First we don't have world class players throughout the team, second, not a single manager has used an appropriate formation and tactics in the past 12-16 years, we pick the most popular players at the top 6 clubs followed by the highest paid of the rest to make the big clubs feel better about overpaying crap like Barry.
Every England manager in the past 16 years has been a yes man that picks who the FA tell them is most valuable in advertising rights to pick, nothing more or less.
Players psychologically damaged by their own clubs and the media, yes they are. Look at Walcott after he has a truly terrible game but Arsenal win, or the same for England, he's suddenly talking about winning titles, if he scores in a game Arsenal or England lose, he starts talking about how the team needs to do better, like he's some footballing god who has made it to the top.
We have players who are convinced, largely by their 100k a week pay packets, that they ARE the best players in the world and very few of them try and improve, for me guys like Walcott have this "I'm the best I can be, therefore why would I try harder" attitude, and this seems both, very English, common amongst the worse players that get picked and something that seems to be given to them by the treatment footballers get. Managers who don't drop crap players, fans who ignore bad performances, FA who push an agenda of playing those deemed most valuable rather than whoever is best for the team.
Everything, I mean EVERYTHING about the England set up is wrong, players, coaching, FA involvement, the managers they pick and the attitude of the media.
Rooney isn't a playmaker, Heskey should never have gotten anywhere near the team, Welbeck is complete cack, Walcott is rubbish, Johnson can't defend, a midfielder who specialises in defence is rarely used for England, Parker being the first in ages and we looked vastly better when he played... Barry doesn't count as he can't defend and is one of the slowest footballers in England who can't compete at the top level at all... as evident by being at massive fault for most of Englands worst performances(as is Johnson).
Wilshire, Parker, Lampard is the best central midfield we'd put out in donkeys years, defence, strength, intelligence, passing, discipline, quality going forward. Gerrard and Barry aren't substitutes for those two.
Picking form players from "lesser" teams makes more sense than picking out of form big club players who do nothing for England, giving guys like Lambert call ups, rather than repeatedly picking people who underperform, is yet another way to tell an underperforming player he doesn't have to try harder because he won't be dropped no matter how bad he gets.
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