Its 10 years since England's golden generation. We saw a very decent bunch of players who just didnt quite fit tactically. But I am wondering: What would that team set up be like if the golden generation were young players today. Football tactics have evolved a lot over the past 10 years. If they were young today would Beckham's passing range be chucked out on the wing? Could Gerrard and Lampard fit in to the same team together? The defense does still pick itself. --------------Seaman----------- Neville-Ferdinand-Terry-A.Cole --------Beckham-Lampard------ --Gerrard---Rooney---Cole----- ---------------Owen-------------- The wings were tricky and the left still a problem but the spine is strong.
James Neville - Ferdinand - Terry - A.Cole Gerrard - Beckham - Lampard Joe Cole Owen - Rooney Still trying to force Gerrard and Lampard together though
i would swap beckham and gerrard round, and rooney and owen personally, think beckhams balls in would be better suited for rooney than owen, and owen could feed off the balls from gerrard and lampard through the middle and use his pace. is there no better option than j cole?
A better lineup would be... James Neville - Ferdinand - Terry - A.Cole Hargreaves Beckham - - - - Scholes Gerrard/Lampard Owen - Rooney
------------------Seaman---------------- Neville-Ferdinand-Terry-A.Cole ----------Scholes--Beckham-------- ------------------Gerrard------------------ ----------Rooney------J.Cole---------- --------------------Owen-------------------
Oh yes. true. I wasnt sure. In 2004 day tactics I feel our midfield pairing should have been Lampard and Hargreaves.
Scholes - Hargreaves - Beckham would be an interesting middle 3. Hargreaves is probably the most underrated midfielder of that generation.
This is your true golden generation: ----------- seaman neville-adams-campbell-southgate ---------ince--gascoigne------ -macca------------------platt -------shearer----fowler-----
If the teams were young there is zero chance beckham would play central or deep The issue us a player like joe cole... In short that's just muck and so while the defence was good the shape us let down
Southgate was a CB, can't recall him ever playing at LB. Platt could play wide but was often wasted there. As much as I love Fowler, Shearer and Sheringham were brilliant together so it would be SAS up top. The LM area looks weak to me but it depends what time period we're talking here, I'd guess at 1998 so a little too late in the day for Barnes.
-------------De Gea-------------- ----Blind---Jones---Rojo--- Rafael---Herrera---Di Maria -----Mata------------Rooney--- -----------RVP--Falcao---------
Impossible to pick Fowler ahead of Sheringham. Fowler did fack all for England whereas Sheringham was an ideal partner for Shearer.
In the perfect line up with the golden generation, Lampard and Gerrard would never have played together. We must be the only nation in the world, which when it has more than one quality player in a position, plays them altogether. Whereas every other top footballing nation is used to having depth in squad and understand this weird notion called.... a subs bench! Imagine Italy deciding to play all of Albertini, Totti, Di Matteo, Ambrossini, Donadoni together as creative/attacking mids in their starting line up. My dates may be slightly out but the point stands. If they had been English, we would! And then wondered why it didn't work? Our golden generation had real quality but the managers were inept. Bobby Robson or Venables in their reasonably younger days would have done better, but maybe I'm rating them two out of some misguided nostalgia.
Most of the team pick itself as there is not a lot of quality players left in the premiership to choose from, The premiership is far to full of foreign players that take away any chance of any British player let alone any English player getting their chance of progression...that's the true reality of why all the home nations are crap and are very unlikely to ever win anything again.....the premiership needs to be restructured...
Amazed at how many of you have Beckham in CM. Not even UIR would be so daft or lovestricken with blondie to put him there. He was a cross-happy winger, that's all.
We are talking about 10 years ago here. The foreign players chat is all bollox in my opinion to. For starters, if players are not good enough to start they wont, if they are they will. Hard work pays off. Secondly, looking around the world most countries squads are either spread all over Europe or are largely based at 1 or 2 teams (Spain's world cup winning team had 7 from Barcelona starting. Germany had a good handful from Bayern Munich). Thirdly, English players abroad would have more influence on the England team. They would get the games, gain different experiences and the England team would gain more international influence. They could always look to move back home later on. The French league is very similar to the PL but at a slightly lower level. But does contain world class players. Loan some youngsters over there. Perfect stepping stone football wise and some time abroad will help the players maturity and life experience, which will help them greatly on and off the pitch. The Spanish and Portuguese leagues are skillful, tactical and creative, but slower and less physical than the English league. Send some youngsters over and they will come back better passers, with new tactical awareness and with a new influence the England team could really benefit from. Watch Eric Dier! Wisdom should be at Bordeaux with Ilori or in Spain.
