You would think there were players who would near-kill to play for England. And then those who would be fearful of long-term injury troubles in games such as friendlies (Ledley, perhaps Lennon too) . Which leaves ... Bentley ??
I see Wilmotts, on the back of a disappointing performance, has used a tactic that will unfortunately not be available to Pochettino: drop all Spurs players.
3 things... 1)Harry is settling scores in my opinion...there was a long running thing with him and lennon to do with him believing lennon was too soft...there was a stoke match where lennon came off injured and we had no subs left and we lost to a late goal...there was also the young boys game when lennon didnt want to play on the artificial pitch both of which pissed arry right off. 2) arry loves to exaggerate so lennon becomes 2 or 3 3) belguim russia is soooooooooooooooooooo boring
Jenas wasn't still playing for England at the time was he? Would be funny if someone who was a regular England squad member and Spurs starter rather flukily, in my opinion, never really fancied playing for England. Though thinking about it maybe all those squad call ups but lack of actual games got him fed up. Crouch seemed to enjoy playing for England and seems a pretty level-headed guy too.
"Though thinking about it maybe all those squad call ups but lack of actual games got him fed up." That would irritate most players IMHO, Hopefully, Lennon was the only one and the reason was fear of aggravating long-term injuries in the often pointless friendly games.
So Harry is saying something about how "2 or 3" English Spurs players tell us something about the general state of English international football but his actual agenda is to publicly shame Aaron Lennon whose name he does not mention?!
Didnt say he was publicly shaming anyone...I said he was settling scores with lennon IN MY OPINION...I put that bit in caps lenny to reassure you I was not claiming it to be a fact! True , I did not put it in caps in my original posting but I did put in my opinion in that posting. The reason I am saying I THINK it is point scoring is because he did not need to identify which club... he has had england internationals at west ham, southampton, pompey and spurs...saying spurs is obviously going to lead to a "who is it" debate which narrows down to 5 or 6 players which will lead to criticism and accusations of lack of patriotism aimed at them...in my opinion ... obviously
Doesn't seem that the Spurs contingent make much difference to the overall Belgium oomph. Would be a laugh if they win the cup though.
Vertongens performances are showing he aint no where as good as he thinks he is. Dembele is a mystery to me tbh....on his day he can boss a game and be unplayable but he hardly ever plays well nowadays
I heard that there were four times the number of police for Belgium/Russia due to fears about the Russian fans. Or, more likely, it's because Blatter was going to the game. Of course, the Russian fans wouldn't be so aggrieved if they weren't dicked by the referee: denied a penalty in the first half, and two Russian players were fouled in the buildup to Belgium's goal. Croatia, Bosnia, Russia - anyone else noticing a pattern with the teams that have been shafted by poor refereeing decisions?
I ****ing hope not. Portugal to win as I want to see Ghana V Portugal, with Ghana to claim a famous victory and go though as they are my African team!
Shades of 2002, you say? I did laugh when the BBC said the star players were performing in this World Cup: Rooney's been pathetic as always, Ronaldo looked like a child wandering around a shopping centre for its mother against Germany, and the Spain team failed en masse.
I can see that happening. USA looked okay the other day, but had to hang on at the end. Might be able to take advantage of Portugal missing some big players. Also good business from a Spurs perspective that we are selling Livermore for I assume a reasonable fee and that we already have an upgrade in Bentaleb to step up.
Bentaleb is looking handy for Algeria right now. Comfortable in possession and has made a couple of tackles too, so he's seeing out his defensive duties. Interesting to me that Algeria play a high tempo, pressing game similar to what I gather Poch favours. Bentaleb could be his kind of player.
It would be interesting to know players reasons for not looking forward to England duty? Media and public attention? Crap management? Attitude problem ("What's the point?") or just a bad feeling around the team? A few years back, the England team did seem very cliquey. The "Golden Shower" (nee the "Golden Generation") always seemed to dominate the play and rarely involve players from other teams. It was like with Lennon in the Algeria/England game at the last World Cup. Rarely got passed to and when he tried to at the defense he found Johnson in the way trying to do his job for him. Obviously only my impression but wonder if these players just ended up thinking "What's the point? I get a rare start, end up on the fringes of the game while established players end up ****ing up the match. Then we get mauled by the public and the media. Oi Harry! Give us a sick note!"
I guess he's played better than any other Spur at this World Cup, though that is faint praise. I'm wondering why it's BENtaleb, not BINtaleb. Is Ben the way "son of" is spelled for Berbers? I'm guessing the answer isn't that Bentaleb is Jewish. Algeria is another team that's used wingbacks with success. One thing that isn't a surprise is that teams used to hot conditions have overachieved: Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico, the US, Algeria, Chile, and arguably Ghana and Nigeria.
"Shades of 2002, you say?" That result against Germany must have hurt quite a bit. Seniors not starting today, is CR7 actually fully fit etc.
