This is the crux of the matter. The side was dominated by 'Pool and Everton players that come from teams organized and groomed to play a certain way. The England setup is lacking in sophistication and ignores this commonality instead of building on it. There was a lack of cohesion and quality. The passing stats of the England side was significantly below what the same players routinely achieve for their clubs.
woy woy woy , an effective playing style needs to be implemented sooner and with more purpose also the weapon was on the bench, his name is James Milner, big mistake not to play him. Very prof , not as wasteful as some of the younger guys, always to be seen and almost always creates or scores!
When you look at the second Suarez goal - very very unlucky. Huge punt up the pitch folowed by a poor back header from Gerrard (apart from the odd long range pass he's been poor in both games imo and was partially to blame for both Uruguay goals last night). If the Uruguay player had got to it instead of Gerrard then Suarez would have been well offside. The execution, however, was top class. Put that into context by looking at England's near misses and the fact that they were very good against Italy they can consider themselves very unlucky overall. Hopefully that luck will change in the last round. Roy has done a decent job bringing the young guys in but should have had Rooney play more centrally in the Italy game. I hope he stays on as manager.
Well that went to plan, I never expected England to get out of this group, and they are homeward bound now for sure , I never for one minute thought that Hodgson would deliver, and he hasn't didsapointed, time for those that appointed him to reflect on what the hell were they thinking, Hodgson has no strategy and is sadly so predictably average at best!………
9 out of 11 England players would not even be considered for any of the top teams with substance ...Rooney would not make the bench let alone play and Gerard would have no chance and retired ages ago...Of course like wales England are limited now who they can choose because of the mass introduction of foreign players who take the places of British players in the best sides, They then get better and earn a fortune and go home to play for their country who sometimes play England and knock them out of major tournaments with a grin or a wink none of the UK teams will ever win a major trophy again as we care too much helping foreign teams to make their players better...
The issue with England and always has been they are scared to try anyone new. The German side that played against Portugal contained 6 players from the u21 squad that beat England in the u21 europeon final. Have a guess how many of the losing u21 England team were in the starting 11. Yep you guessed it none. We as home countries are pretty poor at bringing people through. But, lets look at Rooney. We cant play him as a no.9 as we have sturridge. so lets try him on the wide left. That didnt work so what shall we do. We have to find him a spot in the team (it is Rooney and he plays for Man utd). I know lets play him N. 10 role Just behind sturridge. Where next for him goalkeeper. Danny Welbeck, can someone tell me how many times for Man utd he has played wide right. England had 2 or three wingers on the bench who are all better than Wellbeck (as a winger) but no he plays for Man Utd. we have to find him a place.(there are 2 English wingers playing for Swansea and both are better as wingers than Welbeck) Have 2 fullbacks who cant defend and are inadequate positionally at this level. They are good going forward but totslly poor defensively. Call me old fashioned but I thought as a full back priority was defense first. Encland have 2 ok Central defenders.Gary Cahill is ok, but I believe that Terry makes him look a better player than he is. Saying that he did ok last night. Until England has a manager who will cast his net wide, be prepared to ignore the press clamouring for certain players to . When they start playing players who are on the top of their game rather than who they are and what club they play for there is no chance. I have to agree with Dai, Englands starting 11 was full of total averageness this tournament. but they still should have performed better than they did. Poor manager tactically, poor team selections are the main reason for Englans failure and that will continue untill they find a manager with a backbone and balls. Who will stand up to the press and will pick players on form from unfashionable sides.
Too much over-analysing for me. England didn't play badly in either game imo but much better in the first than the second. Fine margins and bad luck. If you have to criticise then for me it's twofold. Leaving Cole at home was the first mistake and playing Rooney out wide in the first game was the second. Sure some players looked well past it. For all his good passing Gerrard looked out of it imo. The Manager has been pretty adventurous in bringing in new players imo and you can't expect to simply oust all the old heads and bring in 11 new younger ones. This has the hallmarks of a team in transition.
