I disagree that the players aren't good enough. To a certain extent we have too many good players and manager after manager falls into the trap of trying to shoehorn them into the same side regardless of that meaning players playing out of position. Hodgson in particular has not had too many management jobs with such riches to choose from, and he is guilty of never settling on a good team - and even when one luckily presents itself, like the friendly against Germany - he doesn't pick the same side again! It's simple logic that the players are good playing in the positions they are good at... the ones they play for in their teams. Since they don't play out of position all the time, except in international teams (and man u?), it's very difficult to say they're bad players. This makes the manager the worst culprit as they have put either their ego or pressure from elsewhere above good sense. Clearly the players are good enough because they play for premiership teams. PL teams are not stupid and do not play players if they can get better ones. Not only do we have PL players but we have some very good ones, like for example the top and second top goalscorers in the league last year - above a wealth of foreign talent I might add. They haven't stopped being good players but somehow they've had the good sucked out of them! There's a reason these Iceland players play for Cardiff or Charlton. If they were good enough for the PL they'd play in the PL. But that's an argument over individual ability, playing in their correct position as a TEAM. Playing as a team means all the so-called best players can't play. But no England manager since Hoddle has had the balls to do that. The media don't help. I remember a couple of friendlies after Germany away and for some reason Rooney wasn't playing (maybe cup final?) and I heard a commentator say something like "this is a chance to find out how England play without Rooney". Doh! We already knew how they play without Rooney - far better!!!
I would love all five of our lads to announce their retirement from international football with immediate effect. This bi-annual humiliation merry-go-round offers nought but risk of injury and having your confidence shot to pieces.
Þu gatar reynt en þykkjumk eigi. Everyone blames the players, and understandably enough. The level of play was embarrassing. I’m inclined to give them all a pass and blame Hodgson and the FA. I was reminded of the unwillingness of Scott´s dogs to pull. When intelligent leadership is so clearly lacking, don´t expect the rank and file to put in a good effort. They need to have some reason to believe. It´s easier to create than destroy. Some of the smaller teams plus Italy came in with a good plan and a total commitment to making it work. A number of the bigger teams needed and for the most part lacked both, none more than England. Hodgson picked five of his 11 from one team. He didn´t ever try to play their system. Spurs were successful by running and pressing high up the pitch in a 4-2-3-1, getting the ball at the goal as often and as quickly as possible, and relying heavily on the close proximity of Alli and Kane. England played a 4-3-3, moved forward slowly and haltingly, kept Alli and Kane far apart, and hoped that somehow their players’ quality would produce goals against more committed teams. They scored four goals in four games: a long free kick a decent keeper would have saved, a pen that resulted from another keeper's blunder, a ball headed down to Vardy standing by himself in front of goal by Ashley Williams, and a ball that pinballed from defenders to Alli to Sturridge. Only the last, IMO, was more skill than luck, and I'm not so sure about that one. Spurs' system might not have worked, I grant you, but it needed to be tried, because it was the only thing that was at all likely to. The only alternative would have been a steady 11 with months of practice playing some other system, which was certainly not going to happen with a manager who chopped and changed every game. If Spurs’ system didn't work, it might have been because the players were convinced Hodgson did not have what it takes to lead a successful team. Wilshire over Drinkwater still says it all, though letting Rooney be the centerpiece of one more doomed campaign was something short of a masterstroke. No player contributed as much to the disaster as Joe Hart, yet he played every minute. The key moment of the tournament for me was when Hart, after getting caught in no man’s land and then chasing a ball he still had a chance of reaching, stopped trying and started arguing for an offsides infraction which would best be described as hallucinatory. The fact is Hodgson, though clearly a nice enough man, eventually proved himself unable to handle making a simple substitution. On the other hand, Íslands miklinn!
I don't buy this idea that we have talented players. We don't produce players of the calibre of those nations who compete to win tournaments. It's clear when we watch games that the players have poor technique, lack a good first touch, cannot pass consistently to players in the same colour shirt, show little or no skill or creativity on the ball etc etc. They have looked clueless when trying to beat very ordinary international teams - and have managed one win in in four games against this level of opposition thanks to a fortunate injury time goal. There is nobody who has the ability to raise their game and produce moments of quality to win matches like Hazard or Griezmann did this weekend. Generally speaking, this has not been a good tournament overall, with few teams playing well consistently, but England have still looked second rate. A better manager might have got a little more from the players - like Coleman has done with Wales- but anyone who thinks England are anywhere near the standard required to win a tournament is deluding themselves - and has been doing so for decades.
I disagree I have watched 5 of those players perform at the top level over the last season against many of the worlds top players. We have the players with the skills to compete with anyone we just need a manager who can use them properly. Did you watch City and Chelsea or or even your own United, full of stars but lacking decent management. Did you also watch Wales, Iceland, Hungary or Leicester all full of so called 'lesser' players with good management.
This is exactly right. We have good enough players to build a competitive team. Not good enough to win competitions but good enough to match Wales or Iceland. Hodgson was a typical FA appointment - bloody useless. I saw all I needed to see of him 4 years ago. He was awful then and remains awful now. He chops and changes players and systems, plays players out of position, picks injured and out of form players and has no motivational qualities. I've seen more charismatic mould. I had no expectation of this team, nor any England side since 2006.Consequently, I'm not disappointed. I'm finding Icelandic a bit tricky but I'll get there... Við erum ekki góður á öllum. Við þurfum að skipa alvöru þjálfara. Val mitt er fyrir Hoddle.
Claudio Ranieri should be the first man the FA speak to. And I mean that in all seriousness. None of the clowns being bandied around in the papers this morning. No other manager in PL history has demonstrated the tactical astuteness to get so much out of so little. Roy managed to get so little out of so much.
The players didn't leave the tournament with much respect but by God am I happy to see the back of Hodgson, the only problem is he should've gone long before the tournament and not after the damage was done. Lee Dixon was spot on after the game, leading up until the first group game, no one knew how England played, we didn't have an identity, look at the Germans, they play with a dominating aura, the Spanish like tiki-taka, the Italians have a superb base at the back which they build on, the Welsh know how to utilise Bale, Hungary played with no fear as did Iceland as well as being a coherent unit when required and yet England... You just didn't know what to look for or expect and that for me is entirely Hodgson's fault. Even Piers Morgan made a decent point, "Hodgson is an analog manager living in a digital world", couldn't be more right. The tactics and style of play was genuinely hard to watch, it reminded of Spurs under AVB where we just had no direction and no clue what to do. Putting your target man and league's top scorer on set piece duty, keeping the league's second top scorer benched for the majority, playing a clearly unfit Wilshere, switching up the side with a number of changes against Slovakia when we hadn't even qualified, sticking with Joe Hart after monumental mistakes. Why pick 5 Spurs players and yet choose to play a system that they're completely not used too? Surely if you have a bunch from one club, the logical thing to do would be to get the rest of the players to play that sort of tactic, as having 5 guys used to one style is better than asking 11 to learn a different one? Not even saying the Poch-pressing tactic would've won us the tournament but I bet it would've put us in a damn better light than looking like a clueless bunch of no-hopers... It was just a catastrophe waiting to happen and last night it did, we had the easiest group yet finished second and then we went out to a nation which only has about 2 recognisable players. We were tactically outsmarted last night by a part-time dentist! No wonder Hodgson resigned straight after, I think even he knew waiting around or hoping for a new deal was embarrassing.
Good phrase. Goes with another I heard on five live this morning "England make Iceland seem like Waitrose".
England do have talented players. If we look at one position: Striker:We took 6! ( I know some might question whether they are all strikers but.... ) Kane, Vardy Sturridge, Rooney Rashford and Sterling. We had a manager who started with 4 of them just so they could all be in the team. Players were occupying the same positions and getting in each others way. as the useless commentators were saying , we need creativity from midfield but we had players in midfield (if we had a midfield) who are not creative but just want to put the ball in the net. which is why they were taking shots from anywhere. Should both Alli and Rooney both be playing in the same team ( assuming Rooney is not playing as striker )? Should Sturridge and Kane both be playing? How many of those players play 4,3,3 with their club?
It was also painfully obvious that the mix of Midfield and attacking players from Spurs and Liverpool (plus Sterling) just didn't gel. Spurs play one way (high pressure) and the likes of Sturrudge and Rodney played more cautiously. The two just aren't compatible. Hudson and staff have to take the blame for sending out a group of players all playing in different ways.
They need to get someone in who knows what they're doing on the black board in the dressing room. Sick of Roy "We'll play 4-3-3 and we'll be fine because Spain and Germany do despite the fact that none of my players play in a 4-3-3 for their clubs" Hodgson. Edit; but Ranieri isn't your guy. It's all lies, he's a rubbish manager. Honest.
Some of the top teams have better players, but this is a tournament that's been won by Denmark and Greece. They got more out of their sides than you'd expect, while Hodgson did the absolute opposite. Spain had better players than Italy, but were knocked out by superior tactics and application. The same is true of Iceland and England. There's a clear gap in the talent available for those two countries, yet the one with less quality on the whole went through.
Harry Redknapp, who has managed Bournemouth, West Ham, Portsmouth, Southampton, Tottenham and QPR, says he has no faith in the Football Association to pick the right man to succeed Hodgson. It'll be embarrassing if they picked him, wouldn't it?
Stuart Pearce asked to score the likelihood that this awful set of performances will bring about real change, from 1 to 10? He went for 0. I'm not sure that it's that high. Gareth Southgate anyone?
I think that he knows that they won't. He's essentially ruled himself out with that statement, in my opinion. The current betting is Southgate, Hoddle, Howe, Pardew and then Redknapp, followed by Allardyce and various non-starters. I can't see any of them really pleasing the fans, to be honest. Hoddle didn't do much wrong in the role before, but he's been out of management for a decade. Howe's impressed at Bournemouth, but would be a big punt and I can't see it happening. Southgate hasn't done enough at U21 level and got Boro relegated. Not exactly fear-inducing stuff for opponents, is it?
Agree in principle and the better tactics certainly won out in both games yesterday, although the analogy of Italy and Spain is a world away from Iceland and England in terms of any supposed gulf in quality etc. As regards the next incumbent, I would also be worried that Hoddle had been out of the loop for too long. However, he would probably still be better than the last few and was effectively hounded out of his job the last time by Blair and his cronies. That he should have a 2nd chance for that reason alone is good enough for me.
It will be Southgate, it should be Hoddle. Away from Management or not, there isn't a better English candidate out there (unless El Tel can be induced from Mediterranean semi retirement). Tactically there aren't many to touch him, and hopefully time has mellowed his more abrasive ways with players.
