my take on England is that for too long we have relied on Power and the Pace of the game . Since about 98 , we have relied heavily on breaking through midfields with long cross balls from either Beckham or Gerrard . IMO , this has stifled a more productive midfield for England and with English players , Jagielka was poor in the WC and Baines isn't having an attacking influence that Cole offered , but i dont think Englands problems are any different to at anytime in the last 25yrs England dont play the ball to feet & dont run at the defence . The players that will take on a man , Barkley , Ox , Stirling and Sturridge either didnt feature or wern't given the ball in areas to attack with I wasn't expecting England to get out of the group , but with the new blood in the squad i was hopeful to see some new ideas . With the players Roy took , i find it hard to point the finger at him ,England has't got the talent to break open world class teams -
No surprise what-so-ever. Even a half fit Suarez was too good for our poor defence. Thank heavens that England will be back home before the last 16 knockout stage starts. I fear what teams like Holland and Argentina would to England with that defence. Apart from a 10 minute spell England were just not good enough at all against a very average Uruguay team who sadly for us had the one player of quality. This has been happening for months as Woy picked the wrong squad in parts. For me the only 2 good points to come out of this mess are : - 1) We wont have to face the quality countries when it really gets going 2) Our Curtis Davies and Tom Huddlestone wont be tarnished by it thanks to Woy not picking them. My only question now is what has this whole World Cup cost the FA ? When you consider what and who has been involved in the whole thing. Millions for sure. The bottom line is now is that in the main we are simply not good enough at the Top Level and those who are are over looked. No John Terry - No Ashley Cole - No Jermain Defoe - No idea on how to run the national programme.
You've been desperate to see England fail since way before the WC started and you're loving it now. Sad as ****.
Tickles, You make some valid points but thanking Woy for not picking Curtis and Thomas makes you sound a bit mental.
I can't take anyone seriously who can't pronounced the word penalty correctly. We have improved since the last World Cup and Euro 2012. I'm quite happy with the forwards and midfielders coming through. Hopefully players like Stones, Flanaghan, Shaw and a few other develop.
How have we improved? We got to the knock out stages last time in South Africa. And that was when the team was imploding. This team was supposed to be getting on well & were supposed to be up for it. I didn't see much evidence of that last night. We might have youngsters coming through, but we need proof of this. Getting knocked out early might be beneficial. It means the FA need to do something, like the Germans did when they were crap, back in 2000. We need to safe guard the future and implement a restructuring of the whole system. From grass roots up.
We may got to last 16 in 2010 and quarter final at Euro 2012. But we got by battered by the two decent teams we played We played some decent football in patches and wasn't hanging on in either game. But I agree. After the Euro 2000 elimination Germany had a root and branch of the system and spend £1bn on infrastructure. It's no coincidence that Germany have got to 3 semi finals and two finals in the 6 tournaments since there restructure and with a bit of luck could of won something.
Yep this was a much harder group and we haven't had much luck in these two games with the timing of goals etc. Last time we scraped through in a poor group.
My England ins and outs: Hart - IN Foster - IN Forster - UNDECIDED Johnson - OUT Baines - IN Cahill - IN Jagielka - OUT Smalling - OUT Jones - OUT Shaw - IN Gerrard - OUT Wilshere - IN Lampard - OUT Henderson - MAYBE Oxlade-Chamberlain - IN Milner - IN Sterling - IN Lallana - IN Barkley - IN Sturridge - IN Rooney - OUT Welbeck - OUT Lambert - IN
I'd keep Rooney in. I know opinion will be divided. I agree with the rest. It's defensively where we came up short. A successful team always has it's defence sorted. So we need to work on that. Would you keep Roy in charge?
To be honest, I don't think we've played particular bad at this World Cup. Italy and Uruguay are good teams with terrific players like Pirlo and Suarez, we haven't been thrashed like Spain or Portugal yet everyone thinks it's the end of the world. I think we have improved since 2010, we no longer have players like Heskey in the team and we have replaced those types of players with very talented ones like Barkley and Lallana who are young and hungry for success.
