As said, Lambert has been carrying a back injury and lost his scoring boots for a while. So pleased (for him and us) that he scored in the last game. Great, great guy and love him to bits, but we want him back fit for next season...we don't want him dragged round the world.
There is a comment on the England-ROI match report on the BBC with 16 up votes about Lambert. It's one of the highest rated comments
Here's the comment: "England could have done with the boss that is RICKIE LAMBERT tonight. Brilliant as a target man, scoring headers and finishing but also brilliant at linking with other players. You only have to look at the stats to see only Suarez created more chances than him in open play this season in the whole Premier league. He was level with Silva in 2nd place and above the likes of Cazorla, Mata, Baines."
The ridiculous thing is, they reject Rickie due to his lack of pace, when none of the present England players have enough technical skill to play at the speed they're currently expected to anyway. Rickie has the ability to [do lots of things, of course but] back onto the CBs, shield the ball and distribute it correctly, which is something England are crying out for because Rooney is not a natural leading striker and works best being fed by a target man. To me it's blazingly obvious you give him 90 minutes to either waste his time or complete the England jigsaw puzzle, which at the moment looks like it has pieces missing. At least Hodgson could say.. see I told you so.
Hodgson is a coward. Something weird happens to managers as soon as they get the England job, they listen more to the media than any common sense. Also heard that Hodgson does pretty much **** all between games. Doesn't even go to that many Prem games (well, not as many as he could).
Strongly agree in reference to England playing a target man(whether it be Rickie or not). It's all very well having players with pace, but that's worthless when faced with a side defending deep. You need someone up top to draw defenders away. Baines got himself in some great positions out wide but when he looked up he could only just make out the tiny figure of Defoe. Lack of height & presence is just as much as a perceived weakness as lack of pace. What a team requires is variety. So it's no good Hodgson selecting carbon copies in Sturridge, Defoe, Wellbeck & Walcott. Crouch, Lambert, Holt & Carroll do offer that different choice and should be added to the squad.
On this article, most of the highly-recommended posts are about Saints players. I genuinely believe that you could craft a better team using solely players who were not selected for this squad. There's no coherent plan; looking at the group that Hodgson selected, what precisely is the team-wide strength? What is the area of play in which they are to dominate teams?
I think at the moment we're stuck in systems that don't suit our players, 4-4-2 just feels stodgy but we don't currently have anyone properly equipped to play as a sole centre-forward. Beyond being a huge fan of Rickie (Although there's still the teensiest edge of that ) I genuinely think that a 4-3-3 with Lambert central and Sturridge and Walcott either side of him would be infinitely more dangerous. Baines at LB to overlap Sturridge and whip deliveries in to Rickie and a late arriving Lampard. Central three I'd consider playing Jones at DM because we aren't really blessed with any true defensive-mids at the moment who are in the frame, and that would free up Carrick and Lampard. Plenty of goals in that side I reckon.
Or NZ. The man has to play international football before his career ends. And Mikey..? That side I'd watch.
Roy Hodgson is an absolute dinosaur and relic of a manager. I think the majority of Englang fans said he was a terrible shout when he was appointed, and it's looking like we were right. It wouldn't surprise me at all if we don't qualify. He is tactically inept, and too inflexible. He picks the players around his 4-4-1-1 formation rather than utilising and playing the formation to suit the players. He is an absolute joke. He doesn't respond to players playing badly, and all around the substitutions and choices that he makes are appalling. The team sheet for the friendly on wednesday had about 8 empty spaces. Why not fill them with players around the fringes!? It's a meaningless friendly, Why not give players a chance? He would rather leave empty spaces on the bench than pick players from non-top six teams. It's a disgrace in my eyes. Bringing Defoe on meant we had to play so directly. Whenever carrick picked up the ball in the middle he would look up and see oxlade, walcott, rooney and defoe all running away into space, meaning he had no-one to pass to. Our midfield was just non-existant. At least when Sturridge was on he was holding the ball up. The rest of our forward players genuinely looked like they couldn't trap a bag of cement. I think the one big positive from Wednesday is Leighton Baines. Stretched the game completely when he came on, meaning Carrick at least had the diagonal ball to play even Rooney didn't fancy playing the number 10 role as he should have been. But there are just so many negatives around England at the moment. Hodgson was definitely a huge step backwards.
I was glad that Hodgson was picked over Redknapp - he has international experience and has proven that he doesn't need to spend money to do well! Then again, his tactics and selections are dull and predictable; he's good at turning relegation fighters into comfortable middle of the table teams i.e. West Brom and Fulham, but he only knows how to make teams solid at the back and to get teams on the counter; he doesn't know how to unlock defences. He's too negative a manager to manage a "top team" in England.
Absolutely correct - that offers a lot more threat than the ponderous style in which Hodgson (whom, as CBK rightly implies, has become a very different beast to his club management persona) insists on playing. I think both Hodgson and Redknapp were poor choices - the England team, to manage to do anything, needs a progressive, young manager (Pochettino/AVB style). Unfortunately, progressive, young managers are looking to enhance their careers at club level....
Hodgson gets too much stick, squad selections aside, the reality is this England team just isn't very good. There's only so much a manager can do with players who are as sloppy in possession as they were against Ireland. The formation talk is exaggerated too. The only difference between a 442 and a 4231 is coherency (allowing the wingers to get forward to make the 3, and the main striker to push ahead of the number 10), and that's what England lack.
I'm not saying we're world beaters, but with our squad we should comfortably be beating teams like Ireland, Montenegro etc. The fact that we aren't lies squarely with Hodgson for consistently doing the wrong thing. A decent forward-thinking manager would have had us winning on Wednesday, no question in my mind.
I suppose I have to have a bit of sympathy for Hodgson, in the sense that a modern manager of an England football team often doesn't get the selection of the clubs best players anymore. Occasionally they are footballers who don't even play regularly because their overseas club colleagues are being preferred over them. But even so, the team does seem to under-perform. I do think he should be a bit more adventurous in his player selections though. He has done a regular England manager trick of not being brave enough, and that's probably my major criticism of him.
We are not a world-force by any means and our depth of quality when compared with Spain, Germany, Brazil etc. is embarrassing, but we are still consistently under-performing. I find it hard to dig the knife into Hodgson though, he's doing nothing other than continuing the institutional failures that plague the national team. There are small incremental improvements that could be made but it would take a Managing Messiah to turn us into anything other than mediocre over the next five years.
I agree, England isn't going to beat the better sides in the world on talent. Thus, pick a team with a specific style in mind; try to win with settled tactics and fit rather than trying to putting together mismatched parts in an attempt to outclass superior opposition.
