Wayne Rooney - "I'm not sure whether I prefer to be central, on the left or pushed out to the right". Roy Hodgson - " just get on the ****ing plane and find a seat, Wayne"
Wayne Rooney is refusing to write off England's chances of winning the world cup... mainly because he can't write
I can't say that I'm hugely shocked that England fell at the first hurdle. When the draw was made that was what many thought would happen. It is just incredibly frustrating to have played very well for much of the Italian game only to concede two soft goals and then playing against a poor Uruguayan side with their best player not fully fit to manage to repeat the dose. I echo the earlier comments re joe hart - had ballotelli scored when he rushed out for an impossible ball he would have been slaughtered by the press and his other errors and lack of organising the defence would have also come under the spotlight. As it is the press have closed ranks and suddenly he is viewed as world class again. He is only outstanding when compared to the paucity of alternates for his role and as Roy never tries out the likes of ruddy then he will have no pressure as no other keeper will have any experience at international level. I sincerely hope that we have sacrificed this World Cup to blood the next generation of players with a view to competing in the latter stages of the euros and 2018 tournament. Time to draw a line under a numbers of players careers and let's try to develop the younger players we have and hopefully a few more will come through, particularly in defence. Whether or not the premier league will allow our youngsters to develop is of course another matter as if they don't play then they are unlikely to improve. Liverpool aside the rest of the top clubs play so few English players that it cannot be easy for the national manager to pick a squad from such a relatively small pool of players.
Makes me wince a bit when I hear people talking about England being in transition or blooding new players... Seems like we've been doing it since 1990 when I watched my first world cup. I'd love to know at what point all this work in progress is actually going to yield a result.
The very fact that Roy Hodgson has begged Gerrard not to retire shows we have very little to look forward to for a few years yet!
Well said both of you - I was astounded when I read the news on the BBC website this morning regarding Gerrard!! What incentive is there for the younger players to even try to get in the team????
Gerrard is 34, our nemesis of the past two tournament Pirlo is 36. Gerrard had a fairly ordinary tournament, certainly by his standards, however I personally wouldn't say he is totally finished at this level. It's not as if we've got an outstanding wealth of centre-midfielders who play in similar role to Gerrard at the moment. Henderson and Wilshere as centre-mid pairing at the stage of their careers that they are currently at would cause me concern personally. Also I don't get the over the top criticism and writing off of Rooney either, for my money he's been our best player this tournament and was desperately unlucky not to have bagged himself a hat-trick in the Uruguay game. People are getting carried away about some of our younger prospects as well. For all the hype and praise that has been thrown at Sterling in the past week or so I struggle to see what he did in either game that was anything special at all? Don't recall him taking on and beating a single Uruguayan on Thursday, I've no doubts he is going to be a top player and hopefully have a good international career, but to call him the answer at the moment is way off the mark if you ask me. Can't stand the bloke, and he has definitely made the rod for his own back, but I have no doubt that if John Terry had been at the back we would have already qualified by now and tomorrow's game would be a decider to see who tops the group, rather than a dead rubber where we give some of our squad players a chance. Ah well, just a shame the bloke is such a complete ****er I guess.
Completely agree. I thought Rooney was definitely our best player v Uruguay. Came under some stick for the Italy game, but bagged an assist when playing out of position (and what an assist...) Jagielka showed just how big a hole JT left
That assist aside, Rooney was virtually missing the rest of the Italy game sat out left with all the attacks down the right.
As a matter of interest,does anyone know how much money the England players get for this pathetic effort?
No idea how accurate it is, but this: http://www.tsmplug.com/football/players-get-paid-to-play-for-national-teams/ Suggests it's not a lot (compared to their club salaries). I'd have thought they are paid a bit more for WC matches, but even a generous estimate suggests it won't be more than £5k for group stage match win. Rooney would make in less than three weeks the bonus they were prepared to offer for winning the WC...
Can't be bothered to trawl through and find it, but somewhere on this thread, people have been lamenting how young top-class English talent is being deprived of opportunities to shine and progress to the senior squad by virtue of the number of overseas players in our top flight. Well, here's exhibit 'A' - and it doesn't make overly good reading please log in to view this image
And I suspect it's probably even worse than that - doesn't Fabregas count as "home-grown"? All leagues do it, but I suspect that the Premier League also has more foreign home-grown players
Must say I'm really looking forward to Netherlands v Chile, followed by Croatia v Mexico tonight. And while I'm here, allow me to nail my colours firmly to the mast please log in to view this image Come on, you checker boys!!
Yup, I'm with you there as well fella - Croatia all the way for me now! I think they'll beat Mexico to set up what could be one of the games of the tournament against Chile, I'm incredibly excited about the prospect of that game!
Massive screens up in major cities like Split, where the whole city will be watching - and hopefully, buzzing at the final whistle It was only a month ago that I was there and my allegiance runs deep. 4.26 million population plays 113 million But as Paul McVeigh was all too aware, size isn't everything.
A bit of World Cup trivia, anybody? Gerrard on the bench tomorrow and Lampard starting - good to see the younger fringe players getting some 'big tournament' experience
