Midweek Football Thread. *spoilers*

drunkenmaster said:
Rooney isn't and will never be great in the furthest forward role nor was Heskey remotely good.
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He doesnt do too bad, other than Darren Bents good season for Charlton, Wayne has been the highest scoring or joint highest scoring English centerforward for the past 5 years or so.
Not bad considering he has had something like 4 broken feet in that time as well.
He plays very well up front, but only when those behind him play football, and not just lump it at him.
 
Liefrich said:
Really?

Damn you're insightful.
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wow, i clearly wasn't suggesting he might be good in that role with Defoe, but we won't know because they had very little time together and frankly Rooney did nothing in that more withdrawn role while he was on the pitch.

I was also suggesting he could be good there, but frankly his best games and his best work comes from much deeper, he had many a great game on the wing last year and not a huge amount of great games upfront. If he can link up brilliantly with Defoe or even Owen, I don't know, neither do you.

As for being the joint top ENGLISH scorer, doesn't really mean all that much when in those 5 years Defoe, Bent, heck even Crouch have only been bit part players for their teams. Crouch had his first full season this year, Defoe missed a lot of it injured and the rest playing for a crap team(s). Bent was dropped constantly and didn't have a full year, and Rooney managed to match them all, hardly something to be massively enthusiastic about in terms of raw numbers.

He likes the ball at his feet, Defoe's best work came running in behind, thats who you need up top, Rooney won't be that player because thats not his game, its never been his game, why would it suddenly become his game, when he's better providing and creating? I'm not critising him, he's a great player but why not play to his strengths?

The thing is, did you not just see how often Defoe and Cole were willing to run into the box, you just don't see Heskey ever do that, and you rarely see Rooney do that, he prefers(and is better) being the one to provide the ball to those guys.

Pigeon_Killer said:
^ To summarise, everyone on the pitch was crap apart from the Arsenal player.
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yup, praised Defoe, Lampard, Cole, Young and Rooney, while saying Johnson sucked and Barry/Carrick are played out of position.
 
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Holland are supposed to be the better side. In the end the teams were fairly evenly matched with England scoring the more creative goals.

Would have taken this performance before the game.
 
ghost101 said:
Holland are supposed to be the better side. In the end the teams were fairly evenly matched with England scoring the more creative goals.

Would have taken this performance before the game.
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Holland didn't play all their best players to start or their real first team and withdrew their best players at half time...

Personally when going into a world cup wanting to WIN IT being embarassingly poor in the first half being outclassed by two dutch players and being passed around in tight spaces in midfield aswell as some awful errors being made, then only managing to score 2 with players Capello will never start with in a million years against the Holland B team.

I want England to win, I don't except that performance as ok, even the second half wasn't great with several players(johnon in particular) looking completely helpless in the second half. We can't and won't win a world cup playing like that, how can anyone who wants England to win be happy with not winning.

Holland had better players to bring on/leave on, and gears to go through and England didn't look like that. I also don't rate Holland with any kind of significant chance in the World Cup, they have some pure quality players, and not a great defence and lots of over rated players who never seem to actually provide, Babbel, Schneider(whatever the spelling is) Van da Vart, Kuyt.

We've played 3 top teams Spain, France, Holland, lost 2, drawn one after they took off their best players, even then 2 of those teams have no real chance at winning the world cup, hardly wetting myself in anticipation of the world cup myself.

Haven't we had this problem for 15 years that we're always happy with these crappy performances against top sides, proclaim them as fantastic then lose when we come up against the same top teams in tourneys without ever really getting that close. We've beaten teams with no chance of winning the Cup, and beaten teams with no chance of getting into the World Cup at all, and we've lost or played badly against everyone who has a good chance of making the semi's, overjoyed I'm not.

Same problems we've had for years, wrong and ever changing partnership upfront, not sorted left wing, no real defensive midfielder. Whats changed exactly since Sven's/McClarens reigns?
 
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You expect England to have a significant chance of winning the world cup? England will always be underdogs when its comes to games against Brazil, Argentina, Spain and perhaps Holland. I expect England to win less games head to head than the opposition in these ties.

You seem to be implying that we are incapable of beating Holland. If we stick to the first half and say that those were games from the first teams (debatable since we had players missing) then Holland didn't outclass England in that sense.

As for this problem for the last 15 years you are talking about. England have never supposed to have been superior against teams we've lost against. Portugal, Brazil, Argentina, Germany. At no point should we have walked all over them.

We go into the next world cup as 4th favourites. This won't magically change in a year.
 
I don't see how we are "4th favorite"

I wouldn't bet on England beating any of the current top 10.

1 Brazil
2 Spain
3 Netherlands
4 Germany
5 Italy
6 Russia
7 England
8 Argentina
9 France
10 Croatia

Fifa world ranking top ten.

I don't know why people (mainly the media) are so sure England are capable of winning the world cup.

Call me a grump miserable pessimistic arse, but I seriously don't think we have a chance.
England, just don't work well as a team, and on the rare occasion they do perform better then the below average football we have become accustom to, the media make them out to be the best in world football.

England, too many over rated individuals, unable to work as a team.
 
Tummy said:
I don't see how we are "4th favorite"

I wouldn't bet on England beating any of the current top 10.

1 Brazil
2 Spain
3 Netherlands
4 Germany
5 Italy
6 Russia
7 England
8 Argentina
9 France
10 Croatia

Fifa world ranking top ten.

I don't know why people (mainly the media) are so sure England are capable of winning the world cup.

Call me a grump miserable pessimistic arse, but I seriously don't think we have a chance.
England, just don't work well as a team, and on the rare occasion they do perform better then the below average football we have become accustom to, the media make them out to be the best in world football.

England, too many over rated individuals, unable to work as a team.
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Haven't we already beaten Russia? And also, if we can't beat Russia and Croatia again, I would be HIGHLY annoyed.
 
[Cas];14668681 said:
Haven't we already beaten Russia? And also, if we can't beat Russia and Croatia again, I would be HIGHLY annoyed.
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:o

two out of 10 :p

I think England are over rated, a good side.

I just don't think I'll see them win the world cup in my life time :(

I don't even think I'll see England get to a world cup final :(
 
- Already beaten Germany as well in a friendly.
- We may have lost to France but they have a seriously shaky team at the moment. They might not even qualify if they have to go through playoffs as it looks like they will. This damages odds.
- Similarly Russia and Croatia will still have to qualify through playoffs denting their odds.
- Current aging Italian team struggling through qualification better than England?

So we are left with Spain, Brazil and Argentina definitely being better than England.

In terms of chances of winning as determined by odds, the tiers of teams that are likely to win are (some rounding)

Spain/Brazil - 5/1 each (33% total)
Argentina - 13/2 (13.33%)
England - 9/1 (10%)
Italy/Germany/Netherlands - 13/1 (21.43% total)
France - 21/1 (4.55%)

Make of it what you will. I don't quite understand why Holland's odds are so low in comparison to England. I also think that Spain are being underestimated and/or Brazil overestimated.
 
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We have more of a chance of winning the world cup than in recent years (the 20 I've been around :p). Doesn't mean it's a high chance, but there is more chance that we can pull a result out, after a bad game under Capello.
 
[Cas];14668713 said:
We have more of a chance of winning the world cup than in recent years (the 20 I've been around :p). Doesn't mean it's a high chance, but there is more chance that we can pull a result out, after a bad game under Capello.
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I think we had better squads in 98 and 02 and 06. Another factor I think which shows up in the odds is that France, Italy and Germany are weaker than they have been in the past. Also no Portugal. Perhaps all negated by an improved Spain.
 
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So they came back to 2-2, interesting. I turned off when I saw that Shaun Wright-Phillips and pulled on an England shirt again. When will the manager learn that he's just utter garbage.
 
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