Just how ****ing good is Eric Dier!!!! Would love to see his stats as I think he only had one misplaced pass in the whole game and played two of the best you could ever wish to see. Better teams will bring bigger challenges and more pressure - but he was still head and shoulders England's MOM again tonight.
"Daniel Sturridge and Jamie Vardy MUST start against Slovakia" - Alan Shearer "Thanks for taking advice from that tactically inept pillock, Roy" - Chris Coleman
On the other hand...Kane looks shattered. A well rested Kane can be untouchable. It's his 2nd pre season on the road. The mental affects of not having a summer off are not to be underestimated. Kane is on empty.
Alan Shearer's managerial career record - 8 games and 1 relegation suggests that anything he suggests should met with the opposite action.
I think our Eric is....he rarely puts a foot wrong, the only problem is when he plays a forward ball to start the potential assist on his way...we run out of brains.
Dier is the Messiah The commentary is dire, the fawning over Lallana is dire, the faith in Wilshire is dire, Sturridge is a dier waste of a team selection. The dires have it. Dier as I have said is a future Spurs & England captain.
No shape ability upfront vardy can only be effective playing off a holding CF Dier performed world class Wiltshire poor Good First half from fullbacks but faded in second should have subbed on Walker with Rooney No use saying they parked the bus as with us England must learn to score against such teams i.e. attack wide pulling crosses in that get defenders facing their own goal better use of the wall pass and and occasional one on one dribbling The only time we looked to have a real chance was Dier intelligent balls chipped in to the box
Dier couldn't be rested because there's no cover for him. Don't forget he's also one of the reserve centre backs so goodness knows who plays in his position if that happens - maybe Drinkwater? (oops). Also thought we lacked width tonight - so why didn't he bring on Townsend (double oops). And when plan A - the footballing attackers don't want, maybe we need to be a bit more direct, so bring on Carroll (oops x 3). We've seen from experience with Crouch that international teams can't cope with that type of attacker. Anyway, we have Wayne Pirlo to save us - except from his contribution tonight Dier is a far better passer of the ball. Goodness what a balls up.
I’m not so negative. I’d almost be hopeful, except it’s England. Wretched tonight, but I think it’s a different team with Walker and Rose stretching the defense and Henderson and Wilshire not taking up space. Rooney’s not bad (and much better than I thought he’d be), Alli is class (even though he hasn’t shown it that often yet) and Dier has been England’s best player. It comes down to whether the front three can score a couple. Well, maybe the front three can score one and Dier or Alli can score one as well. Now if only Hodgson benches Hart, England might get a win or two. But since it is England, I figure there’s a 99% chance they’ll lose on pens, probably to Portugal. And a one percent chance they get kicked out of the tournament for bad behavior by their fans.
He just doesn't get it, does he?.... 'I'm not frightened of anybody' England manager Roy Hodgson: "If we had won the game people would say we didn't miss them [the players who were left out] and when we don't they say the team selection is wrong, I am used to that one. "Finishing second is a disappointment but we are still in the last 16 and who is to say the team we will play will be that much stronger? "You just don't know, the way we are playing I am not frightened of anybody."
He's right - we've played three games and utterly dominated all of them. The obvious flaw in his reasoning is that we were probably handed the easiest group of the entire tournament and we're in for a bloody shock as soon as we come across anyone with real quality.
Exactly! What worries me is that he just doesn't seem to see what a shambles his disjointed lineup for last night was!...
Well, that was ****ing awful. Laboured, slow, pointless, directionless, gutless, unimaginative-less and lots of over words ending in -less (including goalless). Most of the team were strolling around like they were taking a Sunday walk in the park. Sturridge was absolutely abysmal, should have come off at half-time as he looked like he couldn't be bothered to run. Looked like he didn't even want to be there. Henderson and Lallana looked like they should be playing for the Dog & Duck on a Sunday morning (Mmmmm... Wonder what's connecting those 3 players?). Did feel sorry for Vardy a bit. He at least was trying to up the tempo in the 1st half. God knows what happened at half time. Maybe Uncle Woy's teamtalk sent him to sleep. But you felt as if it was just Dier and Vardy trying to up the tempo with the other 8 outfield players just shrugging their shoulders and going, 'Meh'. I think Wilshere to be fair (can't believe I just typed that) was trying to up the temp a bit but is so unfit that he just couldn't and ended up with the game passing him by.
The next team England play : the match will be like the group stages (even Portugal with CR7) . But QFs onwards, the opponents will be teams fully confident in their own game, and the questions that will be asked of England won't be can they score against a parked bus.
Slovakia had a game plan - to defend - and it worked. In fact a combination of Hart and Smalling almost brought them richer rewards, as that was arguably the clearest chance in the game. Putting the excellent Dier to one side for a minute, personally thought that Clyne had a really decent, creative game. But this was against a side that basically offered no attacking threat from minute 1 to 90. They didn't even press the ball until well into their own half. Sturridge posed and preened, but spent too much time dropping deep which isolated Vardy. Neither Henderson and Wilshire should be considered - and heaven knows what Noble and Drinkwater - let alone Townsend - must be thinking. And that highlights a major flaw in Hodgsons philosophy: picking on reputation rather than current form - as on that basis Townsend has been excellent for England over the past 2 years AND finished the season well for Newcastle. Yet is overlooked in place of the underwhelming Sterling.
To be a bit more scientific, you consider player recent : 1. "reputation" (what they have done for England in the past - qualifier and tournament stages) 2. league form 3. fitness Townsend would be 1/2/3 = high/high/high. Wiltshire would be high(ish) / none / low. Noble would be none/high/high. And so on. So with some basic objective weighting of 1/2/3, you could get a ranking for all players, and an ordering based on any combination of 1/2/3. Some of the absentees I suspect would have made the cut, and some present would not. But at least it would have been objective.
