2014 FIFA World Cup Play-Offs and International Friendlies 14-19 November *** Spoilers ***

toshj said:
Not international, but league football - 6 wins in a row, 2 of those were consecutive 5-0s, Uwe on Football Forum, former chairman making waves as Head of the FA and £175 on an accumulator. Good day to be a Bee :)

Wolves away in a week, and then Peterborough at home the following Tuesday. 4 points out of those two games and we could easily go unbeaten well into the new year!
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Brentford's poor spell well and truly turned around. Was a point that Peterborough and Orient were in scarily good form and Brentford were terrible.

4 wins in the first 11 games, 15 points, Wolves/Orient/Peterborough had 26/29/28 points respectively. After 5 wins out of 5 they've closed to 9 points off the lead(not a small margin) but moved from 11th and looking like the play offs getting away from them, to 6 points ahead of 7th.

Seen highlights from a few of the games but not many. What has been the biggest turn around in the team, luck, change of formation/starting line up or just everyone getting some form at the same time? Or more a case of morale with the end of last season being such a massive blow, have they moved passed the disappointment now.

EDIT:- what happened to Tranmere as well, they were doing a bit of a Orient last year, miles ahead of everyone, threw it away last year and this year, 4th bottom.

http://www.statto.com/football/teams/tranmere-rovers/2012-2013/results

Not sure what happened to their form last year, woeful from actually the Brentford game onwards.
 
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drunkenmaster said:
Brentford's poor spell well and truly turned around. Was a point that Peterborough and Orient were in scarily good form and Brentford were terrible.

4 wins in the first 11 games, 15 points, Wolves/Orient/Peterborough had 26/29/28 points respectively. After 5 wins out of 5 they've closed to 9 points off the lead(not a small margin) but moved from 11th and looking like the play offs getting away from them, to 6 points ahead of 7th.

Seen highlights from a few of the games but not many. What has been the biggest turn around in the team, luck, change of formation/starting line up or just everyone getting some form at the same time? Or more a case of morale with the end of last season being such a massive blow, have they moved passed the disappointment now.

EDIT:- what happened to Tranmere as well, they were doing a bit of a Orient last year, miles ahead of everyone, threw it away last year and this year, 4th bottom.

http://www.statto.com/football/teams/tranmere-rovers/2012-2013/results

Not sure what happened to their form last year, woeful from actually the Brentford game onwards.
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- second week in a row that Trotta has scored a header from the edge of the box. You rarely see one of those in a season, let alone two of those in a week!

The players locked the door to the changing room, with the management inside, after our inexplicable loss away to Stevenage and everyone had a shout at each other. The players wanted continuity, not rotation, and asked Uwe to sort out his best 11. Uwe dropped Logan at RB - everyone's favourite player- and the crowd were furious but we've since won 6 on the trot.

Tranmere were flying high at that point due to having Cassidy on loan from Wolves and a few in form players whom are either not there anymore or playing as per normal. They also had the smallest budget in the league last season.

I reckon Orient will slow down a little bit, but won't fall away like Tranmere did. Think it'll mainly be duked out between us, Peterborough, Wolves and Preston come the end of the season. Peterborough attack the best, Wolves play the best football and Preston are the best organised.

Like last season, I reckon League One will be the most competitive division, but it's great to see the Premiership being so open at the moment - looks set to be the most interesting football seasons cross the four divisions in years!
 
manic111 said:
Slow reply, but I wouldn't agree with that. Sturridge is an out and out goalscorer, Rooney (at present) is in far better form than he ever has been before in the run-up to a major tournament, and Rickie Lambert is this year's Carroll/Heskey, but is a far better footballer than both combined.

I'm not for a second saying that I'm confident that we'll do anything in this tournament, but in my opinion this team is better than any that I remember (albeit much less solid defensively). The way we played in the final two qualifying matches was almost exciting, and I haven't been able to say that for a long time!
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Playmaking is more important when scoring goals outside of set pieces. In 2010 England really struggled scoring only 2 goals in the group stages and 1(2) against Germany.

Rooney I think really struggles where he doesn't have a lot of space around him. Apart from Townsend who may or may not finish his first decent well, there isn't really anyone to help create the gaps he needs.

Sturridge is better than Crouch/Heskey/Defoe, but I'd like to see him against Germany. Welbeck is obviously as everyone knows, rubbish.

If I was an opposing manager I would set up to ensure that my central defenders took care of Rooney forcing him to go deeper and then watch the England midfield struggle as they do most of the time.
 
Well one plus for England is that Ozil wont be playing even though he is with the squad, they have also left out Lahm and Neur but BFG is back aka Mertesacker.

Am hoping Ozil is fit for our next game though.
 
manic111 said:
this team is better than any that I remember (albeit much less solid defensively)
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You must have a pretty short memory :D
IMO the team 15 years ago was arguably better i.e. something like this:

------------------Seaman
Neville-----Campbell------Adams----Le Saux/Pearce
Beckham---Ince/Batty---Scholes---McManaman/Anderton
-------Owen/Sheringham---Shearer

Realistically the only players from today who would be fairly certain to get in that team would be Rooney ahead of Owen/Sheringham, Cole/Baines at LB and someone instead of Macca/Anderton (formation likely to be different). Seaman, Neville, Campbell, Adams, Beckham, Scholes and Shearer are all better than we currently have in those positions (although to be fair I might possibly take Jagielka over Campbell depending on exact year... but at his best Sol would get the nod for sure).
 
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HangTime said:
You must have a pretty short memory :D
IMO the team 15 years ago was arguably better i.e. something like this:

------------------Seaman
Neville-----Campbell------Adams----Le Saux/Pearce
Beckham---Ince/Batty---Scholes---McManaman/Anderton
-------Owen/Sheringham---Shearer

Realistically the only players from today who would be fairly certain to get in that team would be Rooney ahead of Owen/Sheringham, Cole/Baines at LB and someone instead of Macca/Anderton (formation likely to be different). Seaman, Neville, Campbell, Adams, Beckham, Scholes and Shearer are all better than we currently have in those positions (although to be fair I might possibly take Jagielka over Campbell depending on exact year... but at his best Sol would get the nod for sure).
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Totally agree with that, fair enough (although get rid of Anderton!). But the current team is much better than any we had during the "golden generation". I appreciate that player for player I'm not correct in saying that, but as a team I'd rather see people like Carrick playing alongside one of Gerrard or Lampard than see us trying to shoehorn both of them in.
 
manic111 said:
Totally agree with that, fair enough (although get rid of Anderton!). But the current team is much better than any we had during the "golden generation". I appreciate that player for player I'm not correct in saying that, but as a team I'd rather see people like Carrick playing alongside one of Gerrard or Lampard than see us trying to shoehorn both of them in.
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What the hell are you smoking, where did you get it from and how much does it cost?! :eek:
 
Yas786 said:
May not be so clear cut as Germany will have a few youngsters in their squad.
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The problem there is that Germany's youngsters are already playing champions league football, whereas our youngsters are either playing for mid-table teams or struggling to get game-time at top clubs.
 
I'm going to watching the Sweden - Portugal game. Can't be bothered with a half arsed England performance.

Will also be rooting for Iceland tonight :D
 
G|mp said:
I'm going to watching the Sweden - Portugal game. Can't be bothered with a half arsed England performance.

Will also be rooting for Iceland tonight :D
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I'll be shivering at Wembley tonight and will watch the Sweden/Portugal game later.

Fingers crossed for Iceland. :D
 
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