baboon2004
Darned cockwombles.
you can't jinx a team that shit.
World Cup 2010
- Thread starter scottdisco
- Start date
you can't jinx a team that shit.
slim jenkins
El Hombre Invisible
I'm fascinated by the psychology of England's failure to perform....anyone got any theories? It's not down to ability, is it? What's f*cking up their heads? Pressure and expectation cannot be an excuse for the experienced players,, surely? But if it is, why is it crushing them?
crackerjack
Well-known member
crackerjack
Well-known member
Nor the fact they're pissed off with the manager. Nice attempted coup by EBJT yesterday - what made him think he, of all people, was the man for the job?
scottdisco
rip this joint please
chilling, brilliant piece. cheers Cracker.
6 months for pissing off some corporate prick? jesus wept.
an utter fucking disgrace.
and 15 years meted out in 48 hours?!
matt b
Indexing all opinion
When they play with their clubs, they play with technically sound players from other countries who cover up the inadequacies of the 2 or 3 English players on the field?
The false sense of self importance can't be helping: Listened to a John Terry interview on Radio 5 last night and he simply doesn't get it does he? Still an arrogant cock sure twat- has he not watched recordings of the England games, or is he confusing Algeria with Argentina?
baboon2004
Darned cockwombles.
Usually, I'd say an inherent superiority complex towards 'smaller' teams, coupled with a massive inferiority complex towards teams with a serious reputation, usually explains England's passage through tournaments.
This time is obviously different. Poor technique is something of an explanation, and the inability to hold on to the ball relative to other teams is always going to make things harder. More simply, with Rooney off the pace and getting little service, where are the goals going to come from? Maybe the reason the better Premier League teams work so well, is that combination of ball retention offered by the superior non-English players, and the energy/passion/drive/er... of the English players, is so potent.
Similarly disappointing as their results were this weekend, you couldn't have confused Italy for England. Ball retention may not always work, as we've seen, but it does increase your chances of getting a result. That said, if Lampard had scored that chance, then there would be no post-mortems from a 1-0 victory, even if despeartely unimpressive.
Anyone know how the German press reacted to their defeat against Serbia, facilitated as it was by that ridiculous sending off (though obv they profited similarly vs Australia, though that match was far less, er, klose...in fact, has there been a merited sending-off so far?)? The English press would obviously have gone mental had similar happened.
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slim jenkins
El Hombre Invisible
Sounds reasonable. Although I wouldn't say they're inadequate...just needy of class all around them? I thought the Prem was supposed to be the toughest league in the world...and look at Lampard's goal rate in that over the last few seasons. Gerrard's been off form of late, however...
matt b
Indexing all opinion
Not being an avid watcher of football (I only watch world cups/euro championships), the games that I've seen highlight how technically poor England are- they seem relieved when they trap the ball and have the opportunity to get a second touch.
Compare that with the subtlety of the best teams/players- their first touch is not a means of controlling the ball, but a way of tricking defenders/changing direction/protecting possession etc.
At that most basic level, England are miles off the pace.
The English press go on about the Premiership being the best in the world, but that doesn't make it so.
scottdisco
rip this joint please
one quick English-specific note: when we discuss the English press and their analysis of the FA, we generally mean the Sun newspaper.
to generalise, none of the broadsheets ever take an overly hysterical tone when discussing the FA, and the middle-brow tabs, in my long experience, tend, if anything, to be too cynical. don't know about the Mirror or Star mind you. granted, the Sun can be appalling for these sorts of things, and is of course the most read newspaper in the UK.
tabloid newspapers in other countries will fuel just as much shoddy reporting and manufactured outrage, of that there can be no doubt.
Capello's reactions to the meet last night, if they have been accurately reported, don't sound encouraging.
changing up to allow the best out of Gerrard (i know D_Q says he'd rather drop him and keep Lamps but SG seems to show more awareness and is certainly less ponderous), more time spent studying the opposition, and starting w J Cole, are all eminently reasonable requests from the players. Fab might be starting to drift into territory marked 'indefensibly rigid'...
to generalise, none of the broadsheets ever take an overly hysterical tone when discussing the FA, and the middle-brow tabs, in my long experience, tend, if anything, to be too cynical. don't know about the Mirror or Star mind you. granted, the Sun can be appalling for these sorts of things, and is of course the most read newspaper in the UK.
tabloid newspapers in other countries will fuel just as much shoddy reporting and manufactured outrage, of that there can be no doubt.
Capello's reactions to the meet last night, if they have been accurately reported, don't sound encouraging.
changing up to allow the best out of Gerrard (i know D_Q says he'd rather drop him and keep Lamps but SG seems to show more awareness and is certainly less ponderous), more time spent studying the opposition, and starting w J Cole, are all eminently reasonable requests from the players. Fab might be starting to drift into territory marked 'indefensibly rigid'...
dd528
Well-known member
I think it's a bit too simple to say that English players rely on the class of their foreign counterparts in the league and thus can't play when they only have their fellow countrymen for company.
There are plenty of players in the England squad who are - technically and athletically - very, very good. Rooney, Gerrard, Ashley Cole and Lampard are top class players who have demonstrated their quality (individually and as team players) on the highest stages of club football time and again. They may not ever be in the same bracket as players like Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo, but they are way, way ahead of anyone who ever starts in an American or Algerian shirt.
I think there are a lot of different factors that have come into play. Injuries is one. Even aside from the players who have been left out of the squad (Beckham, Hargreaves, Brown, etc.), and the players who have been injured in South Africa (Ferdinand, King, etc.), there are quite a few players still starting games who are carrying knocks. When you have players that are only just on the safe side of match-fit there is always going to be a limit to their performance over 90 minutes. Somewhat perversely, even though injury has hit the back line hardest, it seems to be going forward where most of the problems are, but I'm pretty sure that will change if England start playing teams who actually have any great skill in the top third.
On top of injury, a lot of these players have had extremely long seasons. The bulk of the squad played in four club competitions over the past year, plus international duty. Obviously this is true for a lot of teams (and Brazil's or Argentina's players have to travel much further to join up with their national sides), but virtually every player in the England squad is signed to a team that had something to play for right up to the last day of the club season, which I think is fairly unusual.
In terms of tactics it's pretty obvious that a lot of the players aren't happy. Capello's 4-4-2 is not what most of his players are used to in the league. Even if you look at the case of Rooney - where United do quite often play 4-4-2 - it is when he has been deployed alone upfront in a 4-5-1 that he has been most devastating in the past year.
Then Capello insists on shoehorning Gerrard and Lampard into the same starting lineup. I would have thought that after many, many years of that combination falling flat, he might have been the one with the balls to drop it, but seemingly not. So you end up with Gerrard pushed out on the left where he cannot make the kind of surging attacking forays that get him so many goals at Liverpool. Plus he is right-footed, but without being a natural wing player doesn't seem to have the technique or awareness to cut in and take advantage of playing on the 'wrong' side in the way that someone like Robert Pires used to, or Ribery still does.
Then there's all the stuff about the atmosphere in the camp being too morose and tedious, which seems plausible. Having a particularly stubborn manager doesn't help the players feel optimistic when the tactics currently being used are failing to work. But, to his credit, what Capello is sticking with now is a system that worked pretty well in qualifying, and only now seems to have fallen short.
So maybe it's the pressure of actually being at the competition that is the biggest problem? On Friday there was not a single England player who looked full of happy enthusiasm, even before the game kicked off. It looks to me like there's a pretty big problem with morale, and injuries and overly rigid tactics have only compounded matters, kicking off a spiral of discontent.
Still, you only have to look at the French camp to see how things could be much worse. At the end of the day, England haven't lost a single match yet, and all they need to do to progress is what every team wants to do every time they go out onto a pitch - win a game of football.
There are plenty of players in the England squad who are - technically and athletically - very, very good. Rooney, Gerrard, Ashley Cole and Lampard are top class players who have demonstrated their quality (individually and as team players) on the highest stages of club football time and again. They may not ever be in the same bracket as players like Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo, but they are way, way ahead of anyone who ever starts in an American or Algerian shirt.
I think there are a lot of different factors that have come into play. Injuries is one. Even aside from the players who have been left out of the squad (Beckham, Hargreaves, Brown, etc.), and the players who have been injured in South Africa (Ferdinand, King, etc.), there are quite a few players still starting games who are carrying knocks. When you have players that are only just on the safe side of match-fit there is always going to be a limit to their performance over 90 minutes. Somewhat perversely, even though injury has hit the back line hardest, it seems to be going forward where most of the problems are, but I'm pretty sure that will change if England start playing teams who actually have any great skill in the top third.
On top of injury, a lot of these players have had extremely long seasons. The bulk of the squad played in four club competitions over the past year, plus international duty. Obviously this is true for a lot of teams (and Brazil's or Argentina's players have to travel much further to join up with their national sides), but virtually every player in the England squad is signed to a team that had something to play for right up to the last day of the club season, which I think is fairly unusual.
In terms of tactics it's pretty obvious that a lot of the players aren't happy. Capello's 4-4-2 is not what most of his players are used to in the league. Even if you look at the case of Rooney - where United do quite often play 4-4-2 - it is when he has been deployed alone upfront in a 4-5-1 that he has been most devastating in the past year.
Then Capello insists on shoehorning Gerrard and Lampard into the same starting lineup. I would have thought that after many, many years of that combination falling flat, he might have been the one with the balls to drop it, but seemingly not. So you end up with Gerrard pushed out on the left where he cannot make the kind of surging attacking forays that get him so many goals at Liverpool. Plus he is right-footed, but without being a natural wing player doesn't seem to have the technique or awareness to cut in and take advantage of playing on the 'wrong' side in the way that someone like Robert Pires used to, or Ribery still does.
Then there's all the stuff about the atmosphere in the camp being too morose and tedious, which seems plausible. Having a particularly stubborn manager doesn't help the players feel optimistic when the tactics currently being used are failing to work. But, to his credit, what Capello is sticking with now is a system that worked pretty well in qualifying, and only now seems to have fallen short.
So maybe it's the pressure of actually being at the competition that is the biggest problem? On Friday there was not a single England player who looked full of happy enthusiasm, even before the game kicked off. It looks to me like there's a pretty big problem with morale, and injuries and overly rigid tactics have only compounded matters, kicking off a spiral of discontent.
Still, you only have to look at the French camp to see how things could be much worse. At the end of the day, England haven't lost a single match yet, and all they need to do to progress is what every team wants to do every time they go out onto a pitch - win a game of football.
crackerjack
Well-known member
don't forget their friends at Sky (not press, obv, but just as important a medium in shaping debate and perception)
scottdisco
rip this joint please
i'd say a lot of the English press doesn't, actually. some surely will, of course. mind you, look at the dross * lower down, say, La Liga or Serie A.
(a close mate of mine is a big Valencia fan and claims half of Los Che's starting line-up is, essentially, pretty rubbish. i couldn't begin to assess that claim but note they finished third last season in Spain.)
the marketisation of European football we all dislike will maintain these sorts of inequalities as surely as neoliberal austerity measures for Europeans will be applauded by the IMF.
none of this takes away from the fact the FA could do w aping the likes of Portugal or the Netherlands more at youth training level. i know that observation was correct after Euro 2004, and i am pretty sure it still is the case now.
(someone like mrfaucet and D_Q or Cracker will know about this more than me. there have been decent youth teams in recent years at Middlesbrough and both the Manchester clubs, AFAICT, but that's only three for starters.)
* of course it's all relative. i support Altrincham FFS!
crackerjack
Well-known member
Yeah, can't believe we're still having this conversation so many years later
The fact that Lampar4d seems to be part of the clique of senior players doesn't bode well.
scottdisco
rip this joint please
well of course. and the BBC telly far from covers itself in glory. although in footballing terms, SKY is far more sober than its printed sibling. (that's damning w faint praise, i am aware. still, just saying.)
specifically just to mention Milner, as dd528 mentioned injuries, if Milner had been truly 100% fit starting that USA opening game, would he have collected that fucking unnecessary yellow?
i seriously doubt it.
scottdisco
rip this joint please
heh heh, sounds about right. if something happens to Durres or Bohs, i doubt it crosses the threshold. Real or Chelsea, you say?
well!
something must be done.
baboon2004
Darned cockwombles.
Is Joe Cole the answer?
crackerjack
Well-known member
Because generally speaking the top English clubs are rich enough to see off foreign bids. Gerrard may well go to Real this summer, they'd certainly like Rooney too. But there's little incentive for the likes of Ashley Cole to go abroad when Chelsea can match them for wages and chances of glory. (This is already changing to some degree, cos of weak pound (until Euro's recent collapse, and fucked ownership structure at certaiin NW clubs).
matt b
Indexing all opinion
Doesn't Trevor Brooking keep going on about this? But seems to be ignored (I suppose this is due to the FA's love in w/big premiership clubs).
We have 8 year olds playing competitive matches (they play at the local park a lot), which encourages hoofing the ball up the pitch, while 6 players chase it. Doesn't make for skillfull players