Wrong ! this is the very reason why England are utter pap ! When they play fast tempo football they lose. When they slow it down they lose. Keep believing the hype bloke. up against an intelligent player our brainless Mad Dogs and Englishmen fail time and time again. Up against a bit of guile we don't stand a chance. You can't play fast paced football in the sun. You can't work your butt off to win the ball only to give it away again because you cannot keep hold of it. Owen is a speed merchant, nothing more, Rooney is hardly prolific at International level, International defenders are smarter. Rooney wouldn't get into any top International team and neither would Gerrard. Hargreaves would've because he is technically a better player than Gerrard across the various stages. Gerrard is a great club player and thats it. Lampard ?? Kack.
So to compete you play into the opposition's hands? The majority of players that we do haven't aren't technically good enough to hold onto the ball for 5 mins+ so you play the kind of game that you are good at. But the one that is bloody more than qualified as technically proficient is Wayne Rooney.
I think its down to the players mentality. A majority of English players look like they really don't care about playing for their country, they due it because the feel obligated. Take the United States for example, player for player a pretty average/weak team. But at international level every player on the team take the utmost pride in representing their country and it shows on the pitch.
Dude, let me put it another way, Man U were trying for ages to do well in the CL, the year they won it they changed their play, from all out attack to trying to keep the ball for longer. Arsenal have been trying to win the CL for years, the one year we get to the final we change our play, no all out attack, we play 4-5-1 and counter. You cannot afford to give the ball away in International football. England's strengths are their weaknesses at the highest level, simple as that. You cannot go chasing the ball for the vast majority of the game and expect to win when you lose possession of it quickly. I don't know why you cannot understand that ? I don't know why you think having heart and bags of energy and playing fast paced football means England have a chance of winning something ? Our game is too easy to defend against, hence why we are NOT a successful nation. Look at successful nations and see the football they play, it is not rocket science.
And keep believing Rooney is as good as the media make out. He wouldn't get into into top International team like I said before, he has done nothing at International level. A great club player, like Lampard, like Gerrard, like the rest of the golden era players. The season when he wanted to leave Man U and he couldn't buy a goal, he had no first touch, no interplay, nothing, he was kack. If he was as good as you claim he wouldn't have gone through that period of poor play.
Too much pressure from the media for them to do well and English players seem to choke on the big occasion.
Playing with a fast effective tempo is sucessful because few teams can live with it when it comes together but you have to make the most of the players that you have. United can do it because we have those players at our disposal at the moment. In 2009/2010, it could be argued that we didn't have the players hence why we relied on Rooney's goals so much. And look at Chelsea against Barcelona in the CL in 2009, they had the players to play at a high tempo that knocked Barcelona (nearly) out of their stride. You take an England team of Hart, Smalling, Rio, Terry, Cole, Young, Parker, Gerrard, Young, Rooney and Defoe and there is no reason why they can't play in the way that United are playing right now. Playing with a high tempo doesn't mean you run around like headless chickens, it's a basic lack of understanding of tactics that is the problem. You keep talking about sucessful nations but there has been noone that has dominated the last 10 years apart from Spain and that is very, very recent. And again, they can only do that because of the right players they have at the moment I guarantee that Barcelona would take Rooney in a heartbeat. What has Messi done at international level? Probably less than Rooney to be honest. And of course, no player ever goes through a bad patch of form?
I dont think the players are over rated to be honest! they just under perform for England! Think the media are one of the biggest factors for Englands poor performances! And although capello isn't that bad of a manager, he doesn't fit the England role at all!
I don't know why you keep referring to club football - International football is a different beast. England can't chase the ball for 90 minutes, they'd die. England have tried playing fast tempo football and they end up chasing shadows. Then they bomb up the pitch and lose it .. then have to chase shadows for another 5 minutes. Chelsea have NEVER played at a high tempo, you have that wrong, they are very slow and bludgen teams to death. they have old slow players. Just look at that midfield - Lampard, Deco, the Ballack etc ... they didn't play fast football at all. Arsenal and Man U USED to play like that but slowed things down when it came to CL football - hence why we got further in the competition, we ditched the gung ho attitude and tried to keep the ball. This is why Arsenal, Chelsea and Man U get far in the competition - not because we play fast tempo football. And Rooney would not get in at Barca. He'd get in to Arsenal for sure, like I said, top club player, kack at international level. Rooney wouldn't get into the AC Milan, Real Madrid or Inter teams ... the pace of the game is too slow for him, the same reason he is kack at international level
We have players who are good in our league as they are suited to it but technically aren't on the same level as others. These 'superstars' have been told too many times they are world class when realistically they aren't.
We haven't had a decent coach since Hoddle. Even though he brought some stupid bollocks to his job you could see that there was potential for us to progress. Since then the England coaches have been, to a man, complete ****. The current one is the worst we've ever had, at the moment the reason we underachieve is entirely down to Capello.
Laughable comment. I understand football perfectly well thank you very much you partronising twat. Capello is a thief for taking the money out of the English game and giving zero back. He has failed in his job. He should have been sacked after the world cup, as he would have been by any other forward thinking FA, but he got a raise. This is also a massive contributing factor, the FA itself. Capello has been an outstanding club coach but IS a **** international manager. As the poster above said, he went completely against his own mantra at the last world cup by picking out of form and injured payers and it should have cost him his job.
Worst English team ever? We qualified in style for the world cup and are pretty much guaranteed to get in to the Euro's too. Admittedly we were dire in SA but that does not change the fact that we have a respectable international record under Capello. The papers have been telling us that every English manger is awful for how many years now? Time to wake up people.
I take it you where in a coma when Steve McClaren was the England manager. Also Capello has been a better England manager then Keegan was.
No one is arguing with his club record but at this moment it is completely irrelevant. Our national team gets no kudos, or trophy for that matter, by having a great former club coach on six million a year, or whatever he's stealing as its manager. If you have qualifying from weak groups as your benchmark for success then good for you, mine is what happens in the tournament itself and we wre an absolute embarrassment in SA and he alone is responsible for that. He did worse that Eriksson ever did and that really takes some doing.
