UEFA European Under-21 Championship 5-18 June *** Spoilers ***

Because we hype the young english players up and throw them straight into the senior setup.

They should always represent U21 untill they are 22.

Regardless of how good they are, or how good they think they are.
 
I'm sure I saw earlier that Germany have gone out of this early too. I doubt there is the same witch hunt happening over there at the moment. The english media just love to criticise and whinge the entire time. The only time they stop is when they run the very occasional praise piece just to reassure themselves that they are not a bunch of completely biased *****.

We went into the tournament in very good form and didn't perform over 2 games, 1 of which we were missing our two best players.
 
fez said:
I'm sure I saw earlier that Germany have gone out of this early too. I doubt there is the same witch hunt happening over there at the moment. The english media just love to criticise and whinge the entire time. The only time they stop is when they run the very occasional praise piece just to reassure themselves that they are not a bunch of completely biased *****.

We went into the tournament in very good form and didn't perform over 2 games, 1 of which we were missing our two best players.
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We've lost to Norway and are likely to lose against Israel. I'm not criticising the players or Stuart Pearce, per se. However, this tournament is showing that the number of good English players coming through is very, very small.

Plus Germany have probably got the two best teams in their group. And they've managed to score a goal from open play.
 
Lol England :D

I hate watching England but was in the background in the pub do couldn't avoid it. Unless we do a Germany/Spain and prioritise local talent (at the short term detriment of the EPL) we will be like Wales/Scotland/N.Ireland and never make a big tournament again. We might make the odd one but we are swiftly becoming a joke national team so the league product is impressive.
 
fez said:
I'm sure I saw earlier that Germany have gone out of this early too. I doubt there is the same witch hunt happening over there at the moment. The english media just love to criticise and whinge the entire time. The only time they stop is when they run the very occasional praise piece just to reassure themselves that they are not a bunch of completely biased *****.

We went into the tournament in very good form and didn't perform over 2 games, 1 of which we were missing our two best players.
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Compare the ages of the German squad to ours and you'd see why they aren't worried about this tournament.
 
So what did Pearce do wrong?

I'm not sure what else he could have done with the players at his disposal, to be honest.

1. Italy only managed to breach the England defence from a set piece, and we had two goals disallowed.
2. He sent out a more attack-minded team against Norway with arguably stronger players like Zaha, while keeping the ones from the Italy game that showed promise [Redmond, Rose]. The players had *plenty* of possession and chances but couldn't put the ball in the net and had a collective defensive 'mare. It was a game startlingly reminiscent of Swans v Fulham a few weeks ago; possession & profligacy versus deadly finishing from few chances.
3. He gave valuable tournament experience to squad members for the otherwise-pointless dead rubber against Israel. Yet again, our players had lots of chances but composure in front of goal was sorely lacking.

A near-perfect qualification record shows that he's far from useless. Personally, I think he's right to point the finger at the players [edit: and, more subtly, point the finger at the system that meant his star players were given up to the senior side]. It's not like they did well *despite* his tactics [a solid 4-2-3-1; you can't even level Hodgsonesque '4-4-2 dinosaur!' accusations at him].
 
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I read that Norway had several players that were called up for the first XI, didn't play or were onl;y subs and then flew to Israel for the U21 championship.

Why we couldn't have done that with Jones/Ox etc I don't know.
 
Also bear in mind Norway's senior team were involved in a real game (World Cup qualifier) not friendlies like England:

England: Friendlies on 29/05 and 02/06
Norway: Qualifier on 07/06 and Friendly on 11/06

So Norway had an official qualifying game literally less than 24hrs before the U21 match against England yet their lads still showed up, meanwhile our boys who were done with the seniors and topping up the tan before the U21 tournament even started.

I know people love a moan about burnout and playing too much football but I've seen plenty of foreign pros like Mata playing 10 bazillion games for Chelsea after the Olympics last summer and presumably Confederations cup this summer.

Make these folk prove their worth, get some tournament experience under their belts and if it means switching between senior and U21 teams then so be it. If they can't play a couple of games a week in summer tournaments at the age of 20 then they might as well give up now because if you want to win the big tourneys you have to get through 6 or 7 games like that.
 
Its not by any means the only factor - but imo its a big difference when a lot of other countries senior sides are allowing their U21 players available for the tournament but England wont allow the likes of Jones / Welbeck etc etc to appear.

Personally I think it makes sense for the U21's to grow together as a team in a tournament like this (even if SP is /isn't the man to take on the manager roll after this)
 
Just got in and Spain are 2-0 already, guess the Dutch Gareth Barry aint running the show then :(

EDIT: Ah it seems he's on the bench, that'll be why Holland are 2-0 down then :p
 
Tom84 said:
Just got in and Spain are 2-0 already, guess the Dutch Gareth Barry aint running the show then :(

EDIT: Ah it seems he's on the bench, that'll be why Holland are 2-0 down then :p
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One player doesn't make a team........but it is possible for the same player to complete a team :D

(However much you are undecided on him currently)
 
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