Quarter Finals

[Jono]

Wanted England to win. Laaaaaaaaaaaame result.

 

[Jono]

Italy win tournaments when there's a fascist government or match fixing scandal. We never had a chance.

 

[cpr]

Looks like mobiles arn't the only things Cole arses up....



Best team got through, though I'm not too dissapointed in how we did. We looked awful upfront, and Milner/Young had shocking tournaments - should've taken Johnson. Terry/Lescott/Gerrard were our best players by far.

One thing we didnt get was bringing on Henderson instead of Defoe. Could've dropped Rooney left (if bringing off the absent Young) or back a bit (if Parker was unable to continue), and allowed Defoe to run onto Carrolls flicks/passes - made a tired defence work.

Tonight their left back had the freedom of our half - Milner, for all his 'keeping shape', was nowhere to be seen defensively.

 

[Uppercut]

Why was Rooney so unfit?

He's always like that. It's been fun seeing everyone who never paid much attention to United this season slowly realise that England's One World-Class Player can trap the ball further than most players can kick it.

 

[TT Boy]

Luck run out. Showed less ambition than Greece and got what they deserved. Surely the last we see of Gerrard in an England shirt? Legs went at half time and unlike Pirlo, Gerrard with no legs isn’t a footballer of any note. Thought Carroll was an embarrassment, played like a pub player. Interesting that Carroll was left mostly unchallenged when he came on, I think the Italians were in the know that Carroll’s second touch is a tackle; he can’t run with the ball, he can’t pass and he can’t shoot. Presumably Hart would have taken a pen before him as well.

No chance in 2014, so building towards 2016 it is then.
Hope Italy goes on. Pirlo is a genius. Need to drop Mario Balotelli mind. Was the perfect fit against England’s centre halves but the guys on the bench can actually finish and there were shades of Marlon Harwood again tonight. Liked the Italian number 7, the AC Milan full-back, Abate, looks positively un-Italian and plays a bit like a Brazilian full-back.

 

[TT Boy]

Carroll has been a major plus for us in this tournament. Looked motivated, energetic but also played intelligently, from a positional POV, which he didn't do most of the times I saw Liverpool last season.

Watched a different game to you. Thought he was a bit of a clown tbh and unlike Welbeck, he was no threat as England all night had no interest in getting out wide and putting any balls in the middle. Looked interested mind and super keen unlike Rooney but like Rooney he was just as ineffective.

 

[TT Boy]

Pirlo on owning Hart and mentality destroying the Ashley’s, webcam and phone. “At that moment, I saw the goalkeeper making strange gestures, so I waited for him to move and hit it like that. It was to unsettle England's kickers."

 

[wpdavid]

yeah, he's a decent shout, we had enough to qualify then, but we weren't outstanding. Sven and Fab drilled out the easy qualifying, and made it look like a formality, I really wonder if that'll happen again.

It's almost like it's ignored we failed to qualify in major tournaments in 74, 78, 84. 94. 08, and we've been so close to failing so many times with other teams winning when they don't have to, or last 10 minute goals, I've never got why we're so arrogant about qualifying, and don't give any credit to managers that do.

ho-hum

Times were different in 74, 78 and 84 though. Much smaller tournaments, only one team per group qualifying and much more danger of having to see off Italy or an unexpectedly emergent side like Poland, Denmark. Or the Czecks in 1976. Ramsey, Revie and Robson must be smiling benignly at the flack they took for not getting through in those circumstances compared to the situation nowadays.

 

[wpdavid]

Watched a different game to you. Thought he was a bit of a clown tbh and unlike Welbeck, he was no threat as England all night had no interest in getting out wide and putting any balls in the middle. Looked interested mind and super keen unlike Rooney but like Rooney he was just as ineffective.

I thought he held and passed the ball far better than Welbeck or Rooney - as he did against Sweden actually, which was rather overshadowed by Welbeck's neat finish to win us the game. Of course, he spoiled things when trying to run at people, which was rather optimistic, but he could conceivably learn. As you intimated, it was hardly his fault that the supply was non-existant. But he'd have done far better with the headed chances that Rooney missed last night and, especially, against Sweden.

 

[Spikey]

why didn't johnson kick that goal when he was like 4 feet out ???

 

[Ikki]

Remembering the game; England had a legitimate claim for a penalty. De Rossi (?) basically dragged Terry down by his shirt. As Dixon put it: it was a Judo move.

 

[The Sean]

Carroll has been a major plus for us in this tournament. Looked motivated, energetic but also played intelligently, from a positional POV, which he didn't do most of the times I saw Liverpool last season.

Watched a different game to you. Thought he was a bit of a clown tbh and unlike Welbeck, he was no threat as England all night had no interest in getting out wide and putting any balls in the middle. Looked interested mind and super keen unlike Rooney but like Rooney he was just as ineffective.

I thought he held and passed the ball far better than Welbeck or Rooney - as he did against Sweden actually, which was rather overshadowed by Welbeck's neat finish to win us the game. Of course, he spoiled things when trying to run at people, which was rather optimistic, but he could conceivably learn. As you intimated, it was hardly his fault that the supply was non-existant. But he'd have done far better with the headed chances that Rooney missed last night and, especially, against Sweden.

I thought Carroll did all right last night, and certainly had no problem with him coming on to offer something different. My problem was that it was (inevitably) Welbeck who was sacrificed to make way for him. I would have loved to see Woy make the unpopular choice and sub the frankly abysmal Rooney to allow Welbeck and Carroll (who did well in partnership against Sweden) to see what they could do together.

 

[The Sean]

Pirlo on owning Hart and mentality destroying the Ashley’s, webcam and phone. “At that moment, I saw the goalkeeper making strange gestures, so I waited for him to move and hit it like that. It was to unsettle England's kickers."

Ha ha, WAG. Though after owning England's midfield all night, it was only appropriate that he owned their 'keeper and penalty takers as well.

 

[The Sean]

From a general perspective, it's good to see that unquestionably the four best teams in the tournament provide the make-up of the final four. I'd really love to see a Germany v Portugal final.*

Which means that it will be Spain v Italy next Sunday.



* With the proviso that it's a better match than the Group game between the two, obvs.

 

[wpdavid]

I thought Carroll did all right last night, and certainly had no problem with him coming on to offer something different. My problem was that it was (inevitably) Welbeck who was sacrificed to make way for him. I would have loved to see Woy make the unpopular choice and sub the frankly abysmal Rooney to allow Welbeck and Carroll (who did well in partnership against Sweden) to see what they could do together.

I'd love to see an England manager be brave enough to do the right thing with Rooney. When Uppercut talks about people not realising until our last two matches that that's how he plays for Man Utd nowadays, he can include me in that category, relying as I do on MOTD highlights. If what we saw last night really is indicative of how he plays nowadays, then I honestly had no idea. Quite simply, that level of performance doesn't merit a starting place in the national team. Yet again, following similar direness in South Africa. And perhaps it's not a coincidence that our worst two performances here came with Rooney reinstated.

Whether we should actually play two forwards is debateable anyway. The correct decision last night would have been to bring on Henderson or Jones at half time to sit on Pirlo and allow Gerrard and Parker some breathing space. Given that our best wide players don't offer a lot in defence, three midfielders might be the better way to go for the next few years.

 

[The Sean]

I didn't know that people didn't realise how Rooney usually plays, though like Uppercut I'm a United fan so I watch him every game. It seems more than a little churlish to criticise a bloke who just scored 30-odd goals last season - including a lot of big game goals and matchwinners - and who is now the club's fourth highest goalscorer ever, but the decline in the overall quality of Rooney's all-round play has been alarming. Maybe my memory is playing tricks on me in old age, but I remember his technical quality being so much better in those early years - certainly I'm sure his first touch never used to be as embarrassingly awful as it frequently is now.

 

[Uppercut]

He's far from useless, phenomenal movement+positional sense and a great finisher with a knack of scoring in big games. But as well as his technique falling apart, he's a hell of a lot slower than he used to be and the result is that a lot of promising counter-attacks break down when he gets the ball. He's not quite as one-dimensional as an old-fashioned number 10 because he still gets into great positions between the lines but he's a fairly limited player these days, at least in comparison to what everyone seems to expect of him.

His limitations are really quite obvious but strangely I've not seen a single pundit or commentator acknowledge them- it would of course be "at their peril" to "write him off". So when he plays for England and they're exposed for the whole world to see, all we get is a barrage of attempts to justify the difference between his reputation and actual quality- he's tired from playing too much football, not match-fit because he didn't play enough football, a foreign manager didn't motivate him, his head's not in the right place, he can't deal with the pressure, he's being played in the wrong role and he wasn't wearing his lucky underpants. I'd hope this past two games would lead to a more realistic assessment of his quality but you just know when he next scores a screamer for United (something he's always retained the ability to do) it'll be "Rooney back to his irresistable best, form is temporary class is permanent" and other assorted hyperbolic cliches.

 

[Ikki]

Come on guys you're talking about the white Pele here

I actually rate Rooney and it's true he's lost his touch in the last few years. Why, though, I don't know. He didn't finish well either in this tourney. Both Johnson and Gerrard put in brilliant crosses for him that someone like Carroll would have eaten up.

 

[Uppercut]

But Carroll finds it a wee bit harder to get into the box unnoticed by the defence .

Always think the crosser tends to get too much credit. Crossing is a much easier skill than finding space in the box, timing a run and jump and getting the header on target. When someone misses an easy header they've usually already pulled off something most players can't do very well.

Ties into the other thing that grinds my gears- when someone makes a brilliant run to get himself a chance then misses and people say "should have played Player X instead, he'd have scored that". Happened to Welbeck constantly this season.

 

[social]

Come on guys you're talking about the white Pele here

I actually rate Rooney and it's true he's lost his touch in the last few years. Why, though, I don't know. He didn't finish well either in this tourney. Both Johnson and Gerrard put in brilliant crosses for him that someone like Carroll would have eaten up.

Combination of the following IMO

Millions of dollars

Smoking and drinking in Las Vegas when he should have been recuperating/training

No brains (guy is dumb as a box of rocks)