UEFA EURO 2016 Qualifiers and International Friendlies ** spoilers ** [3rd - 9th September 2014]

drunkenmaster said:
He was exceptionally poor to be honest, not sure how he's in the squad as is. He looked really very good at CB last year while Jag was out injured for Everton. I mean he looked great and in basically his first real run of games and at a young age. But yesterday at right back, if a player got within about 10 yards of him while he was facing up the pitch he was turning around and passing back instantly. He was painfully timid, no drive to go forwards down the right in the slightest. That might be understandable, even at times a manager might ask that of him, but he was refusing to just pass forward be it to midfield or down the right, he looked scared and completely over his depth.
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He wasn't exceptionally poor, as normal you're looking at it from only one perspective (attacking). He's a 20 year old kid, who dominated the Championship at right back in only 20-odd games whilst at Barnsley whilst 18 years old. He's most recently played at CB for Everton so is naturally a bit rusty at RB. Again, he was up against certain excellent players last night - Rodriguez looked awesome in the World Cup, but was stifled last night by Welbeck and Stones and so few of Switzerland's attacks down our right hand side bore any fruit - I'd say this shows he wasn't out of his depth. Stones' distribution was poor, but it'll improve.

Look at it from a human perspective for once - not a TV perspective. A twenty year old kick with bags of potential, yet less than 100 games for club and country under his belt, starts out of position against a team whom haven't lost a home game for 3-4 years. It was in inauspicious performance but, from a defensive perspective, it was a promising one. Why on earth would you rather play a 33 year old LB with little experience at RB and a limited professional career remaining (and zero development) ahead of a promising young RB? Stones is close to a RB, but you can't expect a complete performance from an inexperienced 20 year old.

DM, I'd genuinely be interested in hearing your opinion on things if you spent a season watching some live football, because seemingly all your opinions are based on televised games and are increasingly redundant.
 
I don't and didn't talk about just attacking, there is no reason at all, ever, for a right back to never pass forwards out of being scared.

As for the "I watch live football so your opinion is redundant" argument, well... lol.

If Stones is too young to be playing at this level that is fine. He was very poor, the Swiss are a poor team in general, smashed to pieces by France, drew with Ecuador beat a woeful Honduras who didn't even try and play football.

He numerous times played us from a position of complete control and no danger into a position under threat because of his inability and complete unwillingness to make simple passes forwards. I'm not looking for 50 yard pin point long balls to start an attack, a 10 yard diagonal pass to Wilshere in central mid, or down the wing, or to anyone else was beyond him in the game. Any time there was space to start pushing forward, almost any time he got the ball he turned back and passed it to the CB. If the Swiss weren't so crap they could have almost ignored him and closed the CB every time he had the ball... they didn't because they are pretty crap.

As for talking about the championship, I see no relevance at all. If one player scores 25 in the championship for whatever team, it means they should be in the england team for sure? The thing about football is you can look brilliant up to a particular level of opposition but utterly hopeless beyond it. Song could get assists and win tackles against a poor team but be utterly hopeless against a top team. He looked promising as hell last year, he was excellent as a CB last year, but he was very poor last night at right back. How promising he is doesn't change that, how well he played in a different league against different opposition doesn't change that.

Throwing in a 20 year old who hasn't played more than a couple of games at right back at a high level(I'm not sure if it's any except against Leicester) is... an odd decision.

There is just as much to lose from playing someone in a position they aren't familiar with at a level they haven't played before, under pressure, as there is to be gained. It looked too soon for him.

AS for the Swiss not losing at home in 3-4 years, really? Topping the insanely difficult group of Iceland, Slovenia, Norway, Albania and Cyprus, in which Iceland came second and they drew at home to Norway and Iceland.... wow, they seem amazingly tough to beat. Should add, they conceded 4 to Iceland and just the one to Norway. Their largest home win was 2-0, the other's were 1-0. They seem to have lost at home to Romania in a friendly in 2012 as well. So apart from playing almost no one remotely good, they have lost at home and conceded plenty against crap teams.


Even more funnily is, almost none of your "I watch live football" analysis is based on... live football. He played in Barnsley, he's young, he was out of position, the Swiss are tough... none of that, literally none actually references how he did on the pitch at all.

I didn't write him off anywhere, I said he was great, in a different position in a very different role last year. But his age, his inexperience, his lack of recently playing that position his entire lack of playing that position above championship level all suggest putting him in a higher pressure game in that position was the wrong thing to do. He played very poorly and I wouldn't have put him in that position at this stage of his career at all, particularly with alternative options.

He's unlikely at any stage going to be a first choice right back for club nor country, so I see no reason playing him there will help England in the future, nor Everton, nor him. what it did do was put him in a position to fail under pressure when there was no reason at all to put him in that position.
 
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drunkenmaster said:
I'm not really sure why Clyne hasn't been called up yet, he's 23, not 19 or something and those ahead of him in the pecking order have for years been inept.
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Because defensively he's suspect - he didn't manage to cement a first team starting spot for Southampton last season. You only seem interested in how well a full back can go forward, completely ignoring the essential defensive duty.

Also DM, do you ever find it weird how your opinions are consistently vastly different from how the professionals at the sport see things?
 
Purdy said:
Rip danny and gilly

(You don't admit you're wrong dm, wouldn't bother mentioning it to other people)
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Yes it would appear I was wrong, for that I'm truly sorry, in my defence I only ever see his posts if they are quoted, so I blame Gilly for not quoting the full story :D
 
drunkenmaster said:
As for the "I watch live football so your opinion is redundant" argument, well... lol.


There is just as much to lose from playing someone in a position they aren't familiar with at a level they haven't played before, under pressure, as there is to be gained. It looked too soon for him.

AS for the Swiss not losing at home, really? Topping the insanely difficult group of Iceland, Slovenia, Norway, Albania and Cyprus, in which Iceland came second and they drew at home to Norway and Iceland.... wow, they seem amazingly tough to beat.

Even more funnily is, almost none of your "I watch live football" analysis is based on... live football. He played in Barnsley, he's young, he was out of position, the Swiss are tough... none of that, literally none actually references how he did on the pitch at all.

He's unlikely at any stage going to be a first choice right back for club nor country, so I see no reason playing him there will help England in the future, nor Everton, nor him. what it did do was put him in a position to fail under pressure when there was no reason at all to put him in that position.
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How many did we concede last night? How many times did Switzerland get to the byline and put in a cross on his side? There's every reason to play him at RB for England. He's a young developing player able to operate in a position which we lack top RBs who can adequately defend. I think Hodgson would rather have a defensively sound RB who can contribute to clean sheets rather than an attacking flair RB who leaves massive gaps behind him.

As with regards to Switzerland, they're 9th in the world. We're 20th. They've not lost at home in 3-4 years. You can keep ignoring the facts, but every football forum has a poster like you. A guy who never watches any live football, but believes himself the football oracle who is incapable of being incorrect.

My previous post alluding to watching live football wasn't specific to Stones or the Swiss match. It was posted in regards to your armchair footballing existence leading to your increasingly preposterous and obsolete opinions.
 
drunkenmaster said:
Well done mate, I said shots to goals ratio, not goals to games ratio, so you can go and cry in a dark room at your attempt to make me look wrong based on your inability to read properly
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My mistake. I was mistaken in thinking you would be talking about a stat anyone cares about.

That said, if you think everyone reads all of every boring wall of text rather than skim reading I'm not the only one that's mistaken :)
 
Joe Allen needs very little reason to go down doesn't he? The commentators are having a right go at this Martinez for going down easy but no mention of Allen throwing himself over at the slightest of clips.
 
toshj said:
How many did we concede last night? How many times did Switzerland get to the byline and put in a cross on his side? There's every reason to play him at RB for England. He's a young developing player able to operate in a position which we lack top RBs who can adequately defend. I think Hodgson would rather have a defensively sound RB who can contribute to clean sheets rather than an attacking flair RB who leaves massive gaps behind him.

As with regards to Switzerland, they're 9th in the world. We're 20th. They've not lost at home in 3-4 years. You can keep ignoring the facts, but every football forum has a poster like you. A guy who never watches any live football, but believes himself the football oracle who is incapable of being incorrect.

My previous post alluding to watching live football wasn't specific to Stones or the Swiss match. It was posted in regards to your armchair footballing existence leading to your increasingly preposterous and obsolete opinions.
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Again firstly you're WRONG about them having not lost at home, they lost to Romania a not particularly strong team in May 2012. Their group had no one remotely good in it and they still drew at home to two crap teams. There is one person ignoring the facts with the not losing at home thing being FALSE.

As for armchair football aside from the fact it's a argument with no basis in reality, I went to hundreds of games before my knees became so bad I can barely walk. Which part of that do you want to pick apart, a partially disabled person who lives in pain for not attending football matches, or the fact I've been to hundreds, which works least bad for your argument?

9th in the world, really you want to throw that at me. Despite literally dozens of articles being written about how the Swiss manipulated the world rankings to their advantage to get seeding higher. Ridiculously easy group and taking friendlies against teams who tend to not remotely care about friendlies and lose, that kind of thing. You want to based Switzerland being better, based on beating no one good, and exceptionally widely known ranking manipulation?

Switzerland are crap and at home in a non friendly haven't even beaten someone as good as Iceland in donkeys years.

So you're wrong about the ranking, everyone on earth but you knows it's a false ranking, you're wrong about them having not lost at home in 4 years, you're wrong about how good they are, you're wrong about me having not been to live games and the argument that someone who doesn't watch live games doesn't know what they are talking about is completely baseless to begin with. There is no logical argument to be made that watching football live makes you better able to understand it.

Why is it footballers, managers, coaches, scouts watch thousands of hours of football on tape a year if it's meaningless and useless?

From the time I did go to live games, I was often not surprised by the crowd's over reaction and incorrect opinion of things they can't see from miles away. Unlike almost anyone I knew, I would watch back live games(when possible, which was all Arsenal games) to match up my "at the time" opinion and on video seeing if my feeling was right or wrong. A tackle I thought was good or bad turning out to be the other way around with better angles and replays.

Live football is inherently poor as a means to judge how a game is going. People in crowds get swayed by the crowd, by the emotion, but how everyone else is reacting, coupled with poor angles, few to no replays.

The idea that watching football in person gives a better impression of players is simply a ridiculous idea. But as pointed out, it's particularly useless to bring up considering the hundreds of games I've been too.

EDIT:-

http://www.universitytimes.ie/?p=25685 article entitled "playing the game" about the swiss ranking manipulation...

there are dozens of results on google, anything form playing less games in 2013 to maintain their average points per game, playing just over half(8 vs 15) the number of games that count for ranking/world cup seeding.

EDIT2 :- http://www.goal.com/en-us/match/switzerland-vs-romania/1253777/preview

match report for the game that Switzerland lost, at home, 2 and a bit years ago, proving your "they haven't lost at home" thing completely false, like it somehow meant anything if it was true... it wouldn't. Failing to beat Iceland and Norway at home and beating a few even worse teams by tiny margins doesn't indicate a good team.
 
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I didn't know of Swiss manipulation of rankings. It's certainly not been widely reported in our media.
 
I'm sure many people would disagree with me, but I dislike the whole 'seeding teams' with football.

Names in pot; names drawn out.
 
I do disagree, because I want to see the better players on the biggest stages.

I can see the argument the other way, of course.
 
I take that point, but I just find it more interesting if teams were not seeded at all.

In terms of the European Champions League, I find it quite favourable towards the elite european clubs to be honest, I think the competition would be more interesting without the seeding.

Similar applies to international competitions.
 
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