a much, much weaker Angolan team.
