England vs Japan

[spurslenny]

Once again England are back playing insepid, uninspiring football.
Mark my words, Capello will pick the same old faces, despite
their form (or lack of) and we'll boring, slow, unwatchable football
in the WC.
We won't get past the first decent team we come up against,
Germany or Ghana in all likelyhood, and then we will all be
blaming it on the percieved fact that we havnt got enough
'world class players', when in fact the reason we are so poor
is that we constantly pick our best 11 players and try to
shoehorn them into positions that they are unacustomed to,
instead of picking our best TEAM. Players in form, used to doing
what they have become used to at club level and in workable
partnerships, unlike the much malign 'gerrard/lampard' axis.

And don't, for the love of god, try to tell me that international
football is a step up in class. Bollocks is it!!
Any top 10 team in the prem could outplayed this England team.

Fucking shocking.

Rant over.

 

[jondesouza]

Once again England are back playing insepid, uninspiring football.
Mark my words, Capello will pick the same old faces, despite
their form (or lack of) and we'll boring, slow, unwatchable football
in the WC.
We won't get past the first decent team we come up against,
Germany or Ghana in all likelyhood, and then we will all be
blaming it on the percieved fact that we havnt got enough
'world class players', when in fact the reason we are so poor
is that we constantly pick our best 11 players and try to
shoehorn them into positions that they are unacustomed to,
instead of picking our best TEAM. Players in form, used to doing
what they have become used to at club level and in workable
partnerships, unlike the much malign 'gerrard/lampard' axis.

And don't, for the love of god, try to tell me that international
football is a step up in class. Bollocks is it!!
Any top 10 team in the prem could outplayed this England team.

Fucking shocking.

Rant over.

Absolutely agree with you, especially the bit about choosing a team not just the best 11 players.

 

[kcmei]

just look at the dunga for brazil he has already picked his team and they have already been practicing and playing with each other for a very long time. England is still switch and changing every game.

 

[Wsussexspur]

Why oh why he persist with Walcott is beyond me this is nothing to do with him being an Ars*al player. But he has done 3/ 4 good things in his career one for England which to be fair was a very good hatrick away against a good Croatia team. However he has done nothing for England since then. Nearly every time he has pulled on England shirt since then he has flattered to deceive. He just looks lost every time he get the ball. Its not just for England he is like that its same for Ars*al even my mates who support them agree hence why he is not a regular starter for them. Only things he has done for them since joining 4 years ago is score that wonder goal against Liverpool in Champions league couple of seasons ago and that decent performance coming off the bench against Barca. He seems to be a player who lives of these rare flashes of potential. Lennon and SWP and by sounds of it Adam Johnson should all be in front of him in the que for the world cup all of them have had better seasons than him. Only reason id take him is if game goes into extra time his pace of the bench could be useful running at tired defenders.

 

[spurslenny]

Also, we have 5 undroppable's, irrespective of how bad they play.
Lampard, gerrard, terry, Rooney and rio play when ever they are
fit, and this is counterproductive to producing unity and team spirit.
What incentive is there for the likes of daws, hudd, Adam johson,
Parker, Defoe etc, etc, etc ad infinitum, to even attempt to try and
impress any England manager. I mean, what exactly is the point
of capello jaunting around the country taking in prem games
when he's just going to pick the same old players.

I'm sick of wasting my time watching England.

 

[JerryGarcia]

I thought Huddlestone did his job well today, I'm confident he will be going to South Africa as a squad player. It will be great experience for him and hopefully make him even stronger next season!

 

[DogsOfWar]

I could pretty much cut and paste the same comment after every England game I have watched.

The players who usually do a job when they play are Crouch, Joe Cole, Lennon, Gerrard and Rooney.
All we have to do is stick a holding midfielder in whether it's Barry, Carrick or Hudd and that's job done.

It's got balance, trickery, strength and pace and every player would be in, pretty much, their preferred position.

Personally I would play Carragher at RB, pretty much as a third CB, and then have Ashley Cole constantly overlapping on the left side.

It's beyond me why Capello does not pick this team because it picks itself and is good enough to get to the semi's before bowing out against a Brazil or Spain.

 

[Krafty]

I loved the interview with Lampard and Cole afterwards - 'its the win that matters'. No lads, it aint. Its a flipping friendly, if you had lost two nil but created numerous chances, hit the post bar and the keeper was on fire, and you lost to two 35 yard thunderbolts that took deflections off the ref, that would be fine.

Just about managing to beat a pretty poor and out of form Japan side, thanks to two own goals, and missing a penalty, is not fine.

I think the defence is ten-fifteen yards too deep, which means the full backs are not high enough up the pitch when we are building the play, and it also drags our midfield deeper meaning we cannot press the ball. There is no movement off the ball, and hasnt been, by and large, for 18 months.

Capello needs to switch to a five man midfield otherwise we will get destroyed by any team that can pass a football

 

[llamafarmer]

Once again England are back playing insepid, uninspiring football.
Mark my words, Capello will pick the same old faces, despite
their form (or lack of) and we'll boring, slow, unwatchable football
in the WC.
We won't get past the first decent team we come up against,
Germany or Ghana in all likelyhood, and then we will all be
blaming it on the percieved fact that we havnt got enough
'world class players', when in fact the reason we are so poor
is that we constantly pick our best 11 players and try to
shoehorn them into positions that they are unacustomed to,
instead of picking our best TEAM. Players in form, used to doing
what they have become used to at club level and in workable
partnerships, unlike the much malign 'gerrard/lampard' axis.

And don't, for the love of god, try to tell me that international
football is a step up in class. Bollocks is it!!
Any top 10 team in the prem could outplayed this England team.

Fucking shocking.

Rant over.

Totally agree mate. I try to get excited about England games and they always end up disappointing me, pretty much since the Sven days. I thought Fab would be the manager to finally break the bullshit, but he seems to have slotted into the same old formulaic team selections.

Please just play ONE of Lampard and Gerrard - they can't both play in the same space and we have better DMs and LWs than either of them. I don't even care which one you pick, I really don't, but by playing both you just dilute both of their abilities.

Theo Walcott is shit. By all means sling him on after 80 mins in a desperate attempt to expose tired full backs, but if they've managed to deal with Lennon they'll sure as hell deal with Walcott. The best left backs in the world will keep him in their pocket all day long.

John Terry is a ****.

Please just name your fucking squad already!! If you know who they are, why are we still dragging 7 redundant players around Austria?

Please tell Frank Lampard he'll have to occasionally hit penalties somewhere other than bottom left.

 

[Kendall]

Gerrard and Lampard played together all through qualifying, didn't hear you complain then.

Gerrard will move out to the left, lampard will be in the middle with barry or carrick. These two games mean fuck all. They were a workout and an experiment.

 

[jondesouza]

I don't mind Gerrard on the left with Lampard in the centre. Gerrard cuts in and creates space for Ashley Cole to bomb forward. (It's much the same way that we line up with Modric creating space for Bale).

What we know doesn't work is Gerrard and Lampard in the middle. I don't know why we even bother with it.

 

[nailsy]

I don't get why everyone's having a go at Capello. We haven't been good in these last two games, but this is effectively pre-season for him. He's experimenting, with different players in different positions so that if we need to change our game plan during a match he knows what to do.

We don't have the toughest of groups which means our first team can gel together during the first three games. Theres no-way we will come 3rd or 4th in that group.

 

[jondesouza]

I suppose my great fear is that we'll do what we always do which is choke in a major tournament. We seem to often qualify with aplomb but then The Fear overtakes us and we become incredibly negative. There's already evidence of this with Capello's desire to recall players like Carragher and Scholes to the international fold. We just need to carry on doing what we've been doing all along - picking players in form in a formation that suits.

 

[Kendall]

we normally hammer teams going into the world cup and it gives us false bravado.I'm glad we've not been good in the last two games, it means we'll take nothing for granted.

 

[C0YS]

Gerrard and Lampard played together all through qualifying, didn't hear you complain then.

Gerrard will move out to the left, lampard will be in the middle with barry or carrick. These two games mean fuck all. They were a workout and an experiment.

Exactly Kendall, this is experimentation wait till we play the USA before moaning and bitching about the way we play.

We do seem to have had big problems against Mexico and better sides who play in a similar style like Chile and Spain we could struggle against

 

[The Apprentice]

Walcott is fucking shit.

The End.