Who here gives one about England?

anksta

anksta

anksta

Soldato
Joined
19 Jan 2005
Posts
2,722
After seein that the England match is on Setanta tomorrow night meanin I would have to do more than just turn the tv on so I am officially watching it, I've decided I'm sick of it, sick of the excuses sick of the 0-0s, sick of the flag wavin bandwagoners who jump and scream everytime a major competition comes round and then asks why we;re not in it, or whos playin for us if we do.

Its just a farce now, Bobby Moore must be turning in his grave. We've got Andorra tomorrow night, and on paper, we should be able to put out our schoolboys and expect to be walking in at half time a cricket score up, we must have more players playin in our league than the population of their entire country (70 thousand by the way, its a principality its so small).

But instead, headlines are being made, some of our best players are out and people are panicking already, goin on about how they'll utilise Wayno and who'll fill Rio's shoes, its a disgrace. 10 years ago these games would be less than a formality, who'd have thought say 10 years ago that we'd be gettin ebat by Northern Ireland, failin to score against, was it Macedonia (2 million population)?

Maybe some of the older members can clarify certain things for me, has it always been this bad? The last time I enjoyed watchin England was 2002, since then I've grown up and only seen them play alright maybe once or twice. Were they always like this? Perennial under achievers. In that category fall Argentina and, until this summer, Spain. But we fell out that categorie in Sven's era. I dont know whats gonna be done about it to sort this out and unless they whip Andorra tomorrow night at least 4-0 without breaking a sweat, here's one less fan they can be countin on for support.
 
No it hasn't always been this bad.

Nowadays I just don't give a crap about England. I enjoy watching international football and its nice being able to just enjoy matches without caring who wins.
 
In my opinion the massive media pressure has to be a factor in England's underperformance.
Remember all the hype about Rooney, his foot bone and his oxygen tent? Then when he did turn up at the tournament he was completely guff. Why don't the media just let the team get on with playing without all the hysteria.
 
The FA have fallen into the trap of just getting "a safe pair of hands" for the england job.
Sven, a safe pair of hands.
Mclaren- never likely to rock the boat or pick anyone other than who he is told to.
Cappello- a safe pair of hands, same old faces, same old tired system and tired legs dancing the same tune.

All the time we go nowhere but backwards.
 
I'll always support England and watch games whenever I can however baffled I am that we can't pull off decent results.
 
I care more about the Liverpool players coming back from Internationals uninjured. Thankfully only Gerrard plays for England now but I'd take his health over an England win any day of the week.
 
I dunno, I'm old enough to remember 8-0 wins against teams like Turkey. In my early years, this seemed to be the norm. Now if we play Turkey, we would be lucky to get a win. I still love watching England, but we seem to lose more than we win, and that is crap.

I remember Euro 96 like it was yesterday, it was fantastic, if only.
 
I'm English and proud of it. I travel that rollercoaster that is international football with everyone else.

However I'm mystified why with the players at our disposal we are not more of footballing force.
 
anksta said:
Its just a farce now, Bobby Moore must be turning in his grave. We've got Andorra tomorrow night, and on paper, we should be able to put out our schoolboys and expect to be walking in at half time a cricket score up, we must have more players playin in our league than the population of their entire country (70 thousand by the way, its a principality its so small).
Click to expand...

For me that is the heart of the problem. English Football stood still from a coaching perspective during the 70's, 80's & 90's. The same old system of coaching that revolved more round the coaches ego's than developing players. There is a whole raft of small issues that have contributed to why our players don't perform at the highest level.

The booze culture of the 80's, poor diet, not enough training hours, poor training facilities, training players to be athletes first and foremost and the biggest gaffe of all, having Howard Wilkinson in charge of player development.

Don't think that I am an apologist for why England don't perform, very far from it. But when you eventually add all these factors up it was only a matter of time before we ended up taking a step backwards. Now when you factor in all of the other footballing nations invest more into long term player development, they have caught us up and a lot of cases over took us.

This is supposed to be the golden generation of English Footballers. Yes they are superb athletes and yes they have technique to ways or shoot, pass or head in certain ways but what our players lack is the intelligence to play in different ways & different systems. Until recently all coaching in England was about preparing kids to play 11 a side in very traditional positions.

The school of thought was Little Johnny could pass a ball so he was always earmarked as a midfielder. Little Jimmy was fast as lightning so he was always stuck out on the wing. Mark was a big lad for his age so stick him at the back. As such players were developed for them positions from an early age.

Now look at how the continental style of coaching goes about it. What about sticking the guy who can pass the ball at the back so he learns the skills of a defender. In fact keep swapping them round so they get a rounder skill set. Which is very apparent when you watch the Dutch, Argentines, Portugese, Spanish, Italians. Every single player could fill in another position as good as their native one. Our players sadly can't do that

What is going on at grass roots football now is looking to address that but it will be no quick fix and it will take a number of years to sort itself out. The best thing the FA have done is scrap leagues for under 7's & 8's. Not for the sake of the kids but for the sake of the coaches. Too many coaches teach the kids that winning and competitive football is more important than technique. Regardless of it's you and 10 mates playing football or a team of 7 year olds the game will always be competitive

/Relax
 
Most of what I could say has already been mentioned, but I think for me the 2 main things would be the training of kids is wrong in this country - for me everything you do you should have a ball at your feet (within reason), even if your just jogging laps of the pitch, do it kicking a ball, it all helps technique, years of training athletes has killed the skill levels.

& the managers that aren't brave enough to drop the stars for the sake of the team.
 
You can talk all you like about the off the pitch stuff, and training and school boy stuff all you like but even more obvious to me is the fact that on the field the Captain hasnt actually been inspirational for quite some years.

Beckham was a great captain in him pomp, but that really died a lot longer ago than his captaincy, Gerrard and Terry may be great players (and a lot better for their clubs) but they are **** captains for England

As soon as the "new" captaincy was announced I wrote off the WC, because England need some real leadership on the pitch, and Terry has never really inspired, he may be a good player on his own merit but he gives FA for England as a team

Maybe off the pitch they appear different, and good for them, but first and foremost its about results ON the pithc that matter

The fact its on Setanta is just even more of a **** take imo
 
I think Jamie Carragher just proved a point we all suspected when he said that England defeats didn't hurt him as much as Liverpool ones. The players always just look like they're going through the motions before they get back to their day jobs, and if they can't bring themselves to care about Internationals, why should I?
 
the problem is the players are overpaid and see a england match as a chance to get there mugs on tv and get some more cash for a easy kick about.

maybe if the FA took away there pay if they didnt win they would show a bit more heart, and if they dont want to play then fine stick on a bunch of guys from the lower divisions who want to play in an england shirt and not just pick up some easy money.

not like a team made up from 1st and 2nd division players could do any worse than this shower of premadona's
 
GAC said:
the problem is the players are overpaid and see a england match as a chance to get there mugs on tv and get some more cash for a easy kick about.

maybe if the FA took away there pay if they didnt win they would show a bit more heart, and if they dont want to play then fine stick on a bunch of guys from the lower divisions who want to play in an england shirt and not just pick up some easy money.

not like a team made up from 1st and 2nd division players could do any worse than this shower of premadona's
Click to expand...

Heart and passion aren't the issue. We had that with, pride, passion and single the national anthem with a tear in your eye under Keegan and won naff all. Are you saying that a team like Spain had no less passion or heart than what England did. All it makes up for is the fact that we are simply not good enough
 
We need an English manager with balls who will pick on form and not on name or pay packet, we need players who are there cause they want to be there, who are proud to play for their country who belt out the national anthem while sobbing like a baby, we need players who are going to give 100% for England every game and player who will come running when England calls rather than faking some injury.

There is so little pride in this country its unbelievable
 
lol, how has training got anything to do with it. I'm sorry buy I don't think any of the current England squad grew up and trained in that era of Booze football, Beckham is the oldest pretty much and was never around in that time. When you watch the majority of the England squad play during the week in the premierleague they play better, they play fine and are in teams that beat teams with players in international teams that win. We have the players to choose from who are good enough, we simply don't choose the right squad.

THeres a world of difference between choosing the right team, with balance, control and discipline, and choosing the most talking about 11 and sticking them in every time with no balance at all and too many big ego's.

The reason England fail, crap, really crap managers. The other reason England fail, ridiculous press and english public opinion of who should be in.

Before every game we talk about how crap England are, then we talk about who should be in the squad and who should probably start, then every time the majority opinion generally is what happens. Most people want to play beckham, gerrard and lampard, and rooney up front. The majority get exactly what they want, then complain that we lose. THe England managers we get are to scared to drop players seen as the "stars" in favour of a more balanced team largely because the public put so much pressure on who should be playing.

Fabregas and Ronaldo are probably the two best players in the premierleague, if you ran a team with 11 ronaldos or 11 fabregas's, it would be pretty damn awful. Likewise, you can't play 2 attacking central midfielders, 2 wingers who want to come inside and 4 midfielders who all want the ball all the time, nor should you play for freekicks by becoming an embarrasing team who dive all the time any time your in "beckham" range.

Our biggest problem right now is, most great teams have a single central attacking midfielder, they tend to control the area between the centre circle and the penalty box(execpt the wings), normally 1 player controls this area. With England, this would be Lampards job, except, Beckam, Gerrard, Rooney, even Crouch all decide to drop into that area so they can be on the ball the whole game, it means that they drag defenders with them and you end up with 4 england players, and 4-6 defenders all in this slim area in midfield, where normally you want a SINGLE player attacking through with support up the wings and two strikers making runs to be passed to.
 
Last edited:
Nzyme said:
We need an English manager with balls who will pick on form and not on name or pay packet, we need players who are there cause they want to be there, who are proud to play for their country who belt out the national anthem while sobbing like a baby, we need players who are going to give 100% for England every game and player who will come running when England calls rather than faking some injury.

There is so little pride in this country its unbelievable
Click to expand...


yeah i agree but you have to put some blame on the FA perhaps they should pick better friendlys also, andorra is not much to get excited about
 
big_white_dog84 said:
In my opinion the massive media pressure has to be a factor in England's underperformance.
Remember all the hype about Rooney, his foot bone and his oxygen tent? Then when he did turn up at the tournament he was completely guff. Why don't the media just let the team get on with playing without all the hysteria.
Click to expand...

Agree 100%.
 
Andorra's not a friendly, they're in our group, as far as I remember anyway.

Either way, friendlies should be chosen by the manager anyway. The most embarassing thing about england/england managers is all the crap before every single game, "we're not confident" " it won't be easy" "tough challenge ahead" before games against Andorra, and Macedonia and the likes, i can almost understand saying that before a game against Brazil although even then its a ridiculous attitude to take into a game.

But the whole england setup essentially does all it can to drop expectations before the easiest game of the next 2 years, then when we smash them everyone suddenly starts thinking we can beat anyone, because that game was tough and we smashed them. Then we draw against a Macedonia and all hope gets lost again and its a never ending cycle. Its hopeless when you have attitudes like that frankly.

We need an England manager with balls to do several things, pick form, and player not club they are from and how much coverage they get on the back page of the SUN. We then need a manager to say any player who talks to the press will simply be dropped and not play again. Kill the press over hyping, take them out of the equation completely. Its always the same ego's who talk crap to the papers, IE Terry and Gerrard, every day theres a new story from them in the week before a game. "we can do it" "we can't do it" "i'm trying rogaine" blah blah blah. Maybe we shouldn't play the people that seem more interested in getting in the papers than playing.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom