Disagree with the lot of what you said to be honest. Don't have time to go through and respond to each individual point you made but being "lacklustre" in possession is due to lack of movement and fluidity off the ball, that is entirely down to training and not knowing your team mates. Don't have to be technically brilliant to pass the ball 10-15 yards but the options need to be there
and it's this thinking that ensures England won't improve ... Germany, France and Portugal wins were not in tournament football Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
International friendlys aren't played the same as club friendlys,England v Germany eg there is no quarter given,full on games.
Nail on the head as usual OLOF. As an Englishman, I should be right behind the national team and, growing up, always was and always believed we would win. Now, I can't even be arsed to watch qualifiers never mind the mind numbing 20 a-side friendlies. In reality, the Euros summed my national team up, I could watch the less talented Northern and perhaps Republic of Ireland and less so, Wales with exceptional talents like Bale and Ramsey and only have envy and respect for the sheer effort and pride they put in when playing for their country. Just how shocking England were was masked to an extent by nicking the win over Wales and was absolutely highlighted by Iceland. They wanted it more than us and had a plan and you are right, they walked through us. At 2-1 we had a team full of multi millionaires with not a clue how to retrieve the situation. We can debate all day about talent or training but, really if they can't be bothered why would I spend good time or money supporting that??
Wonder how jock feels about things seeing as the number of Scottish players has reduced because of the number of overseas players. This means the jocks are shyte but not their fault, its all because of money from Sky/BT and a useless governing body
I'm not quite sure that's the only problem. I recall an interview Lou Macari had a few years ago on the radio - said that the initial Scotland squad for Argentina in 1978 (or was it '74? - can't remember) had 72 players listed for midfield. Yip, I thought it was a load of bollocks too, as I listened - then he rhymed off 20-odd names - all of them well known names in england & Scotland, and we would have been proud to have any of them in the squad. No country in the UK has that sort of talent to select from now, so it's the 'usual suspects' for most international matches. I think there is a deeper root cause - actually multiple causes. Yes, we have academies etc. But I wonder if we knock the enthusiasm out of kids by drilling them in tactics, bollockings etc. at too young an age. There are so many temptation for kids these days, the most favourite one seems to be sitting on your arse playing computer games or watching telly, followed by getting pished or drugged up when they mature at 8 years old. I've only skirted over this, but I truly believe that the situation is irrecoverable in this country. Even if the money stopped attracting the foreigners over, we don't have the same level of talent to replace them as we used to have.
Apart from a decent keeper, and a target man striker for plan b. Oh and anybody to take Rooneys place in the squad.
Iceland knocked out Holland in the qualifiers,finished above the cup winners in their group and are doing very well again in world cup qualifiers,upsets happen in knockouts ask Chelsea v Bradford,Man u v MK Dons and Arsenal v Sheff wed or Man u v Leeds F A CUP for that matter.
