After seeing that performance I reckon that 3 Saints players could make the plane to make Brazil - Lallana, Cork and Shaw. Lallana, obviously. Cork, well I can't think of a better English player in his position at the moment. Shaw, must be right up there in the pecking order, a solid defender and good (without being reckless) coming forward. Lambert and Rodriguez will miss out I think, unless they both have a superb second-half to the season of course. In reality. I suspect it will be just Lallana.
I was walking back to the car last night and two lads were discussing Cork. They were asking other what Muchael Carrick does that Cork doesn't? I Ridley leaned forward and said, "He plays for United" That's about the only reason I can think of at the moment.
Lallana's first touch has always been there. Technically he is hugely gifted. There may have been times in the past when it looked like his touch let him down but I always thought it was not his touch but decision making. Since about the third game of the season he has just got better and better. If he continues at this rate of performance or even improves further, he could become a world class player. The hardest thing in football is to the touch of the ball. You can coach it to a degree but I believe it is a natural talent. Adam has that natural talent and he seems to be making better decisions and getting into better positions. Sometimes you watch what he does and think "how the f... Did he do that" I worry though, as our national team has an un-nerving ability to ignore or misuse players like him. I hope he doesn't end up stuck LM or RM and told to do the functional things for England. I went to the Germany game and you could tell he was better with the ball than most if the other England players.
May not be deliberate but I think that the players who play together regularly are almost telepathic...they give and go.
I really, really, really want to win that game. Handsomely. Strange how you can develop such a searing dislike for a team due to their Not606 fans, their manager, and the fact they took out two of our players. Actually......not that strange.
I don't dislike the team, I enjoy watching some of their players play. But I think since poyet took over as manager of them, He Just tells the players deliberately to hack our players down and he doesn't like the way we play as he can't match us. Im sure he was smiling inside when he did serious damage to Lovren and Ramirez! Dirty man
This is delusional. I'm constantly amazed at the capacity of people on here to hold grudges. He said something nasty about us once, about three years ago. Since then he's said lots of nice things. He clearly has no issue with us and to suggest he would tell his players to injure ours is just ridiculous.
Sometimes you have to look at the broader aspect, there is more to a game of football than actually having the ball, if Guly wasn't actually receiving the ball he was probably occupying other defenders leaving space for our other attackers. You also have to remember that Guly hasn't had the benefit of playing regularly with the others in the side, but as far I could tell he didn't watse too many passes when he did get the ball.
They couldn't get near us in the first half, so I can imagine the half time team talk. May not have been to deliberately hurt us, but he wanted us stopped and our play broken up. These are the teams we have trouble with....would love to see us repeat the performance against Arsenal on Saturday, but sadly Fulham will try and drag us down to their level.
I don't disagree with that PTF, but I still don't like him. Credit to his management though, he's doing a good job (as is Pulis, remarkable).
Very true. But, to be fair, if you're not being picked as first choice by your club (especially if you club is Southampton) its unlikely that you'll be picked for England. We need to finish the season well so that Hodgson can watch Cork on telly.
I know everyone on here loves to love Jack, but Michael Carrick is a lot better. Cork's been good and all recently, but I just can't get on the hype train as much as most people on here.
Don't want to see it, but the only way to judge our players is if they play in a top side. I have a suspicion that some of our players play better in our team than they would ever play if transplanted into another team. They are beautifully formed cogs in a machine.
I've thought that England have been missing a player like Cork for a while now, someone to play a simple possession game and not try the hollywood pass all the time. You could argue that that player is Carrick of course, though he's certainly more prone to the temptation to play the direct pass than Cork is.
If you're going to do that (presume in place of SD) then it's got to be Morgan to go forward - Jack has precisely zero goal threat, and we need someone in that position that doesn't just have a slick passing range. Personally I don't think that is making the best of our team, and as has been said, for me the interchangeable two when everyone is fit are Morgan and Jack. Vic offers something completely different to those two.
I would drop Cork (it's harsh on him, but that's life) and bring back the partnership of Morgan and Wanyama.
