Many england fans are apparently complaining because the style of football played in the game of Norway v England was poor to watch and wasn't the 'beautiful' style of play Just wondering, would you rather a. Play beautiful football and be knocked out early on b. Play horrible football (stoke-esque) and go on to win the Euros/World Cup?
Who cares how you win as long as you get the trophy. In 50 years time will people remember who won or whether they played well?
It's about results. If we win the Euros I couldn't give a flying **** how we played. Although I thought the style of football was decent today, even if we ran out of steam in the second half. Good to see an England team at least trying to pass the ball.
I conclude that this question is null due to the infinitesimal chance of England winning the tournament.
I agree, whats the point of a big striker, used for link up play, if he's not going to link up with anyone?
People should get used to it. If England are to do anything, then this is the only way with this current crop of players.
You know what utterly scares me as a non England fan (who unfortunately subscribes to Sky Sports and reads newspapers and therefore cannot escape every torturous detail about Wayne Rooney's last ****e) - that every English person I've recently met has already given up on this tournament, as if you have no chance. In tournaments gone by I've always been met with the odd "we've definitely got a chance" optimist - but no, for some reason this particular tournament seems to be written off by almost everyone. So... by the laws of reverse psychology... you bastards are probably gonna win it then... and force a generation of non-English United Kingdom citizens to emigrate to somewhere that doesn't care for football... and therefore not have to listen to another three-decade long gloat-fest.
Its all well and good saying would you prefer to play poor football but win, but if England play like that in any game in the Euro's, they will get beaten. I realise that it was A. Hodgson's first game and B. it was a friendly, however, apart from the first 20-25 minutes, they were awful, and if they were up against any team with the slightest bit of quality, they would of got beaten easily. I have lost all motivation to watch England, especially after Hodgson named Downing, Carroll, Milner, Kelly and Henderson in the squads.
The sad reality is that we won't come close to either option. England will play horrible football and fail to qualify from the group stages.
England don't really have the players for "beautiful football" do they. You try to put guys like Stuart Downing or Carroll to play like Barcelona and you're only going to end up embarrassing yourself. So not much options other than try to grind out results, too bad England aren't very good in the either. Probably the realistic option is Horrible Football - Knocked out Early on. England's usual m.o.
Not too fussed about beautiful football, but I would have liked to see them try to assert themselves, take risks and try to control the game. In a friendly, the result doesn't matter and there's no need to park the bus at 1-0.
It is a Hodgson side! You should of known this when we appointed him that this would happen! It is a friendly so we have to practice "parking the bus" for when Roy will apply it during vital games! You as fellow fans are to blame for this style, due to pushing for the sacking of our most successful England manager ever. Our punishment is Roy Hodgson. Fact! This is why we shouldn't let football fair-weathers contribute there opinion in the international side . Consequently I will eat my words if we go and win the tournament; And to be honest I think will still get results playing like this; so I guess it is not too bad, the style is a little boring though.
England are just **** full stop. Doesn't matter about good or bad football. If your going to take the Liverpool B-Team, your going to get raped at the euros, thats the end of it.
Beefy, why are you obsessed with this rape thing, noticed on a couple of your postings, starting to worry about you.
Friendlies against Spain and Holland were the time to practise going backs to the wall. Even Stoke take the game to inferior opposition and England should do the same, especially in friendlies where the pressure is off and risks can be taken. Germany lost to Switzerland yesterday, but they will have learnt their lessons and will probably come back stronger for it. It's this English obsession with winning at any cost, even when it doesn't matter, that holds us back. It starts from the youth coaches that fill their teams with meatheads because they win games. Probably seems strange, but I'd rather have tried to control this game and lost. It's a friendly, the result bothers me for about 5 minutes. Friendlies are about what you gain from them and we gained very little from this one. We will need a whole lot of luck to get anywhere playing like this. As well as the supposed "tough games" we also have to play (and beat to stand a good good chance of qualifying) Ukraine and Sweden in the group. Neither of them world beaters, but teams you feel we'd have to score more than once against to ensure victory. I think Roy is a good manager and a nice bloke and I think the media will warm to him eventually, but this overly cautious approach will get us nowhere.
Was anyone actually impressed by the performance, though? A win's a win, but Norway aren't a very good side and the balance of the team was pretty poor, in my opinion. Gerrard's incapable of playing in a creative central midfield role any more, Jones should be a last resort option at right-back and doesn't complement Milner at all. The whole thing looked wonky as **** to me and the squad needs some serious tweaking before the tournament starts, if possible.
It's probably just because Hodgson knows he would get slaughtered by the press if he lost to Norway, even though as you say the result is totally meaningless, but the journos wouldn't let such little details get in the way.
