English national football, where do we go from here?

[Jarquis]

Walcott ftw.
And what Sledger said.

 

[Pothas]

England have never been that good at the world cup, very few countries actually are.

With the money in the English game they should produce better players I don't think many would dispute that but that is the way it is.

Anyway all the European teams aside the Germans and the Dutch have been **** in this tournament.

 

[Uppercut]

If playing average professionals and semi-pros got NZ to where they are, don't see why it wouldn't work for England.

Because they have to do more than thump a bunch of islands and conquer Bahrain over two legs in order to qualify?

 

[Ikki]

Haha, much like when you get Alex Ferguson or Arsene Wenger saying how great West Brom were after Man Utd/Arsenal just rolled them over 5-0. They can say all they want, the fact that they are respected professionals doesn't change the fact that they like and nobody else have any proof to justify the claim that England are a good side.

And yes I would like Capello to stay, because lord knows England will not get a better coach.

Hiddink/Zidane and many others have said Gerrard is one of if not the best player in the world. Countless people have named Rooney one of the best in the world and he was this year's PFA player of the year...in arguably the best league in the world. Xavi, Torres and many others have said that England is the main threat and a favourite to win. There are countless examples. These are quality players; they'd done it for their clubs and in the Champions League. The argument that they had good players beside them is a mockery when the English players are amongst the most important players in those teams (like Lampard this year for Chelsea). Saying these players are not good enough is a crap argument.

I wouldn't have mentioned his name if he played for England with anything like as much effort as he puts in for Liverpool tbh. Gareth Barry is just arse though.

Might've actually happened if he played for England the position/role he plays for Liverpool.

Anyway, England scored 3 goals this time and 1 was Gerrard's the other was his assist. Last WC playing a holding midfielder Gerrard was equal top scorer for England with 2. Why Rooney wasn't played up front with Gerrard behind him is a mystery to me. The two best players in their most favoured positions.

 

[RichterFan]

Why was Rooney supporting Defoe? Shouldn't it be the other way around. If they had to go with the one forward supporting the other I'd have went with Heskey supporting Rooney, Heskey's a strong player he could have created a fair few chances for Rooney. But I agree, England aren't the world class team the media make them out to be.

 

[Scaly piscine]

Gerrard is just a good club player. He didn't play up front with Rooney because he's just not that good. Witness him waste the ball with lame shots throughout the second half.

Rooney didn't turn up and our central defence was atrocious.

 

[Ikki]

Gerrard won the CL with the likes of Mellor, Nunez, Josemi and Traore. To call him just a good club player is an insult. You can make a similar case for Terry, Lampard, A.Cole, and Rooney too. They have enough world class players to build a team around. These guys didn't even look like a team to me and I place a lot of that blame on the coach. Actually, not even much Capello as his teams usually play this kinda way. The wrong kind of coach was approached IMO.

 

[Jarquis]

Euro 2012 then.
James, Upson, Carragher, Lampard and Heskey should all definitely be binned as they'll be too old come then.
Warnock will be replaced by Gibbs, I hope.
So hard to predict what the squad will look like. I just hope that we start building for it now. What would be the point of going into our first Euro qualifier with James, Lampard and Heskey in the side?

 

[Scaly piscine]

Gerrard won the CL with the likes of Mellor, Nunez, Josemi and Traore. To call him just a good club player is an insult. You can make a similar case for Terry, Lampard, A.Cole, and Rooney too. They have enough world class players to build a team around. These guys didn't even look like a team to me and I place a lot of that blame on the coach. Actually, not even much Capello as his teams usually play this kinda way. The wrong kind of coach was approached IMO.

Oh right so calling Traore just a good club player would be an insult too then. Bollocks.

 

[vic_orthdox]

Ignore the Jock, apparently individuals should be judged by which club they play for, this is the same guy who champions Rangers players, a club that would struggle to win our league. twelve years and counting since Scotland qualified for anything and they get more and more bitter every day, look forward to their response sitting at home in two years time, ruled by the English, nothing but a pathetic colony

Don't bring up a straw man argument and attack the poster, instead of addressing the point. It's diverting the thread into personal attacks.

 

[Uppercut]

From the BBC website:

Via SMS

Rob: "If ENGLAND had an ENGLISH manager we could have avoided this humiliation by not qualifying in the first place."

 

[GIMH]

First sentence was valid to the discussion

Fair point on the rest I guess, was drunk and angry last night and then managed to get wound up even more on here, grecian though makes a good point that he carried out some good style anti-English trolling throughout the tournament, would have been dire anyway but as a moderator, lolololol

 

[Uppercut]

Gerrard won the CL with the likes of Mellor, Nunez, Josemi and Traore. To call him just a good club player is an insult. You can make a similar case for Terry, Lampard, A.Cole, and Rooney too. They have enough world class players to build a team around. These guys didn't even look like a team to me and I place a lot of that blame on the coach. Actually, not even much Capello as his teams usually play this kinda way. The wrong kind of coach was approached IMO.

I think it's more accurate to say they have half a quality team. Your worst player is often just as important as your best in football. Just as you can say "look at all their good players", you can equally say, "look at all their bad players". James, Upson, Johnson, Barry, Milner, Defoe, Heskey and Wright-Philips all featured yesterday. The result is a team that's quite notably inferior to the German side.

FWIW, I think the real balls-up of England's tour is their failure to win their group. There's no shame in losing to Germany, but if they'd performed reasonably in the previous games they'd have been looking at Ghana followed by Uruguay, after which anything can happen. Drawing with the USA, drawing with Algeria and failing to beat Slovenia by more than one goal meant they would quite possibly have had to play the four best teams in the tournament sequentially instead.

 

[Ikki]

Oh right so calling Traore just a good club player would be an insult too then. Bollocks.

No, he is probably decent and nothing more. There were very few players in that squad that were very good players and mostly were mediocre. To suggest someone who almost single-handedly dragged them through matches (especially the final) is merely a "very good club player" is selling him short. I've read enough of your crap re Gerrard/Liverpool to not take you seriously, but even you gotta have a limit with regards to bull****.

I think it's more accurate to say they have half a quality team. Your worst player is often just as important as your best in football. Just as you can say "look at all their good players", you can equally say, "look at all their bad players". James, Upson, Johnson, Barry, Milner, Defoe, Heskey and Wright-Philips all featured yesterday. The result is a team that's quite notably inferior to the German side.

FWIW, I think the real balls-up of England's tour is their failure to win their group. There's no shame in losing to Germany, but if they'd performed reasonably in the previous games they'd have been looking at Ghana followed by Uruguay, after which anything can happen. Drawing with the USA, drawing with Algeria and failing to beat Slovenia by more than one goal meant they would quite possibly have had to play the four best teams in the tournament sequentially instead.

Agree with the second part. They do have half a quality team and also good players surrounding them. They have little excuse for how they played. The players are good enough but didn't play good enough. Look at Greece and how they won 2004. Tactics aside, you can't possibly go through that team player by player and say they were good enough. Football is far more than individual players.

 

[Uppercut]

I don't think it's reasonable to use Greece as a comparison, under pretty much any circumstances. What they did was one of the most remarkable feats in footballing history.

 

[fredfertang]

What I struggle with is that much the same side looked pretty good in qualifying - they just looked stale to me in South Africa and without exception were palpably out of form - it was pretty clear from the warm ups which way it was going to go once they got out there - is our season too long? or are the players too cossetted? or, despite the strength of the Premier League, are they simply not all that good?

Of course its terrible to lose to the Germans, but at least thanks to Mr Blatter we have a legitimate complaint and we wont have to suffer the ignominy of being spanked by cheating Diego's mob - they may have a dodgy defence but it isn't one Rooney et al could have opened very easily on the form they've showed and the reality is that we don't have anyone who could get close to Messi or Tevez - I shudder to think what may have happened had we come up against those two - they would grace any era.

 

[wpdavid]

I'm not surprised that answers to the original question have been thin on the ground. Although entirely predictable to anyone who'd watched England's games leading up to the Germany match, this performance has only gone to highlight how our supposedly world class palyers actually aren't and that the rest shouldn't even be near the side. That much is obvious. And wadr to one or two posters, the fact thet Gerrard was good five years ago is simply irrelevant. If this wasn't a cricket website, there would be an article to be written about the rise and fall of the 'golden generation', wherein the rise would take us up to September 2001 and the fall would be the sorry mess ever since then.

As for where we go next, personally I'd stick with Capello simply because the alternatives don't bear thinking of. With the possible exception of Hodgson, I suppose. Whether FC still wants the job is another matter - I suspect that he is absolutely appalled by the arrogance, ill discipline, complacency and celebrity culture that is at the heart of Engish football. I also suspect that he is more aware than anyone how limited the alternatives are to this lot.

It's not just the overwhelming number of foreigners in the EPL, although clearly that doesn't help. It's how many of the players with talent don't make the progress that they should. Even allowing for injuries, why is Joe Cole still a fringe player for club & country? How come Carrick's game has regressed exponentially when this tournament was crying out for him to do what Barry could only dream of producing? Why has Gerrard's game visibly been in decline at a stage of his career when he should be at his peak? Why is SWP uable to control or cross a ball accurately? Something is very rotten at the heart of our game when players with undoubted talent simply aren't motivated or aren't able to become the players that they should.

And beyond that, there's the painful question of who the heck should replace them. I really couldn't think of anyone beyond Walcott and the Man City winger whose name escapes me. Viable replacements don't exist because they don't get to play. The fact that the lad from Stoke City - Shawcross? - was close to selection says it all really, given that he makes Vinnie Jones look like Glen Hoddle.

Nothing's going to change. Too many people have a vested interest in the cash cow that is the EPL. There will be no restriction on the number of foreigners clogging up the system, no serious investment in young talent, no reducing the number of teams in the EPL to allow for a winter break. **** 'em all.

 

[Uppercut]

The foreigner argument is logically flawed on so many levels though. Why does an influx of high-quality foreigners adversely affect the quality of the English players? If they're not good enough, they'll all move down to Championship sides, and Championship sides will thereafter become as good as Premiership sides were previously. Furthermore, why were England even worse when there were hardly any foreigners in the league? And why is the footballing trade strictly one-way?

I just don't think it makes any sense.

 

[Ikki]

But even 5 years ago England played like this. Come on, what's changed? Pretty much nothing. Even when these same players were younger, more in form, etc, ...same story. Although club football and internationals are different, they're not the difference between indoor and outdoor football. There is a bigger problem. Saying "the players aren't good enough" doesn't even scratch the surface IMO. How does a player who scored 34 goals just last year - 26 of them in the toughest league around - not net one or look even half the player?

 

[Furball]

First sentence was valid to the discussion

Fair point on the rest I guess, was drunk and angry last night and then managed to get wound up even more on here, grecian though makes a good point that he carried out some good style anti-English trolling throughout the tournament, would have been dire anyway but as a moderator, lolololol

I've criticised the England team because they're not very good. I don't see how that makes me an anti-English troll - in that respect I've taken far more than I've dished out.