World cup matches

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the pundits are fab...
lee dixon - "take suarez out of it" "if we didn't concede bad goals we would have drawn 2 games" <doh>

interviewer "england beaten by one player"

and as for the players...

Jagielka "thought we played well"

Hoddle "we beat ourselves"

No one can admit the obvious...we have been poor defensively, poor in attack, poor movement all over the pitch...

Taylor was mocked; MacLaren was mocked and I guess Roy is about to get his kicking
 
It's been an excellent tournament so far with pace and strength up front overcoming the usual midfield possession game and park the bus. To be fair, England tried to play an attacking game, but for all the hype, our skills are still some way behind most of the other teams; even Colombia and Chile have far better technical players - the passing is sharper, the control more instantaneous, greater awareness, better positional sense.....sometimes it's small margins, sometimes the difference is glaring. Still too much emphasis on athleticism, energy, spirit, determination at the expense of core skills. England's qualities are not to be sniffed at, but you also need the ability too.
 
and now there is a sturridge subway ad...and a joe hart dorritos ad... this is comic gold...can't wait for the gerrard mars bar ad <laugh>
 
I don't even think it's about that, Lidls. The balance of the side was awful and the players didn't seem at all confident in the second game.
The problems were clear against Italy and Hodgson didn't address them, for some reason. He stuck with the same players in virtually the same system and with the same result, unsurprisingly.

Sandro was cheering on England via Twitter, though:

Sandro Raniere &#10004; @sandroraniere
Come on England ....

More passion than half the players out there displayed, anyway.
 
Having taken time to think about the game; yes, Suarez was the main difference. In fairness, overall Uruguay are not a great side. Had we had a striker of his calibre, we undoubtedly would have won tonight.

Our defence is still nowhere near good enough to make serious progress in the tournament anyway
 
Anyone taking a bet on England to go through?

No team has ever lost their opening two games at the World Cup and advanced from the group. But that's still an option for England.
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Italy may win their next two games (and also dent Costa Rica's & Uruguay goal difference) but would anyone back England to defeat Costa Rica? I doubt it!
 
The Mighty Thor said:
PNP, I've just seen Graham Poll interviewed on CNN sport, interesting.
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Did they ask him why he used to be so crap, TMT?
He's actually had the odd useful thing to say, since he retired. Made himself sound like a right pillock when talking about players not being his mate anymore, though.
 
Not quite as bluntly as that PNP but he defended himself by saying that nothing's worse than driving home knowing you've missed a goal. He defends goal line technology and explains how difficult it is when the posts and players are in the way at acute angles. He mentioned the France match.
He seemed quite reasonable to me but you hold a grudge so hey ho.
 
I can't defend Hodgson much but if we look at this fairly then he doesn't have the players to help him, in terms of winning games when he needs them to deliver under pressure. I remember Italia 90, we had two draws and then struggled to a 1-0 win over Egypt and that was when we had possibly the 2nd best England team to go to a world cup. No matter who is in charge, this country no longer has the players and while we can attack Hodgson, our problems are much deeper then playing a different system or switching a player from left to right.

We're expecting too much from simply changing a manager and while I want Hodgson sacked. who ever replaces him will face the same issues and may deal with them issues in a more positive (and effective manner) but I'm not expecting us to be transformed as any new manager is going to face selection problems regarding the defence. Lallana, Sturridge Sterling & Barkley are all talented but none of these are anywhere the quality of Gerrard, Rooney, Lampard and Scholes when they where younger. This country produces average footballers overall and we hype up the ones that appear to be "better" but we're going through a period of producing low quality footballers and no matter who was in charge we would have at best reached the knock out stages and then gone home.
 
Rooney will probably get the blame for missing another great chance(I don't think you can blame him for being an inch to short for the header) but what has anyonelse done? I'm not a fan of stats but one goal and an assist is still more than anyone else has produced and highlights how important he is even when out of form. Too many other players picked for the team they play for rather than what they produce. Of course Sturridge is a good striker but he's far from good enough to be an automatic starter, scoring 20 goals is less impressive when you take into account that Liverpool as a team scored over 100. Welbeck should only be played when we're expecting to play a lot of the game on the counter because pace and strength is really all he's got.

It was an unbalanced squad to start with. One right back, Lampard and Gerrard can't play together, only one player suits playing alongside Gerrard and he(Wilshere) was well out of form and fitness. Chamberlain was the only midfielder we had that can provide real width, we had one right back(who was out of form and 4 or 5 attacking midfielders who all want to do pretty much the samething. On top of that Sterling is the only player who has been able to surprise a team because the team was set up so predictably.
 
Boss said:
I can't defend Hodgson much but if we look at this fairly then he doesn't have the players to help him, in terms of winning games when he needs them to deliver under pressure. I remember Italia 90, we had two draws and then struggled to a 1-0 win over Egypt and that was when we had possibly the 2nd best England team to go to a world cup. No matter who is in charge, this country no longer has the players and while we can attack Hodgson, our problems are much deeper then playing a different system or switching a player from left to right.

We're expecting too much from simply changing a manager and while I want Hodgson sacked. who ever replaces him will face the same issues and may deal with them issues in a more positive (and effective manner) but I'm not expecting us to be transformed as any new manager is going to face selection problems regarding the defence. Lallana, Sturridge Sterling & Barkley are all talented but none of these are anywhere the quality of Gerrard, Rooney, Lampard and Scholes when they where younger. This country produces average footballers overall and we hype up the ones that appear to be "better" but we're going through a period of producing low quality footballers and no matter who was in charge we would have at best reached the knock out stages and then gone home.
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You could say the same of Mexico, Columbia(without Falcao), Costa Rica and USA yet they put out well balanced teams and it makes them capable of more than you'd expect. Man for man we have more quality than any of those sides but it's not about picking the best players, or the most high profile, they pick the players that fit into their set up.
 
The Mighty Thor said:
Not quite as bluntly as that PNP but he defended himself by saying that nothing's worse than driving home knowing you've missed a goal. He defends goal line technology and explains how difficult it is when the posts and players are in the way at acute angles. He mentioned the France match.
He seemed quite reasonable to me but you hold a grudge so hey ho.
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I don't hold a grudge. He was awful and biased, which he's basically confirmed in his post-career interviews.
He was overly pally with a bunch of senior players and managers, which lead to him being a poor official in a lot of cases.
Following that up with an enormous balls up on a global level only made him a bigger embarrassment. I'd have had some sympathy had he not waved off the player that pointed out his mistake.
An enormously arrogant and self-important man.

As for Hodgson, he'll probably get the boot and he also probably deserves it, but who'd want the job now? Anyone worthwhile in the frame?
Media speculation will be rife, I'm sure, but it's very much a poisoned chalice. Good money though, I guess.
 
Yid Vicious said:
You could say the same of Mexico, Columbia(without Falcao), Costa Rica and USA yet they put out well balanced teams and it makes them capable of more than you'd expect. Man for man we have more quality than any of those sides but it's not about picking the best players, or the most high profile, they pick the players that fit into their set up.
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Thats a fair point, but these "smaller" footballing nations know their level. They aren't playing with a deluded opinion of what they can achieve, while in this country we believe we have the players (when we don't) and then attempt to believe we're good enough to go far. Yes I don't rate Hodgson and yes I would have played a different system but our problems are far deeper then a system change or balanced set-up. England seem to always look foolish on the international stage and if we believe players like Sturridge are part of the next "golden generation" then I don't hold much hope for the future.
 
Chile looked so good with players from Nottingham Forest and Cardiff starting. The right system, or the right manager, seems to transform players. It may have been true of Atletico Madrid this year as well.

It's been Gerrard who has annoyed me with his mouth, constantly saying the wrong thing, then misleading by bad example. He never made a better, defense-splitting pass to Suarez all year, I'll give him that.

But surely this debacle was really caused by excluding all Spurs from the team...
 
Chile have been playing a certain way for awhile now and these countries grow up playing technical football, same with Mexico or Columbia, even Ecuador kids grow up wanting to pass the ball, while in England kids are coached to be tough and it shows in the type of footballer we produce. The last two England managers to use the right system where Venables and then Hoddle but both managers still fell short and while they had games where it all clicked into place, they still had games where they where made to look ordinary.

Hodgson was the wrong man for the job and I never wanted him as manager but whoever is in charge is going to struggle as even players like Gerrard who has had a fantastic season looks average and the type of football we play in the premier league doesn't translate to the international stage. The best we can hope for is to have a motivator but after we produce a great result, we will revert back to the same problems of having a crap defence and a lack of natural ability to pass and keep the ball.

And as mentioned, even in italia 90 when we had a fantastic amount of talent, we still struggled to pass the ball at times, its just the way this country approaches the game and I can't see how a change in system is going to transform the team. Bobby Robson had Linekar, Gazza & Platt (to name three) to produce when it mattered when the team where struggling. Venables had Gazza, Shearer, Sheringham and a strong defence. Lets not overlook the fact that even when we had talented squads and respected managers, we had top players to deliver, players we no longer have.

It may improve it slightly (by changing manager) but we will still always get found out because the English way is outdated when it comes to the international game.
 
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