FIFA World Cup 2014 - GROUP D [Uruguay, Costa Rica, England, Italy - 14/19/20/24 June] **spoilers**

drunkenmaster said:
Sterling being on the pitch is enough, he plays wide for Liverpool more than central and he's just as good there. Running at defences, in behind, he's got the pace and movement that he can drift in and run at goal anyway. I wouldn't ever push him wide to put Rooney in the middle, Rooney would be better off in the centre aisle of the plane home than in the centre of the pitch trying to run the show. But we'd likely be better with Sterling wide and Barkley/Lallana/Wilshire central than any of those three wide and Sterling in the middle.
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Get Sterling, Sturridge and Gerrard working together more and pushing forward more and I think we'd have something. All 3 showed class tonight tho Gerrard seemed to be struggling a bit to put his normal game on with the conditions.
 
Overall it was a decent performance and it was always going to be near impossible to create to many clear cut chances when they had 11 men behind the ball 55 minutes in.
 
bloodline76 said:
haven't seen much media putting unrealistic pressure on him. Quite the opposite, most don't think he should be there.

Over rated and rediculously over paid.

Looks like its going to be out in first round.
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I think he is the most experienced forward we had available. He has a pedigree of scoring goals across all the top competitions in Europe. Its not like there is an endless pool of talent to choose from upfront for us - if we don't take Rooney who do we take - Andy Carroll?!

You are right though - a lot of media outlets have been mentioning how he possibly shouldn't be there. How he needs to justify his inclusion, how it is Waynes time to shine. What a load of toss - he doesn't control if he is in the team or not, the only expectation of him should be that he plays to the best of his ability when he does play. Of course, what we have now is a situation where he is going to get absolutely lambasted unless he scores a hatrick in every single game. For years the media have been building Rooney up to a level where people feel that they have a right to expect magic from him every single game.

Overrated - that would be the unrealistic expectations that I mentioned then, yeah?

Overpaid? In all seriousness - who the **** cares? He handled his contract negotiations in a manner that saw him get a large pay increase - I have no idea why this relevant to a discussion about whether a player should be in the England squad. I don't care if he is paid millions or paid in food stamps when he puts on that white shirt.

Tonight wasn't an awful result - but tomorrow all we are going to read about is how Wayne let England down and its all doom and gloom. Which seems to be an opinion mirrored by posters on here - I just don't get it.
 
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Curio said:
That was a mixed bag. Not terrible and the youngsters did pretty well on the whole. Rooney is a complete waste of space in an England shirt and Gerrard needs to step up and lead by example a LOT more. I think really Italy were just too experienced and canny, especially in the conditions. Men against boys, etc, etc, etc.
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good job we had Rooney in the qualifiers though eh ;)
 
Jokester said:
I would be surprised if Woy is still in charge, so I would hope that who ever they get in to replace him doesn't blindly pick favourites.
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If he manages to beat a good side this world cup I think he deserves 2 more years.

Tactically inept this game, but he has at least 2 more chances.
 
It's pretty simple with Rooney- play him alongside Sturridge or in the no10 role.

Anything else is a complete disservice to his talent, and is why he's going to get stick over this performance. I feel really really sorry for him as it's not his fault that some nobber plays him in an uncomfortable role.
 
Loki said:
Where you change it BaZ ??

I think Llalana isnt the answer and Ross Barkley is probably a 15-20 minute a game player at this stage of his career
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The entire system. We don't have the players to play a 4-2-3-1.

All game Italy kept playing around our midfield and exposing the space between our fullbacks and wide forwards. And the more the game went on the less effective we were because we were shattered.

We need an extra man in midfield both to cover our fullbacks, which will let the wide forwards focus on attacking and more importantly keep the ball better. In these conditions you can't play at 100mph for 90 minutes, we need to be able to take the sting out of the game in possession.

As boring as he might be, I'd bring Milner in for one of the forwards and switch to a 4-3-3.
 
Used to dread this fixture being the only I-Tie in my school. Still do to be fair. I think Italy can thank Rooney for being rubbish tonight. Love sterling though, he's great.
 
I wish we would coach the same type and quality of off the ball movement as Italy and all the other great teams.
 
Best corner ever.

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I think we've got a good chance of beating Uruguay and Costa Rica neither of them will be as canny as the Italians were and that performance tonight would have beat both of them imo.

Only issue is the fallout from this game, the players are all crackered and we may have 1 or 2 injury problems. Will we be back at 100% on Thursday cos if not we're in trouble.
 
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