I am also willing to turn out and put myself on the line. I will give my all as I too desperately want to play for England again and again and I will put my neck on the block. Please sir may I have a chance?
As PnP said-it's not all Rooney's fault. With every new manager we have hope he will change things and the same team gets picked and the same football played. Malta barely got past the halfway line; played with one striker and 10 players in the box. Did we really need Henderson and Rooney? We didn't need Rose and Walker. We should have played two proper wingers. Rashford for Walnut? Rashford should be replacing a defensive player. We were putting the ball into an area with 3 England players and 10 Maltese. And also as has been said-Varney can't play against a parked bus. Bring on a player who is willing to run and dribble-even Townsend.
I think it's important to remember what a very decent human being Bobby Robson was. He was also open to learning from his mistakes which he did in the WC losing to Germany on pens . There was nothing fake about Bobby. The nearest we have to him today is Redknapp but he is far too much a football man for the FA to go with him.
That's fair comment Spurf and I certainly I have no desire to belittle him or his achievements with just a little good fortune we could have beaten both Germany in 90 and Argentina in 86 who both went on to the win the damn thing. I actually recently read his autobiography (which is such a good read that I read it in almost one sitting) and that has made me even more aware of the good in the man, but my point is that it could have ended differently as far is England is concerned if we had lost to Cameroon. His achievements in club football stand up against the very best and on reading my original post back, I do appear more critical than I actually intended.
Trouble is, he now only needs 8 or 9 more caps to beat Peter Shilton's record and become England's most-capped player (which ties in nicely with what he said previously about retiring after the 2018 WC). I don't think he'll go quietly before that happens, wouldn't be surprised if there were large amounts of sponsorship money at stake.
These most capped stats are meaningless because there so many more internationals in the modern game.
Not to someone with an ego, who knows they are unlikely to see either mark broken in the modern game for a very long time indeed.
I loathe Rooney but one of the few plus points has been the fact that he truly cared about playing for England unfortunately as already pointed out it is very difficult to see where he fits in an England team as CM when he doesnt play there for his club (when he does play !) Personally i would drop Rooney if only to send a sign that this is a new dawn as why carry on as we have been doing since we know it don't work . A fresh approach with some new players might spark some interest in the England team with most of us . having said that although i struggle to understand how the FA managed to find 81000 people willing to buy tickets for that game somehow they keep doing it so probably aren't bothered as long as we keep qualifying for the major tournaments.
A lot of them will have turned up for the spectacle of seeing yet another new manager in the dug out, although I wouldn't be surprised if upwards of 10,000 tickets were part of corporate packages that the FA throws around like confetti at anyone in a suit and tie dumb enough to contribute something towards the 'Wembley ran £150m over budget please help us out of this f***ing hole' Foundation.
Although slightly less meaningless when won by United players; namely the rare few whose hamstrings and groins aren't mysteriously allergic to the material they've used to make the England kit over the years.
It really does seem that the only reason to keep playing him is so that he can beat the record. As he gets closer it will be (though shouldn't be) even harder to drop him. I've run out of things to say about why he shouldn't play. It was obvious three tournaments ago and now even some of the media fanboys are getting the message (I think) but are almost afraid to say so.
I would argue that Beckham's case is different because he seemed to genuinely and demonstrably want to play for England. For all the 'golden generation', the only one that appeared to be putting in effort on a regular basis was Beckham. Do you remember the final WC qualifying game against Greece that Beckham tried to win single handed? He is remembered for the free kick winner (brilliant enough) but he spent the whole game running round like a mad thing trying to be a team on his own when the team was playing rather poorly. Very rarely seen anything like that from a modern England player and never anything like it from Rooney. Regarding Robson, in addition to everything else that people have said, he seems to be someone that learned from his mistakes. Unlike Hodgson of course who seemed, by virtue of suspension and injury, to be given about the best team he could that won 1-3 in Germany - a team he then broke up in order to accommodate Rooney.
To us yes, to sponsors who want to sell boots and kit "as worn by England's most-capped player" to kids, maybe not.
I'd forgotten such things matter. When I was a kid and our record scorer was Charlton and the appearance record holder was Moore, it seemed so much more glorious. Playing for your country meant something - mainly that you were bloody good. Playing a record number of games badly in a poor team and netting hat-tricks against countries the size of Rutland just seems to hold nothing of worth. There are too many games, many of which are completely meaningless. What was the point of playing Malta? I hope the Maltese FA made a few bob, otherwise, I can't think of a single good reason for such a fixture. Is it time for international football to have divisions with promotion and relegation? Instead of playing 10 or 12 qualifying games for a World Cup, it could be reduced to 6 or 8 between nations of a competitive standard. Restricting fixtures to meaningful games might reinvigorate something that's increasingly losing any degree of appeal. The qualification process is awful and with each passing tournament, the football gets worse. The football at the Euro's this summer was pretty dreadful and for the second time in four tournaments it was won by a team that played like last season's Leicester City. UEFA are doing away with the notion of festivals of football in one country which takes away much of the appeal of the thing in the first place.What will be left will be the international equivalent of the Europa League. FIFA's sale of the the next 2 World Cup tournaments to a couple of countries nobody wants to go to, should sound the death knell of the whole rotten competition in its current format, whereas FIFA intend to expand the thing so that The Outer Hebredes and The Isle of Man are guaranteed qualification. .God help us all!
Beckham kept himself in top condition. Rooney is fat and lazy. The England team at this point amounts to a way to help Spurs’ rivals. The team already crocked one of our fullbacks. We alternate them so they don’t get crocked. So, fresh from injury, Southgate will play Rose twice in a week (and Walker as well), considering he can’t be bothered to call up a substitute. I think at the very least someone from our club needs to tell Southgate or any other England manager that our fullbacks play once a week or not at all. Surely Rose wasn’t needed against Malta.
Spurs are literally having to get thru, international by international, with fingers crossed. That means the next game, and then the Scotland game a month after. There is no way that Spurs starting XI players should be starting the friendly against Spain. After that, we have to trust that other teams' players will play themselves back into selection when March comes (the business end of the domestic season) .
Absolutely surely the time has come for the smaller nations to have their own competitions, making their matches competitive as well. Currently Europe has 54 teams in qualifying groups for the world cup and 15 places available at the finals. That could easily be reduced to 30 teams in 6 groups of 5 top 2 qualify 3rds play off. The other 24 are split into 6 Groups of 4 winners of each group play in the next qualifying competition with 6 teams who finish bottom of their qualifiers dropping out of the 'Elite' groups. Still plenty of international football but with only 10 quailfiers over a 2 year period only 2 international breaks would be required in each season each with 3 qualifiers and 1 'test match' (I hate the term friendly) during the season the other 4 qualifers to be played in May/June in the odd numbered (non tournament seasons) with 1 more prestige test match to complete the summer.
