Ziegler was one player who appeared out of nowhere, looked to be a fantastic exciting young player then just vanished!
Who else had a nostalgic 'AC Milan away' smile on their face when they realised Palacios was playing the other night ??
The problem with that is that the players then whined it was too hot, so they had to bring in large fans to cool them down during training, which completely nullifies the point of flying to Miami under the pretence of it being anything other than a pre-WC jolly. Meanwhile, the Italy team had a large shed installed over one of the training pitches where they trained in the heat before they flew overseas.
This from the Beeb website: New Aston Villa and ex-England midfielder Joe Cole says Wayne Rooney will deliver match-winning performances for the Three Lions at the World Cup. and this one is even better England practised penalties at the end of training to prepare for a shootout in the knockout stages - although did so without a goalkeeper between the posts and some players still missed. Oh dear!
Can't agree with you there. There seem to be some players that are better for their country than their clubs, and some that are worse. With that theory I am saying I'd rather see Wellbeck than Rooney.
Welbeck is no Messi, but in the heat/humidity his ability to run tirelessly in the left channel or through the middle and his pace on the break are useful. He will help stop teams like Italy slowing the game down to a snail's pace and playing the ball out from the back endlessly. He gives their defenders something to think about that they're not used to. His presence can help Rooney or Sturridge find space too. And his goalscoring record is surprisingly good for England! So England need him fit.
Disagree. Barkley, Milner or Ox-Chamberlain could play that role just as well as Welbeck. Welbeck shouldn't be anywhere near that squad.
I see Italy decided that their final WC prep game should be in Brasil, and against one of the better clubs in their domestic league. http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/27792755
This sums up England to me. Run around a lot working hard and being knackered after 60 mins of achieving nothing. Running around will achieve nothing in the long-term in the heat of Brazil. Passing, simple movement, composure, intelligence...... and penalty taking probably, will achieve more.
But England don't have enough ability to do it to the standard required. Our game is huff and puff. We need to break up the rhythm of the passing teams and push them back. They don't like defending against our type of forwards. Utd had the same problem against the relentless passing of Bayern Munich in the CL and Welbeck played an important role; he should have scored at least one goal and worried their usually unflappable defenders. If it wasn't for woeful defending in the last half hour, Utd could have won the tie. England can't suddenly develop a new game plan for Brazil; we need players who can carry out the old one in the heat.
I disagree in that I expect we'll be only too happy to let Italy knock it around the back. In the friendlies our forwards seemed to be under the instruction to get back to the halfway line when they lost the ball, rather than pressing. Not sure Welbeck is particularly good at winning the ball back either but you know him better than me. When I see him all I see is a product of the English-style youth systems, he's fast and strong which serves him well but the technical side is sorely lacking so he takes lots of bad touches and misses lots of good chances.
The plan which makes sense to me and I think most fans is stick a bunch of Liverpool players in, add a few Southampton players, and hope they play like Liverpool--or at least Southampton--last year. Either one would be a vast improvement over the usual England borefest. That being the case, Sterling should start.
Yep yep yep yep yep. My starting line up is below. Hart Johnson Jagielka Cahill Shaw Gerrard Henderson Sterling Rooney Lallana Sturridge Barkley would be the go to attacking replacement. He could replace any of the 3 behind the striker. Lambert coming on if Sturridge is having a bad game. I still think we have to give Rooney a chance. But if he plays like **** for 2 games then start Barkley.
Robbo Naughton, Caulker, Davies, Rose Huddlestone, Delph Lennon, Carroll, Agbonlahor Kane Would wipe the floor with your team
When did this jetting thousands of miles between games idea start? I must admit I don't follow the WC organisation closely, so I don't remember how this moving around between games things started. I do remember that not so many WCs ago, a team had a base for their group games and didn't travel much - which in a smaller European country probably wasn't a problem... but Brazil is what, the 5th largest country on the planet (and in due course Russia will host and is considerably larger). Surely the amount of travel a team is doing between games must have some kind of affect on them. It may not be a lot, but I'm all for minimising the off-pitch affect on teams as that shouldn't have anything to do with the result. But in the group stages some teams are traveling far more than others. So that can't be right. And again, when did all this flying around start. It certainly isn't fair on the fans, making them pick up the cost of internal flights (which are longer than many European flights) and new hotels etc.
Team I'd like us to field: Hart, Johnson, Cahill, Jagielka, Baines Sterling, Gerrard, Barkley, Lallana Sturridge, Rooney, It's got pace, skill and creativity, lacks a bit defensively in midfield but sod it, lets just go for it for a change.
