His technique seems to struggle when put under pressure in the holding position. Or is he just not good enough technically to be a holding midfielder at the highest level?
He's a **** holding midfielder with a hollywood pass. He might work for Liverpool where he's got Suarez to aim for and outscore his woeful defending, but doesn't work with England.
This. Last player to be decent there was Hargreaves. Should have been 433 Hargreaves holding behind Frank and Scholes in 2006
He has lost his pace and skill about 4 years ago. Media love in of him, elevated him to way above his skill level
He should have retired after getting bossed by Pirlo in 2012. If he has a shred of dignity left, he should retire from all football now before the memories of: ten good minutes in Istanbul,a volley v Super League Greece runners up 2003/4 Olympiakos, and a screamer v West Ham are forgotten
The two are undoubtedly connected ... similarly I suspect that Gary Cahill's laboured pedestrian defending and lack of spatial awareness against both Italy and Uruguay stem from the mental stress of seeing his far smaller, somewhat distant, antiodean relative, Tim, making a contrastingly marked impact on this World Cup in two performances for the Socceroos ... life can be so unfair ... get a grip ... Gerrard has not played particularly well in either game that's true, but at least put in the effort to try and make a challenge ... an unfortunate outcome not helped by a failure to anticipate / react by Lurch and Jags ... in marked contrast to Luis Suarez ...
Gerrard is overrated. Here a quote from Fergie on the Liverpool captain - '' He's not a top, top, player.
SAF is always correct in these matters, remember what he said about Henderson, and thats proven right.
Henderson had a phenomenal season Mr Custard Maybe we should have gone with Cleverly? Okay then Carrick? Okay then maybe not
It's called irony ... wasn't meant to be taken literally but I see subtlety is not in vogue ... I had hoped that an allusion to mutual descendancy between Gary Cahill and Tim Cahill would resonate as being as daft as suggesting that a hangover from a league game against Chelsea caused an error from the England captain in a world cup group game on a different continent ... ... but there is so much petty club bias on these threads that it too often distorts objective discussion in favour of tribal point scoring ... Cahill was OK yesterday but the opposition centre forward still scored two gaols ... in fact it's the second time in a week that the opposition centre-forward has bagged a winner ... and two of those goals have come from headers on the edge of the six yard box ... now following the flavour of this thread there are only five possibe explanations (in order of popularity): 1) Gerrard 2) Johnson 3) Henderson 4) Sterling 5) Sturridge ... I'll leave it to you boys to find a common denominator ... then we have the SAF bit ... so because SAF takes a dig at his club's fiercest rivals via their captain it becomes gospel? ... so by default he was also correct in his opinion of David Moyes, Juan Veron, Eric Djemba Djemba, Kleberson, Bebe, Bosnich and Taibi? ... ffs Steven Gerrard has been a great player and captain in his time ... it may well be time for his retirement from international football ... who knows ... but some of this current criticism and 'blame' is ludicrous. Personally I didn't expect us to get through the group stage when the draw was made but after Costa Rica's shock result over Uruguay and the fact that I thought Suarez couldn't possibly be fit ... for one minute I thought we might just have a chance ... but the reality is that quality showed through in the end ...we don't have anyone of the quality of Pirlo or Suarez ... sad but true.
"... I'll leave it to you boys to find a common denominator" No dont, I like you and you're in the Prem now so stick around
