Coming off the back of the worst performance in an International competition ever. No manager. Players who couldn't give a **** or fake the slightest injury just to get the hell out. 5 o'clock kick-off. Playing a team that wouldn't be capable of beating a decent pub team. Has the English game ever been in a worse state? 5-0. And I'll still be disappointed.
Expect a lot of sideways passing across the back four .. score towards the end of first half .. the get 3 or 4 in the last 20 to make it look like a good result .. performance wise I expect to be totally underwhelmed as normal
I don't think we'll score 5 3-0 win, but really boring and lacklustre Can't get excited anyway...it's not City is it!
Shocking match thread. I had one all prepared loads of data and stats. Previous meetings. What it's like there on holiday. Paul O from hull used to play for amaltese side every weekend. Where to play Rooney. The lot!! Gone now in the bin.
What's annoying about these teams is that they'll continue parking the bus no matter how many they concede in the game. There's no spirit of the game about it.
Could do. There's always the suicidal 7, withdrawn 9 or pattys old position the backwards 11. Dio's playing that to good effect at the moment. No one expects an 11 to be constantly running back to their own goal. Messes em right up.
It's also boring the fact there's a good few ****e teams per qualifying group. When I was a kid, there was usually one **** team per group of 4/5 teams: Turkey, Malta, Luxemburg, Cyprus being the obvious ones. Qualifying was tough and often exciting. I'm definitely in favour of a pre qualifying tournament - it'd benefit the smaller nations too in terms of football development (though would probably hit them financially which will be the deciding factor).
It will be difficult to judge on today obviously, but England need some changes to get a young team ready for future tournaments. And keeping Rooney as captain doesn't help that in my opinion It also makes Southgate just look like the caretaker he is. He should have grabbed it by the balls and changed things to what he would do if he was going to be the manager long term. It goes well then he puts them under pressure to give him it permanently, if they bring someone else in then at least he's laid his cards on the table
I'd keep Rooney until the WC Finals keep the experience in the squad. but doubt i would take him in two years time.
From a piece in the Grauniad Mainly, though, it comes from other things, such as decline and unhappiness and waste. In the middle of which Rooney has sat in the stocks, a piñata for English footballing grief. TV directors are to blame in part. Every muffed move, every shanked pass, it is always cut to Wayne, trigger for a Pavlovian surge of rage at that wide, blank, flat stare. The obsession with captaincy is to blame. Manchester United and England are to blame for being aristocratic, entitled teams in a state of relative decline. Above all there is simply the absence of anyone else to take the brunt. Rooney remains the story because the real story is he’s still the story. There is a kind of sadness in this, the quiet churn of England’s flatline years. Since Rooney’s first cap, 91 players have made an England debut. More than half of those never made it to 10 caps. Twenty-one never played again. Only Danny Welbeck has reached 10 goals in the past decade. In the same period Rooney has scored 44 times. Spin it how you like but this is not Wayne’s fault. He’s not making the rest of them fail. He just keeps turning up and being all right, so-so, decent.
I'd keep him, he's still a good player, but not as Captain He always has a face like a smacked arse and doesn't seem very tolerant to mistakes at a time when Southgate is preaching that the shackles need removing and no one should be criticised for trying something that doesn't come off And again if I was GS I'd want to put my stamp on the team, and I think changing the captain might help that
Well Southgate can **** off. Hart, Cahill, Rooney and sturridge all been **** this season and wall into England's best team. Lingard starts 2 games for man u and now part of that same 1best11? Get to **** you stupid ****, stealing a ****ing living, lucky for him were up against a pub team
Two possibilities We will struggle to unlock them till the last 10 minutes and end up winning 3-0. Talksport will go into meltdown and the only noise you will hear in the stadium are the school kids shouting who got in for free. Or England will show creativity power and speed from the 1st minute onwards and win 8-0.