International Friendlies - England vs Norway/Belgium [May 26th - June 2nd 2012]

Robbo said:
I'm still quite amazed Carrick isn't an integral part of our midfield.

Nobody thinks he's Xavi, but he's a lot better than most other people we have, and he's also got a lot of big match and winning experience.

I know he asked to be left out, but they should have convinced him.
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I heard he was asked to fill in for those left injured rather than as 1st choice (in the squad), so fair play to him that he told 'em where to go



Tonight started reasonably (although Carroll should have got his header on target at the very least) well taken goal by Young, Milner? shot was tame when he should have squared it, and Jones hqd a nice shot also, SG had some good link up play with Young too, and for the first 30 ish minutes it looked great

After that however it went all down hill - defensively England were very poor indeed, and if the only place Carroll is any real use is in his own penalty box (where he did to be fair make some good tackles /interceptions etc) then he shouldnt really be on the pitch to start with. Green looked shakey on a few occasions, and majority of the team looked "meh"

Yes Jones looked shakey too, but given how more experienced players also made bad passes etc, I dont see how anyone can put all the blame on PJ either

When Barry / Milner / Walcott took over majority of the midfiild that was a real concern, What a complete waste of space all of that trio are, but at least the Ox got a few minutes

England were VERY lucky to escape with a win, even just a slightly better team than Norway would probably have got a resounding win from tonight against that English team
 
It was trash, but what do we expect?

The plan with Roy is clearly for him to employ his small club midtable tactics to international football.

Problem 1- he has chosen players who for the most part have no work ethic or midfielders who have any defensive prowess what so ever. He's hasn't taken a single forward capable o holding the ball up and playing midfielders in.

2- international teams tend to be of a lot higher quality than those you face in the league, and usually what happens when a high quality team plays a team of any size playing these tactics is, they get beat, even when they have the players who for the most part are chosen because they fit that system.
3- he hasn't chosen the best available players, he hasn't chosen a group of players who fit a system, he has seemingly gone out of way to choose every player who has under performed or who just lack any quality at all and those players he has picked who are any good actually seem to of been picked by mistake.
 
IT's this simple, look down the leagues, are there dozens of great English players that if said foreigners weren't in the league and they were all in the top teams.... would they suddenly be good enough to win the World cup, or would the EPL simply be much worse.

It is the case that with less quality foreign players, our current best English players WOULD BE WORSE as they play, train and practice against worst players. You don't get good playing the average, you get good playing the best, decreasing the quality of players around them will decrease the level they need to reach to win the premier league, its that simple.

If the "foreigners" also known as, generally better players, weren't in the premier league, it wouldn't be as watched, there wouldn't be 1/4 of the current money available for it(iirc of the 2.5billion broadcast revenue(of 3.2billion total) over 1.5billion of that is selling the rights to show the games abroad....). That means, less investment in training, less investment in grass roots, less investment in coach training, less importing of coaches from abroad.

It's really simple England neglects coaching from top to bottom in terms of the training they go through, number of coaches, coach to player ratio, what age we start teaching what type of football, etc, etc. All the major players beat us hands down in something almost painfully simple to remedy.

Why is Paul Lambert both doing so well and so highly regarded? He did his coaching badges abroad, he went to the Barcelona youth training school to see how the best do it. Most of our coaches do basic badges(which teach you almost the bare minimum), and are just not good coaches.


Anyway, the team sucks because the selection is done by a combination of the FA and the sun/dailymail readers that the FA listen to so as not to go against the common thinking(which has been wrong for the best part of 60 years).

Young has been very very good for England since someone finally picked him to start, he's been by a massive margin out best player for 18+ months. Lescott/Jag/Baines are all at worst good enough for cover but all capable of playing first team. Gerrard, has never looked good for England, Parker looks mostly excellent, Wilshire/Lampard/Parker was a very effective midfield trio before Wilshire was injured. That can be changed with Wilshire pushed wider with a 4-4-2 and Young as either of a front two, or play as a midfield 3, all 3 incredibly capable defensively and two excellent going forward.

Other wingers, are problematic, Downing shouldn't be discounted, each and every player who went to Liverpool played worse than they have all proven themselves capable of before. Upfront, I personally don't think Rooney should play till he sorts himself out, he is NOT a withdrawn striker, Utd struggle along with him playing like that, England don't have to. If they are willing to play Rooney as the furthest forward striker AND he's willing to stay there, fine, if not, smeg off.

Currently every part of Holt's game is better than Carroll's, not least his attitude and workrate, both of which were appaulling from Carroll, whining about every little decision, kicked the ball away once, no work rate, no chasing after a play, barely closing down.
 
atpbx said:
It was trash, but what do we expect?

The plan with Roy is clearly for him to employ his small club midtable tactics to international football.

Problem 1- he has chosen players who for the most part have no work ethic or midfielders who have any defensive prowess what so ever. He's hasn't taken a single forward capable o holding the ball up and playing midfielders in.

2- international teams tend to be of a lot higher quality than those you face in the league, and usually what happens when a high quality team plays a team of any size playing these tactics is, they get beat, even when they have the players who for the most part are chosen because they fit that system.
3- he hasn't chosen the best available players, he hasn't chosen a group of players who fit a system, he has seemingly gone out of way to choose every player who has under performed or who just lack any quality at all and those players he has picked who are any good actually seem to of been picked by mistake.
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Parker is excellent defensively, as is Lampard, Gerrard and Barry are gash, Lampard is in the team just not tonight, Parker was pretty decent made several great blocks with a slow lazy pratt next to him, then a different slow lazy pratt next to him later on.

Lampard has been nothing short of exceptional defensively this season.

As for holding it up, Young held the ball for himself and held the ball and waited and played in 4-5 great balls for Milner, Carroll, Downing and a couple others, can't remember who he played in behind.

Lampard, Parker, Young are pretty much the epitome of work ethic, headless chicken nonsense is one thing, working hard all game long to be in the right place at the right time is real work and all three are incredibly hard workers.

Carroll sucks, we had injuries, Holt should be in there because he'll kill himself trying and actually provide some quality, Bent has been injured for ages, Defoe should have played tonight instead of Carroll who was worthless.

Oh, and international teams tend to be higher quality than in the league..... lol.

There were two examples of you being insanely badly wrong tonight, Holland in the last final resorting to Stoke style tactics, Brazil deciding to throw away a game to a team playing badly with an own goal and a red card. Sure, bestest teams ever, would spank City and Chelsea and Utd easily.....

Thats the best few teams, let alone the rest who are often frankly completely gash. Spain are currently the only team who resemble a league quality team as for the most part they are just Real and Barca.
 
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I think Carroll occasionally has a good game (like he did against Chelsea).

He's not a Drogba-esque front man who can pull the team forward on a regular basis, he's not even remotely as good. An intelligent defence will nullify him. :(
 
Robbo said:
I think Carroll occasionally has a good game (like he did against Chelsea).

He's not a Drogba-esque front man who can pull the team forward on a regular basis, he's not even remotely as good. An intelligent defence will nullify him. :(
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Drogba is a great striker even on his off day and a force of nature when in form.

Carroll is not even half the player Drogba is.

Also, forget about free flowing attacking football. This team is never going to win the tournament playing like that this year or any year.

Defend like your life depend on it and hope to win 1-0 here and there and hopefully luck in the penalties shoot out is the best chance i think.
 
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drunkenmaster said:
Parker is excellent defensively, as is Lampard, Gerrard and Barry are gash, Lampard is in the team just not tonight, Parker was pretty decent made several great blocks with a slow lazy pratt next to him, then a different slow lazy pratt next to him later on.

Lampard has been nothing short of exceptional defensively this season.

As for holding it up, Young held the ball for himself and held the ball and waited and played in 4-5 great balls for Milner, Carroll, Downing and a couple others, can't remember who he played in behind.

Lampard, Parker, Young are pretty much the epitome of work ethic, headless chicken nonsense is one thing, working hard all game long to be in the right place at the right time is real work and all three are incredibly hard workers.

Carroll sucks, we had injuries, Holt should be in there because he'll kill himself trying and actually provide some quality, Bent has been injured for ages, Defoe should have played tonight instead of Carroll who was worthless.

Oh, and international teams tend to be higher quality than in the league..... lol.

There were two examples of you being insanely badly wrong tonight, Holland in the last final resorting to Stoke style tactics, Brazil deciding to throw away a game to a team playing badly with an own goal and a red card. Sure, bestest teams ever, would spank City and Chelsea and Utd easily.....

Thats the best few teams, let alone the rest who are often frankly completely gash. Spain are currently the only team who resemble a league quality team as for the most part they are just Real and Barca.
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Not that I do it often, but, LOL DM.

I know you love a good stat fest.

http://www.eplindex.com/14039/england-xi-part-2-midfield-opta-stats-analysis.html

The 2nd and 3rd best English midfielders are currently sat at home.

Interestingly Roy has taken 2 of the poorest english midfielders available.

Parker does do a fair bit defensively but not to the extent that he is so much better at it than Carrick that he can justify his inclusion over Carrick as he offers NOTHING else.


As you can see, Fat Frank is worse than almost ever other midfielder at defending.
 
atpbx said:
Not that I do it often, but, LOL DM.

I know you love a good stat fest.

http://www.eplindex.com/14039/england-xi-part-2-midfield-opta-stats-analysis.html

The 2nd and 3rd best English midfielders are currently sat at home.

Interestingly Roy has taken 2 of the poorest english midfielders available.

Parker does do a fair bit defensively but not to the extent that he is so much better at it than Carrick that he can justify his inclusion over Carrick as he offers NOTHING else.


As you can see, Fat Frank is worse than almost ever other midfielder at defending.
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lol, you really do talk out of your behind.

Those stats are painfully misguided, Lampard there is the highest scorer, the lowest mins per chance, the highest assister and if you can say he's poor defensively you're out of your freaking tree.

Lampard was one of the best players on the pitch in all the Barca AND Bayern games and he was doing mostly defensive work, he was excellent.

As for Parker not defensively much better than Carrick, you are literally out of your mind.

If you want to possibly realise how awful those stats are and how misguided..

Gerrard, scored and assisted less than Lampard, has by a huge margin the worst pass completion, he has a worse tackle completion than Lampard he loses the ball closer to twice as often as Lampard.... yet those stats have him ahead.

Gerrard has TWO assists yet it gives Gerrard more points than Lampard because he has more "clear cut chances created". lampard was listed as having created 4 clear cut chances.......... but has 5 assists? The stats ARE INCORRECT, not least to mention that "clear cut" is ridiculously subjective, the fact that Lampard has 250% more assists than Gerrard, yet Gerrard got more points than Lampard for "creating chances" goes to show how pathetic Opta stats are, have and always will be.

Without looking it up, tell me how they define clear cut chances, tell me how Lampard's assists don't count as creating clear cut chances, ask me how a defender who lost the ball on average every 56 mins vs Lampard's 96 mins.

Parker is, by a country mile our best defensive midfielder, he is so massively far ahead of Carrick its a joke, you suggesting otherwise suggests you don't have a clue what you're talking about, you falling back on stats that clearly are incorrect, is more of a joke, even more so when the only ones you can actually know FOR SURE how they are tallied, pass completion, mins before giving it away and the like are all by a huge margin in Lampards favour over Gerrard.
 
drunkenmaster said:
As for Parker not defensively much better than Carrick, you are literally out of your mind.
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The only thing Parker does that Carrick doesn't is run around flying into tackles, other than that Carrick is far far far better than Parker in every single way possible but whatever he's removed himself from selection and that suits me fine
 
Oh, and just to point out the stats YOU showed has Parker creating a clear cut chance every 598 minutes Carrick, 718........... HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA>

Parker who offers nothing else over Carrick..... creates more chances than Carrick, he's better defensively, which you admitted, and he's created more clear cut chances... by your own stats.

Now these stats are flawed, or you're completely wrong about Lampard vs Gerrard AND Parker vs Carrick.

Stats ARE useful, but interpretation is absolutely vital.

Looking at points gifted by one random guy arbitrarily placing more importance on ANY STAT THEY WANT, and you only looking at the points, is ridiculous.

Key stats there, chances greated, pass completion, minutes between giving it away, goals scored, tackle success.

Lampard owns Gerrard in all of these, and Parker owns Carrick, completely.

IN arbitrary stupid stats that are made up, clear cut chances created(utterly subjective) we can see the numbers don't add up, Lampard has more actual assists than he is credited with creating? mins per ball one in attack? Gerrard gives the ball away twice as often, Lampard barely ever gives it away, who is likely to NEED to win it back more often and who is likely to be up the field, lose possession and be close enough to win it back, yes the guy who loses it twice as often and the guy who runs with the ball more than other players, is more likely. Why is something like that one stat SO significantly biased when it comes to the points allocation, who knows, but it is.

Tallest player with the biggest bulk, wins the most aerial duals, that is shockingly important, and again the points weighting seems to be heavily towards one of the VERY few area's Gerrard excells at, the real question is how many aerial duals do Lampard and Gerrard get into, and do them make a significant difference in a game, answer is no. If both make 30 tackles a year and Lampard is better, but both go up for 3 headers, Gerrard wins two, Lampard wins one, which is the more important stat?

It's very simple STATS can be interpreted, an arbitrary score, with no definition of why it places more importance in one stat over another, is useless.

I can create the Bopta index, which uses the SAME stats, weights the score only to goals scored, and gives Gerrard a 0 and Lampard an eleventy billion based on those exact stats.

Look at the stats themselves, NOT the score, and Lampard is EASILY better than Gerrard and Parker is easily better than Carrick.... anyone watching these players in the past 3 years would know this already.
 
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One More Solo said:
Told you.
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Well done for being incapable of reading, I used the STATS and ignored a random score you, he and I can't tell you how its made up. The STATS show Parker/Lampard are better, and arbitrary score says otherwise.

A couple of those stats are near useless, one is completely 100% subjective, the MAJORITY do not agree with the points, arbitrarily chose ANY of those stats you want, and base the points completely on that, the stats don't change, the points do. Points = subjective, stats = non subjective, stats = Lampard's better, points = Gerrard's better, people with eyesight = Lampard's better.
 
I'm a City fan so probably a little bias but I'm astonsihed Micah Riachards has been overlooked once again by the England setup. The guy has been quality all season and is a hardworking professional.

I think Phil Jones will be a very good player, but I do not think right back is the position where he will make his name.

With regards to Gareth Barry, in his first seasons at City I didn't really rate him, but this season he has been very solid, positive and in the big games has stood up and been counted.

How Adam Johnson is in the squad is beyond me. The guy is so so slow, ridiculously one footed and a one trick pony that does a couple of step overs moves the ball to the inside and shoots no matter whether there is a better option on or not. In big games he goes missing to the point where you completely forget he is on the pitch and he cant defend. Rant over.
 
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