No one was brilliant. Johnson had a decent enough game. Got caught out a couple of times when pushing forward and we lost the ball but made up for it with that last ditch tackle to cover for Lescott. Gerrard was poor though, don't know if it was the pitch but passing seemed to be way off for the whole team. Whta I don't get it Hart, Johnson, Lescott, Cole, Gerrard, Carrick, Clevely, Milner, Rooney all play for City, us, United, Chelsea - 4 teams that pass the ball around, yet stick them in an England shirt and they forget how to do it. Maybe just goes to show that it's the foreign players that are the real technicians in the teams... Also remember seeing a text on bbc live text yesterday from someone saying "Johnson is a liability but he's had a good game today". I'm sure the last 5 or 6 England games I've seen the same text. Surely if he's constantly playing well, then he's not a liability?! Everyone seems to be jumping on this bandwagon that Johnson can't defend rather than watching him over the last season and a half.
It was England, who gives a ****? Epic waste of anything spent on the topic, time/money. Christ knows why we have to have breaks for this bollocks.
You qualified your criticism of Rooney by pointing out that he got the goal. You could do the same for Gerrard for supplying him. Gerrard wasn't uniformly poor last night, but he was inconsistent. The team performance was poor, Poland were the better team- but as ever, the only thing that matters in the end is goals.
MOTM for me was Levandoski (sic?) the Poland forward, looks absolutely class. Another poor England performance and no Lampard/Gerrard midfield to blame it on. Maybe we just aren't as good as we think we are? Jagielka and Lescott are a poor combination for me as neither can play the ball out of defence well enough like Rio did in his prime. Cahill is a much better fit than Jagielka who isn't international class in my book. Cole had a poor game by his standards but the defence was OK generally. Hart cost us 2 points with a silly error. Midfield and forward line was as poor as we've come to expect. Rooney and Gerrard are lively but largely ineffective (save for a rather poor goal from nothing) and god help us if Cleverley is the future. Not a big fan of Milner but thought he was solid and put in some dangerous crosses/that through ball to Welbeck in the 2nd half; probably England's best attacking player. Overall we have good players that link well with better technical players at club level. Mata didn't even get in the Spain squad...what we could do with a player like that for England.
I said it before... I'll say it again. We will not qualify for World Cup with Woy in charge... and after being dumped out of qualies Woy will announce how proud he is of the players and how the future is looking bright.
What we need is a manager who's philosophy and style is in line with the biggest clubs in England. The reason I say this is that a majority of starting XI will come from the bigger clubs who all play attacking football. By having a national manager who adopts a similar style, it makes the transition from club football to international football a lot easier for the players. Spain have the majority of players coming from just two teams. Therefore it is easier to adopt a common style which utilises the best traits from Real and Barca.
Nothing to do with Man U, NOF. Honestly, I posted my thoughts on your board too - Wellbeck did twice as much as defoe, a player I admire, in twenty minutes. I thought Carrick bucked up in the second half, and Cleverley did what he could in a position that Gerrard and lampard have hated all their careers. But Rooney WAS ****ing dreadful. And it IS outrageous that various newspapers and websites seem to mark Johnson without watching the game. yes, I did go about it during the Euros, especially when Young was getting better marks than him, but i said then I'd have gone into that tournament with an on-form Young in my first eleven - he just inexplicably started bad and got worse, and Hodgson wouldn't budge on dropping him. BIG admirer of Wellbeck, and was during the Euros. So not a United thing, just pro Glen johnson.
