Rooney isn't a midfielder, and over the seasons he has been moved. The same was done to Beckham and he was dropped before he was finished with England. Maybe some time out of the pressure light will help him.
I read earlier that San Marino are no longer first in the record books, much to England's delight, no doubt. Benteke scored the fastest goal in World Cup qualifying at 7 seconds, for Belgium against Gibraltar. The previous record stood since 1993 at 8.3 seconds when San Marino scored against England. To think that I can still vaguely remember my reaction at the time as being not surprised, because England had already become pretty awful at times. Nothing to do with there being so many foreigners in the Premier League either, because it had only just started. The fact was, we were selecting high-work rate players without an ounce of guile or unpredictability in them, back then. Seem familiar.?
Italy only beat Malta 1 - 0 last year. Truth is it doesn't matter if you win 1 - 0 or 8 - 0. It's three points either way. What really matters are the results you get against decent opposition in pressure situations. And as we all know, England are excellent at this.
This is what happens in every campaign in recent times. England play crap for 95% of qualifiers but win the majority of games and people are like "oh well it's the result that matters" then they turn up to the tournament, play crap against half decent opposition and lose and then those same people say "WTF happened? We won every game in qualifying?!?!?!? Better change the manager and let him do exactly the same as everyone else for the last 20 years" (apart from McClaren who actually had a couple of decent teams in his qualifying group that England couldn't get away with playing crap against so didn't qualify) Bottom line is England aren't very good and haven't been for a long time. The change isn't going to happen over night and it would take some massive change from the FA to make it happen, which they are unlikely to do as it would effect the PL too much.
If you get a chance ot see the highlights of Gibralter v Belgium it highlights for me why England fans are so disappointed with the performance v Malta. The Belgium team play with so much more pace and creativity than England do, in a game that they know they're going to win from 6 seconds in (when Benteke scores)
On the other hand its only a few months back that this Belgium team was well beaten by Wales in a tournament. Gib are also the newest and weakest side in Europe with nowhere near the experience of the Malta team. England may not have won by a landslide but im not sure that this is a good example of why they didnt - the Maltese goalkeeper had a great game too.
We can move the words around on a page as many times as we want, about England performances. The truth is, elite players, for that is still what England players are, should be beating players from Malta with ease. The difference in class ought to be overwhelming. Sure [and I'm about to qualify this and move around yet more words], like many of other of the minnow nations, they set themselves up to be hard to beat, and little else. But over 90+ minutes, a team of elite professionals ought to be able to show the gulf between them and a mixture of well drilled professionals and semi-professionals. It ought to have been a showcase of how good highly paid elite professionals are. Bear in mind that Eastleigh Spitfires are probably more Malta's level.
And yet there are plenty of examples over the years of these minnow nations embarrassing the 'elite' nations, and not just England. It happens ! I was as deflated as anybody by England's abject performance in the summer v Iceland - really pissed off ! But i dont feel the same just because England didnt score double figures v Malta the other day, they won and now we will see what they manage to do tonight. Im not one of ' i hate international football brigade', im English and i support England through good and bad - in the same way as i support Southampton.
I think people are going overboard about the Malta result....we won and never looked like losing. I think expectations are too high in this country...we almost always qualify for major tournaments...frequently top of the group, but rarely do well. That is our level in the world....one of the top teams, but not an outstanding one. We seem to have a lot of good players which means we qualify, but no real superstars...so we don't win. A team like ours needs stability....I believe in players coming through the ranks and playing at each age group....in that way you build a proper team which can overcome the problem of lacking real stars.
Without getting wrapped in the detail, the bottom line was that the gulf in class was not apparent. That is what people are fed up with. Not whether England scored between 1 and 10 goals without reply.
Yep expectations are miles too high & the quality / ability of the England side will never change whilst the Premiership is effectively run by Sky i.e. £'s England's level is a tournament group stage qualifier & will then fail at the 1st or 2nd knock out stage, as shown in the last 20 years or so.
I think people should stop looking at the players/manager etc. as our problems run top to bottom in this country. I still think that for as long as we place pace/power above technical ability & skill in young players we'll continue to achieve nothing. I like saintalfie, will always support them still no mattter what. I'm English and don't understand how people can turn their support on & off. Did they turn their support of Saints off in the dark years?
I don't like the England-Saints comparison. I'd say England are more Liverpool/Spurs, ie; huge clubs with huge with expectations, but who consistently fail to meet those expectations year-on-year. I'd say Saints are more like Denmark/Sweden. We'll never be at the very top, but on our day we can definitely mix it with the big boys.
