could have done a job for England? Judging by the quality or lack of in this current England team, I looked through our team and struggled to find a player apart from RVP, who could have strolled into this England team, if they were English, with the exception of Oxo, Theo and Wilshere..... Song maybe??
Sagna would have got in so would have either Kos or Vermaelen for Lescott. Arteta in last season's performance would have because Gerrard did nothing
I forgot Arteta, he could not get anywhere near the Spanish side though, doubt if he would been a starter for England.... Wilshere we already know.... What I meant was apart from Wilshere, Oxo and Theo, who else could have gotten into what people termed a limited England side?
Why would you doubt that he would be a starter? Who can hold the ball better than him in that England squad? That is what England lacked the most, made them look panicky going forward.
Agreed, England lack a playmaker. Shame Wilshere was injured and Scholes is retired, both would improve the side.
I saw some interesting stats on twitter. In our game against Italy, Italy had 815 passes to our 320 and 36 shots to our 9. Our most frequent pass combo was the keeper to Andy Carroll - and Carroll only played the last 30. That says we couldn't keep the ball in midfield to me, so Arteta would surely have helped, plus a player like Song or Scholes to break up the oppo's passing.
This article is ridiculous... I'd take the entire Arsenal team. There are only a few of the England team i would include in my squad e.g. Cole, Hart... And then England would have a far far better chance of success. Club football particularly at the top level is far superior to MOST International teams. Arsenals ball retention etc is far better than this lot of England players. The article should be who of this England lot would still be in the squad if you could include Arsenal players? ......
Not all of the Arsenal team but a fair amount would get in. The following players would get in - RVP, Sagna, Arteta, Rosicky, Walcott, Wilshere, OXO, Song. Pretty much our entire midfield would get into the England side. Why? Because they can keep the fudging ball and play it around. The England midfield treats it as a hot potato....
Chamakh would get into the England team, England have always included useless tall strikers from big clubs into their squad.
It is very difficult to slot individuals into another system. If we played our full squad instead of one or 2, we would probably be in the final this weekend.
Ever wondered why so called English super stars never ply their trade in Europe? Because they would spend most of their time on the bench of most major European teams. The last English player I can remember winning a major trophy outside of the prem is David Beckham. Says it all really. At least Beckham could actually keep the ball and find the kind of passes we saw Pirlo performing all night. Yet Beckham is kept out of the side and we had to rely on the awful service of Ashley Young. I truly believe Beckham was disregarded far too quickly in my opinion. With Wilshere injured Becks would have be enable to play that creative role no problem.
I feel top English players not playing abroad (in major leagues like Spain, Italy and Germany)is all about economics and not because they are not good enough. With the kind of money they can earn here, Rooney on 250K a week, why would want to go to go and play in Spain? A lot of our players are paid silly money far too soon in their career, and have not achieved anything, so why would they want to improve? Well we do not have a lot of English players in our team, but I feel as poor as this England side is, we do not have many foreign players in the current Arsenal team who would actually make the starting 11.
The England midfield is awful. If our entire midfield was English, then they would all walk in. Arteta has never had a chance to play for Spain, and never in a month of Sunday's now. But if he was born English, he would walk into the side. The same with Rosicky and Song. The big question is, could our midfielders get into any top European International sides? The answer would be no. Compare our current midfield with our Invincibles, none would get in. If you compare it with our 08 team, none would get in.
IF you are good enough the bigger teams in europe can comfortably match english wages (bar city maybe). Plus most European countries offer far better tax rates. Correct me if I am wrong but in Spain footballers only have to pay 24% while in England it is 50% (tax loop holes aside). Clubs like Bayern, real, juve, inter, barca all pay really high wages and transfer fees. It is because they are not good enough when do you hear of eurpoean teams bidding for english players the last 2 of any significance were Steve Mcmanan and Beckham (don't rate owen he didn't do much but should have been given more of a chance). Steve went on ability and won Beckham went as the ultimate cash cow but could play. Rooney, Gerrard, Lampard, Terry none of them have been linked to overseas clubs because mostly they aren't interested. The only ones from the England team of say the last 5 years who could have made it big in other leagues would be cole, ferdinand and rooney.
