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

Pighardia said:
I don't think it would make much difference to Sturridge's game if he was one of the wide players, whereas I think it is a big difference to Rooney's, who I think really needs to be central, and preferably right up top for me.
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For 3+ years Rooney has REFUSED to play up top. When he starts there, he drops deep, it's what he does. It would be a disaster to start him as the furthest forward player because he'll drop deep, not work the defence and not create space for others AND he'll constantly scream for the ball, try a cute pass and watch as the opposition breaks after intercepting a weak, misplaced, ill conceived pass.

I think one of the worst ever performances I saw was Rooney for bayern this year playing in that position. For England he has been moved out of the furthest forward position because he refused to play there, and because he's so crap in the area he drops in to, we moved him wide left.

The 30 seconds of the game he played like a wide attacker, he created a goal, the rest of the game, he kept edging in to the middle to try and get on the ball.

The FA should pay for one of these teams of people who kidnap cult victims and try and de-program them.

"You are not a playmaker, you do not like to drop deep, you like to run when you have the ball, you should stop shaving your chest and sticking the hair on your head... we all know"

If Rooney could be trusted to start upfront, and actually play like the striker he used to be, running at defences, running across defences to make space for others, then it would be a possibility. But Rooney for 3+ years for Utd and England has refused to play the role he's given. he wants to be no.10, he wants to be behind the striker, and regardless of where he's started he spends most of the game where he wants to. Selfish, stupid and no where near his best, shouldn't be starting and personally I wouldn't have put him in the squad.

We could have taken Cole instead of Rooney, had Lambert/Sturridge for upfront and in a tough game like yesterday we could have played Cole left back and baines as a left winger, huge defensive strength, great offensive strength. I'd have preferred that to playing Rooney wide left. Fact is I don't think the FA give managers a huge choice on certain players. The FA's job is to protect their most valuable sponsorship assets, Rooney is one of those, as is Gerrard.
 
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Take Rooney out of the team and England will be more balanced. Ye he played out of position but even the simple things he bottled, which had nothing to do with playing out wide.

He had his time at Euro 2004 since then he has been over rated at International level and needs to be dropped.

Think Milner would have been much better yesterday playing for you guys in midfield rather than having Rooney chasing burgers on the pitch.
 
~>Dg<~ said:
its not loving watch the game back and watch him. every break comes directly from a pass started by him. he does it every game. that's what gerrard should be doing but in big games he just doesn't.

if you watch what the commentators like rio and all of them said they knew exactly what was going to happen and pirlo was going to control.

said to my boy last night watch pirlo he should be marked. every time he got ball not one person on him once ! not once ! whole 95 minutes and no one can be bothered to stop the key person.

he gets the reviews and love because he is that good not fanboys.
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I completely agree with you. He was a class apart. It's not so much the volume of passes but the sheer variety, speed and accuracy. As I said earlier he didn't play as deep as I expected instead swapping almost with De Rossi. It's hard to see a single thing that Pirlo got wrong in that whole match. Never mind the fact that he is just cool as ****.
 
Secret_Window said:
Compared to the friendlies the England team were a lot more organised. Our passing was better, link up play better, chances were better. Our defence is still a problem, but we all knew that. Overall we looked like a semi-decent team last night, with some good attacking moments against a very tough side. People forget that Italy beat a very strong German side 2-1 in Euro 2012.

I'm seeing more positives from this than negatives - and I was one of the people who said England were really sloppy in the build up friendlies when other people said we were good. And compared to other teams who we have seen so far in this World Cup, England could be far, far, worse.
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Yeah, I agree. I think we stand a good chance of getting through the group and with all the best players from last night being young bloods I think there's reason to be optimistic about the future.
 
nemtizz said:
He was terrible, but should Hodgson have done, publicly slate him?
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The honest alternative is that Woy got his tactics wrong and played him in the wrong position, so it's easier just to completely deflect attention to defend the player to make it appear that the player needs to be defended.
 
Think Englands game plan was suicidal as well last night, playing in such bursts from back to front when ever England attacked was always going to drain their energy in such tough conditions.

The pundits on BBC couldn't understand why England were so tired after 60 minutes which baffles me, Italy attacked by passing it from back to front and being patient. England ran at 90 mph from back to front with the ball to attack.

Was a decent performance but when England needed to up the tempo in the second half to break through Italy and equalise they couldn't do it because they had no energy. Their passing became predictable and was to slow to really open Italy up.
 
drunkenmaster said:
I think one of the worst ever performances I saw was Rooney for bayern this year playing in that position.
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Didn't Moyes later admit that Rooney was actually injured for that game (his toe, I think), to the extent that he couldn't kick the ball properly?
 
lucarocks92 said:
Think Englands game plan was suicidal as well last night, playing in such bursts from back to front when ever England attacked was always going to drain their energy in such tough conditions.

The pundits on BBC couldn't understand why England were so tired after 60 minutes which baffles me, Italy attacked by passing it from back to front and being patient. England ran at 90 mph from back to front with the ball to attack.

Was a decent performance but when England needed to up the tempo in the second half to break through Italy and equalise they couldn't do it because they had no energy. Their passing became predictable and was to slow to really open Italy up.
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Think the main problem was trying to stick rigidly to the plan when it was plain it wasn't working - it wasn't a disaster but it was running into the same roadblock almost every time they tried to play it (which in itself was a disaster), should have tweaked it a bit to make better use of some of the players on the other side to Rooney when those chances opened up instead of playing it back to whatever their plan was.
 
I've said it before, I'll say it again, and I always get shot down for it, Lallana & Sterling wide, Sturridge up top and Carroll behind him would have worked better.

Nothing against Welbeck, but Sterling & Lallana just seem a more logical choice, and if you want the ball holding up by someone who will stay in his role, Carroll behind Sturridge would be where I would go.

*awaits flames*
 
TimBrad said:
I've said it before, I'll say it again, and I always get shot down for it, Lallana & Sterling wide, Sturridge up top and Carroll behind him would have worked better.

Nothing against Welbeck, but Sterling & Lallana just seem a more logical choice, and if you want the ball holding up by someone who will stay in his role, Carroll behind Sturridge would be where I would go.

*awaits flames*
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There's one problem with that. Carroll is **** he has trouble holding onto his pint let alone a football.
 
I dont think it was a bad england performance and saw a lot to be positive about, i think the only negitive was italy had complete control down the right side and england never got to grips with it and there should have been changes at half time to counter the problem, still before england had even kicked a ball my expectations were very low so not to dissapointed
 
Personally I think there are issues that need fixing, Rooney and Gerard being the main ones, but we have good potential if we go our there to attack so we should throw caution to the wind and go for it. We cannot rely on a shaky defense with poor covering DM's so let's go the entertainers route and just score more than them.
 
topher said:
-------Sturridge-------
Lallana rooney sterling
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Thats the thing - in some ways playing Rooney out of that position was smart play - it had the Italians off balance for the first ~20-25 minutes, but they adapted to it and worked out the long goal of the strategy, their whole play they adapated to and worked out the weaknesses and applied pressure whereas England just doggedly kept trying to play a plan that it was obvious Rooney lacked the talent to pull off even when it was all going his way and the Italians had adjusted to roadblock.

If they'd utilised Gerrard, Sturridge and Sterling better to play it up the other side when those openings came up instead of pushing it back into their original plan I think we'd have seen a much better result - it was obvious Rooney was a lame duck but he was atleast effective in pulling the Italians into committing to certain areas of the pitch that left holes elsewhere.

K1LLSW1TCH said:
Love it when all the experts who don't watch club football suddenly come out of the woodwork for the World Cup. :p
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Fair enough, but theres some things you don't need to be an expert to see like the fact that Rooney was fluffing even the most basic football at times and often looked like it was his first time on pitch even ignoring the stuff where he wasn't comfortable with the position he was played in.
 
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drunkenmaster said:
For 3+ years Rooney has REFUSED to play up top. When he starts there, he drops deep, it's what he does. It would be a disaster to start him as the furthest forward player because he'll drop deep, not work the defence and not create space for others AND he'll constantly scream for the ball, try a cute pass and watch as the opposition breaks after intercepting a weak, misplaced, ill conceived pass.

I think one of the worst ever performances I saw was Rooney for bayern this year playing in that position. For England he has been moved out of the furthest forward position because he refused to play there, and because he's so crap in the area he drops in to, we moved him wide left.

The 30 seconds of the game he played like a wide attacker, he created a goal, the rest of the game, he kept edging in to the middle to try and get on the ball.

The FA should pay for one of these teams of people who kidnap cult victims and try and de-program them.

"You are not a playmaker, you do not like to drop deep, you like to run when you have the ball, you should stop shaving your chest and sticking the hair on your head... we all know"

If Rooney could be trusted to start upfront, and actually play like the striker he used to be, running at defences, running across defences to make space for others, then it would be a possibility. But Rooney for 3+ years for Utd and England has refused to play the role he's given. he wants to be no.10, he wants to be behind the striker, and regardless of where he's started he spends most of the game where he wants to. Selfish, stupid and no where near his best, shouldn't be starting and personally I wouldn't have put him in the squad.

We could have taken Cole instead of Rooney, had Lambert/Sturridge for upfront and in a tough game like yesterday we could have played Cole left back and baines as a left winger, huge defensive strength, great offensive strength. I'd have preferred that to playing Rooney wide left. Fact is I don't think the FA give managers a huge choice on certain players. The FA's job is to protect their most valuable sponsorship assets, Rooney is one of those, as is Gerrard.
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I completely agree with every part of this.
 
Simple fact is that rooney and gerrard have had previous tournaments and failed. To play th again and expect a different outcome is madness. Get them out and give others a chance to shine without being dragged down by the players that have tried and failed in previous tournaments.
 
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