I remember our first XI in Japan , Germany , Holland and Ukraine and regardless of tactics we were crap , media over hype of the golden generation , we go overboard for a basic average player , United were prepared to let Rooney go this year but the only bidders and the the bidders were City , this is our supposed best player and out of the big boys only one wants him .
I'm sure that any club will be willing to let players go, providing the price is right. How do you know City were the only bidders? Many clubs wouldn't even try bidding for him because he won't leave, yet that doesn't mean that they wouldn't want him in their team. Mourinho went public a couple of years ago saying he wanted Rooney-this is Real Madrid, a side who at the time were the second best team in the world IMO with an already strong forward line of Benzema, Adebayor and Higuain (albeit he was injured at the time I think). Rooney would get in most European 11's.
I've been watching a terrible team over the last 4 years.What have we done since 66?One semi final that's it.
So you wanna keep giving tax payers money to poor countries that waste it.Thanks for it, Portugal and Greece have wasted loads of it.It's just a fancy USSR. Aren't you fed up with England always playing crap football and going no where in tournaments?I couldn't watch the whole match last night as I was falling asleep most of the time. Don't come crying back here when we lose on penalties in two years time.
I don't want to imagine how bad we would of played with him in the team . Italy only start playing well in the finals, same with Portugal. England normally do well in the qualifying rounds, but they were shocking last night, hey they might even win the world cup on that basis.I doubt it though.
The USSR was a communist state. The EU is a social democratic state. There are so many differences. If EU members, such as Greece, are becoming a burden, then they should leave, not us. The open borders and free trade within the community are a wonderful thing and we don't embrace it enough, if anything. Of course I'm fed up with England playing poorly in tournaments, but I am capable of calmly and rationally assessing what went wrong instead of flipping out and crucifying certain players. You probably don't remember World Cup 98, considering you think our "golden generation" was 2002-06, but that was a great team that stood a very good chance of going all the way. We were more than a match for Argentina and deserved to win. The France and Brazil sides that reached the final were no better than ours. I think you're expecting way too much from the England team to be honest.
In respons to the original question "Will England become as bad as Wales?" I doubt it, but it's not a particularly good question since Wales have actually done very well for a small country that loves it's rugby so much. England would love to have Allen and Bale in the side and would have valued Giggs and Bellamy a few years ago too.
Joe - You assume we say Cleverley was garbage because he missed some chances...yet again you assume too much. Cleverley was garbage because he kept giving the ball away, because he was supposed to hold his position between midfield and attack, and yes he missed chances. So far from having a good game he gave possession away too many times, made the gap between the wingers and forward line too large because he thinks he is Lampard and came back to get the ball loads of times before..........either giving it away or passing back to a defender which meant once it got to Gerrard or Lampard the link between them and the wings/forward wasn't there OR he had drifted into the wingers position again meaning that link was not there. As for the coaching I am all for top quality coaches at youth level however what concerns me more is the 'pre' stage before kids get spotted. The stage where 'normal' kids that used to mess about are now used by organisations to sell some expensive 'soccer skills' course advertising UEFA qualified coaches and xxxx blah de blah all for the superb price of £24 for 2 x 4 hour sessions. There should be some sort of organisation running something for free or low cost paid for or subsidised by the government or sporting organisations in the knowledge they are keeping kids off the street, encouraging exercise and at the same time benefitting sport as a whole because talented kids at any sport don't get spotted playing in their back garden which they have to do because their parents cannot afford 'specialist schooling' by 'qualified coaches'. One crazy example : 400 yards up the road from me on this council estate there is a park. It is a pretty large open space with a full size football pitch and an 'ex' cricket pitch. It has a little playground for the youngsters. Modern society and H&S = The little playground has to have rubberised surfacing instead of concrete or grass. This means the yobs then go and hack away at it and then for the next 3 months the little playground is locked up until it's next 3 day stint of actually having rubberised surface until the same thing happens. The football pitch has it's posts taken away either side of the game so that you can't play 'one man wembo' or similar with a proper goal. And the cricket pitch is superbly flat apart from the longer grass which grows around the no ball games signs that are scattered all around it. I kid you not. The park is empty of people other than dog walkers and yobs apart from when a team uses the pitch and the goal posts are brought and put in their place for a single game. Something which that team have to pay a 'pitch rental' for. And 1 good thing is that the junior sides bring 5 a side goals and mark a little pitch themselves in another area. They still have to pay this 'pitch rental'. So forget EU it's more H&S. Parks used to be concrete or grass and made of stuff that didn't burn or easy to vandalise. These days they aren't so for 10 months of the year they are locked up because they are unsafe AFTER the H&S approved stuff has been vandalised. The cricket pitch has no ball games signs because they don't want to ruin the surface however you aren't allowed to play cricket on it because cricket balls are dangerous!!!! Coming out of the EU has nothing to do with this argument. I am in the OUT camp completely but it can't be related to this. This is a management/politics issue in terms of excuses, greed and the blame/sue culture.
ImpsSaint, I think you would benefit from learning to condense what you have to say. I get very bored reading through all your long posts that always seem to digress into some sort of inane rant about "yobs" or "chavs". Every time you express an opinion on society, it gives me the impression that we're not going to get along. I thought I was on your ignore list anyway. Please put me back there.
I sympathise with the member of the F.A. whose job it was to diplomatically respond to this spurious drivel. Couldn't bring myself to read further after the 'Milner does nothing' bit.
Take consolation guys, it could be worse - you could be a Scotland fan. 50 years ago, there was nothing on telly, no computers, and if there were any recreational drugs, then no-one offered me any. So everyone was outside playing football. Today, kids aren`t generally as hungry (in various ways). I don`t know about the rest of the UK, but in Scotland good players tended to come from tough backgrounds, often where football provided a way out. Now we have a welfare state and a society where things are almost expected to be provided as a right, without having to earn it. Victor Meldrew moment over !
Lol Joe. Aberdeen Saint has condensed it for me p.s. someone who vandalises parks is a yob. Nothing wrong at all in me calling them that. Also chav was a word used up here long before it got hijacked by the media to describe 'yobs'. chav is much more like saying 'lad, fella, chap, mate up here at least for my generation and older!!! i.e. all right chav. Mainly for someone you don't know the name of although people from Newark tend to call everybody chav even if they are mates and.you don't have to read my posts if they are too long. I got peeved off with all the 'click here to view post' boxes in every thread so I unblocked you.
I am going to agree with Joe.The FA are finally embracimg change,however many fa& the journalists ns have not:the game has moved on & we will have to adapt & take risks even at the risk of taking a lot of flack. People have been demanding radical change & now we have a young side playing a new formation & a fresh but knowledgeable mamager we have the ingredients to move forward. The biggest obstacle is the impatience of the Prem League where there is immediate pressure on a player & few are given a second chanceunlike Spain, Germany etc.
