Having just arrived back from a very enjoyable public house expedition to watch the hapless buffoons of the England football team one again fail miserably, it strikes me at 47 years old that we have a pretty ****e set of footballers when it comes to the World stage and the sooner we accept this fact the better. Now don't get me wrong, I think we have a fantastic manager now and Roy Hodgson is the only person I could envisage as manager of this shambolic set of over paid wasters but nevertheless, we are a second rate nation now when it comes to tournaments. Rooney is not an international quality striker; Gerrard is well past his sell by date; Parker is no better than Kevin Ball; Milner and Young are woefully short of the requirements of top class football and our squad is very ordinary. Italy are no great shakes either but they were 3 or 4 times better than us tonight imo but the fact is Germany will rag them all over the park on Thursday and beat them at a canter. They would have totally embarrassed us. Its time now forever to put to bed this notion we have world class players. We don't at all. We have good players and work as hard as any other but when it comes to class, we don't have one World Class player in our game today. Not one player that would make a first team place in either the German, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Italian, French, Argentinian or Brazilian team. We are officially a second rate nation now and have second rate players and the sooner we accept this the easier it will be to come to terms with our constant defeat in the last 8 of tournaments and the sooner we will be able to enjoy tournament football again. This is not a critique of the new manager, as I think he is total quality, but rather a savage and frank indictment of the state of our hugely over paid pampered no-hopers and a reality check for the ones amongst us who think otherwise. Roll on the World Cup qualifiers and I think Roy will get us to Brazil but when we are there, we wont be going any further than the group stages. Will Roy ditch the failures? I really hope so but will he really? Of course not. Ah well, it was good while it lasted. Off to bed and work for me Monday. Well done Italy btw, thouroughly deserved victory tonight and no complaints.
The players are quality, its just when they all play together it falls apart for whatever reason. Spain were the same up until 2008. Look at what most people have to say about Hart, Rooney, Gerrard, A.Cole etc. They'd love to have them in their team. They are top quality players, maybe they struggle with the style of international football but thats not because a lack of quality, more because they're used to faster paced games in the PL/CL and always taking risks on the ball as opposed to circulating the ball waiting for a chance.
Most of the players are products of escellence centres or acadamies. Playing the game to international standard is not in their psyche as the pace of the EPL demands a vastly approach and the English game is inbred from an early age. National football rules their thinking and they are not able to make the adjustment. We are now paying the price for an over influx of foreigners.
you are right we are second rate Its sad to say but I personally think that in the next few years if we get to quarter finals of major tournaments it will of been a success! IMO Spain Germany Brazil Argentina Uruguay Holland France Portugal Italy are all better than us I see us just after them lot with the likes of Mexico in the world rankings
