England: What went wrong? (serious discussion) **SPOILERS**

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Please dont ruin this thread.

For me:

- lampard didn't perform anywhere near the standard he did for chelsea

- obviously it wouldn't happen, but hargreaves should have been part of a 4 man midfield, and lennon should have been used more

- Needed to play two up top and stop worrying about Gerrard and lampard, as England havn't got a player who can play by himself upfront

- Beckham is past it and hopefully Mcclaren will show some balls and give lennon the right hand side role from now on

- Even if Ronaldo is a **** Rooney is still a kid and needs to grow up (coming from a utd season ticket holder)

I think steve has a lot of work on his hands. The team needs to be changed, we have a world class player in the shape of Lennon being used as a bit part sub. The defense is absolutely fantastic and the 4 of them played like heroes today, but things need to be seriously looked at ahead of them.
 
The only good England player in this match:

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Owen Hargreaves has made a bigger name for himself, he really should not have been on the loosing side and probably played the game of his career there.

Shame it will not be remembered for him but the Rooney Ronaldo incident. :(
 
1. Rooney's sending off. Stupid. No way a red card. Not even a booking.
2. No-one up front with Rooney, we saw in the last match he needed more support.
3. Lampard couldn't score. He was off-form. I like him, but he was off the boil, replace him. No room for liking players in the WC.
4. Lack of strikers. Why take Walcott and not play him even after we'd qualified.
 
what went wrong...

it went wrong from the start.

darren bent and or jermain defoe werent in the squad ahead of someone like jenas and even though he has been good.. hargreaves.


but it never got better from that point on... rubbish performances, nobody lifting the team.. bad formations.. BAD LUCK..

this amazing team has been wasted.. and we will never have this team again
 
4-5-1 is what went wrong. 4-4-2 would have killed a poor portugese side but nobody was allowed to play like they do in the premiership, the way they play for the entire season. Ridiculous situation but england havent performed the entire time. Ironic that we had the flukiest draws to get us here, had realisticially only 2 hard matches and we couldnt even get through the easy ones.

You have to say, sven has attempted to be tactically brilliant but come up short when it counted.
 
First of all I think we should be asking whether Eriksson has actually taken the team forward in the time he has been in charge.

At the moment we are only quarter finalists, give the job to anyone else I think we would have gone futher. Eriksson made a fundamental decision to take too many midfielders rather than go for more attacking options - why take Jermain Jenus when another striker could have been taken?
 
owen hargreaves was definately englands best player.

england need to play 4-4-2, its the system the players all know.

wright-philips and lennon should now start getting picked more for england.

get theo to play more if hes the wonder kid they all say he is.
 
Any trolling in here and I'll close this as well.

I think we went wrong by the choice of forwards for a start, Bent or Defoe should have gone instead of Walcott, giving us a lot more options.

But the main problem was too many players didn't turn up for the tournament, simple as that.
 
im not going to get hung up on it... we may as well not even been in this world cup.. we werent good at all...too much hype.

this team may have one last fling together for the european championships in 2008... barring beckham i would have thought...so i think we have more chance of winning that..

as for the next world cup... we will have to rely on our lennons, carricks, walcott, downing.. to see how they progress.

as gerrard will be on his last legs by then, owen will be... lampard might not be in it, neville wont be, rio will be having his last throw at the dice... beckham wont be there
 
First off, commiserations to all the England supporters out there. It's always harsh to go out of the World Cup and to go out on penalties is a pretty arbitrary way to do it - look at the other teams to have gone out cheaply this tournament.

As for what went wrong, basically a lot of England's biggest players didn't turn up - particularly Lampard and Gerrard. Owen went out injured just when he could have finally gotten a chance to link up with Rooney. There was a lack of depth in the forwards (Bent and Defoe must be sitting at home in disbelief). Switching to 4-5-1 negated England's potent attacking force and left Rooney stranded. There was a huge expectation from the big players and they didn't play like they do for their club sides. Also, some of the substitution decisions were a joke.

Why take Walcott over Bent and then never play him?
 
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Sven couldn't take and play some proven uninjured strikers and gel together, what where arguably the best group of players in the cup...

England where built so that they where less than the sum of their parts and couldn't finish.
 
Sven was obviously a big problem, but I fear McLaren as his number 2 is as much to blame really as surely they make the decisions together. I'm not sure if we are going to get any better with McL in charge unless he was just being sycophantic to sven and letting him do whatever he wants.

Lampard is just rubbish, he should never wear an England shirt again.

Becks shouldn't be an automatic starter anymore, he needs to prove himself once again.

Lennon is awesome, as is Hargreaves, I look forward to seeing them play in 2 years time.
 
It has been known for McLaren to make tactical suggestions but for Eriksson to ignore them.

Anyway im sure we will find out the truth behind the Eriksson reign in charge when the papers get hold of the players.
 
lemonkettaz said:
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as gerrard will be on his last legs by then
Click to expand...

what ? ,he'll be 29/30 :confused:

The problem we had/have is that although we have 3 of the best midfielders in the world (ok becks is stretching it a lot,but he is still one of the best free kick takers) sven has not found a way to make them work together,and didn't have the bottle to drop one or two of them when it was obvious he had to
 
What went wrong ?

All you need do is look at the situation before the world cup. Sven kept saying it will come good it will come good. He should have known his best 11 players 18 months ago rather than have question marks over so many key players. Get qualified playing a certain style of play and try something different in the freindlies. Bring in one or two players see how they fit in. Once done, all of the warm ups should have been used to get form and confidence. But he had to keep swapping and changing. Erikssons inability to make tough decisions at the highest level has cost us.

Why bring players like Jenas. Carrick and Walcott if they never really brought anything different to the team. If anything it emphasises that tactically we had no fall back position. Too many players competing for the same positions in key areas.

Sven didnt have the balls to drop Frank, Stevie G or Becks and the writing was on the wall from Game 1. Defensively we have looked pretty sound despite the set pieces against Sweeden. Midfield we looked like headless chickens with little cohesion, pace or inginuity. No one could pick a pass to unlock a defense.

Upfront I question taking four forwards with two unfit, and two who in my opinion are not England class or world class. Walcott is not in the same league as a youg Maradona or Pele who was good enough to be a world cup regular at 16. Crouch has been next to useless. I've said it before but I will say it again. It's alright saying he is commited he runs he closes players down, good feet for a big man down blah blah blah. As many overused cliches as you want but would you hang your hat on him scoring a goal out of nothing with 30 seconds left on the clock. Nor will he ever be a player who will score consistently at the very highest level

I really don't think that Steve McLaren find it that hard to pick the players up as long as he plays them in the right position. Behind closed doors I suspect a few of the senior players think good riddance to Sven.
 
lol nearly every goal was set up by beckam whether its been flick ons from his freekicks or what not...god he is the one that has time and time again score the crucial goals in qaulifiers for england...
the players you should be looking at are your "world class" midfielders..
without owen england are toothless.

your best team was euro 96 and that team would hammer the present england team
 
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