After a season of watching utter ****e at CR under Hughton I was hoping that the summer would bring at least a glimmer of exciting football. But no, what do we get boring, scared players choking when it comes down to nitty gritty.... Was Hughton whispering instructions to Woy?
Respect. I see the BBC pundits weeds bemoaning the 'schoolboy defensive errors'!!!! I often disagreed with your views on getting rid of CH, but you were proved correct!
I really can't blame Hodgson, we have not got the players and in a world league table we would be in the relegation scrap to stay in the top flight. At least we have showed up this time, South Africa was too embarrassing to think about and there we had at least on paper a squad that could and should have been in with a shout.
Until the top teams in the PL stop spending vast sums on foreign players, I don't feel England can compete with the rest of the world - so isn't going to happen any time soon then!!!!
And I think JR, that is the route of the problem and one that we have been aware of for something like 20 years now and done nothing about. I can understand the appeal of attracting the very cream of the overseas crop but we have imported so many average players that have become journeymen, bouncing from one club to another when they get relegated that the overall effect is to dilute the quality in our league at the expense of the talent that we need to develop. I also blame Sky partly as it is their money that has blinded many clubs into this spending furore which if they had not got would never have happened. Oh and agents fees are absurd. Rant over!
It doesn't help when you have a manager who re-arranges a team to accommodate an over-rated has been and leaves his best keeper at home! I don't care what you say, Hart is way off form and JR is streets ahead of the two that are out there!
VERY interesting Dave. I thought Hart could easily have come for the cross when Balotelli scored and if he had stood up tall against Suarez yesterday, he would have saved it!!! Mind you, until we get defenders who are more keen on their defensive roles as opposed to getting forward at every opportunity (Johnson in particular), we'll never do well.
can't agree dave. hart is by far england's best keeper. i think ruddy should have gone as he's better than foster. i think hodgson did well to get england to the world cup at all to be honest. we definitely look like one of the weakest teams in brazil. but there is some hope for the future in the shape of barkley, shaw, oxlade chamberlain, sterling, stones etc who are all technically better equipped than the old guard.
christ thats twice today supers that i agree with nearly everything you say, I would say its harsh to say we look one of the weakest, we have had a hard group (which contains 2 of only 5 sides to have a better win ratio against England) and there have been some really bring moments, but also some really awful pieces of defensive work. everything else bang on.
for me the weakest 8 teams are (in no particular order): cameroon greece japan england honduras nigeria iran algeria england are certainly the best of those 8 though
here's the fifa world rankings - how many of these sides do you confidently reckon england are better than and would beat consistently? i reckon its just greece and ukraine. we are probably on a par with a few such as mexico, russia, usa etc, maybe even portugal. qualifying for the world cup, in itself, is about our level at the moment. 1 Spain 2 Germany 3 Brazil 4 Portugal 5 Argentina 6 Switzerland 7 Uruguay 8 Colombia 9 Italy 10 England 11 Belgium 12 Greece 13 USA 14 Chile 15 Netherlands 16 Ukraine 17 France 18 Croatia 19 Russia 20 Mexico
Australia? South Korea? Ecuador? Sorry chap, not sure how serious you're being with this post but if you are being serious I think you're over egging it quite a bit personally.
It really is the same connundrum as at city. I think we(City and England) need some continuity and stability to build a team. However I am not sure Woy is the man to do it(Or Hughton was for NCFC). As with NCFC and replacing Hughton, I have know idea who we could get in to do a lot better. After Erikson and Capello who both came in with good reputations but left with a considerable amount of fan displeasure, all I'd say is that they should at least of had experience with managing English players and in the PL. The one plus from this tournament was that a fair few youth players have been blooded and that bodes well for the future. Some have real promise (Just like Rooney, on a cautionary note look how he has performed on the biggest stage!) maybe we can get back to being a Quarter/semi team. With the current structure and PL awash with average foreigners I can't ever see us winning again! I agree with supers about the list above, there are so few in that list you would feel confident of us beating. I have to say that I think the back 4 we have deployed might well be the worst of any that we have deployed in a major tournament. I certaintly would say that Jagielka and Johnson are well below the class needed to play at this level. Baines has been poor, but then he has been left horribly exposed and I think he is better than his two showings in Brazil would suggest. Bah!
I would say the ones I have put in bold we would stand a good chance of getting victory against, with three others (Chile, uruguay & Portugal) that could go either way and then the rest we would be underdogs!
Have you seen Chile at this World Cup? Uruguay as well were much better than us yesterday. Despite all the warranted negativity on this thread, can anyone still see us making it through? I can, although atm I very much doubt we can even beat Costa Rica by one goal, never mind the two goal margin that will probably be required. If you look at our last six games against World Cup calibre opposition: Germany - L Chile - L Ecuador - D Honduras - D Italy - L Uruguay - L If this was the start of a 31 game season with every other team in the World Cup and those were our first six results, you'd have to say we'd probably be bottom of the table. If we do fail to beat Costa Rica (and, as I said, it's looking likely) then you'd have to be very worried. That would be seven results that would leave us as one of, if not the worst, of any World Cup nation over that seven game period.
