Not to be bitter in anyway but...

[Digweeds Trousers]

Good post Chesney - but again this comes down to opinion.

Terry is overrated - you said it - but he is more than over-rated 0- he is not a world class defender

The point I guess is whether you believe that the names you mention among whom are some great club players - Hernandez, Puyol, Kluivert - how good are they really?

Having lived in Spain for some time and worked in Germany it is interesting that there is so much of a divide in these countries as to whether these players were in fact that good.

A number of Spanish people I worked and socialised with never rated a number of the Spanish players that we all thought were fantastic.

Similarly in Germany, players like Brehme, Kohler, Littbarski, Klinsman, Mattheus and Voller were probably the best players in the world / Europe at that time

England, Spain, POrtugal in recent years have never had that depth of quality and stability in a side.

I defy you to tell me that the West German side of the late 80's and more through the 90's was not better than the Spanish 'underachievers but golden talent' teams of the last two decades.

With England there are indeed some very good players who have gelled with some great foreign signings.

BUT crucially there is no spine to the team that is world class - and I think that is the problem - no great keeper, no quality midefield general and no out and out finisher - which every winner has had.

Think of Schillachi in 1990 - who for England in recent times has scored more than 5 goals in the finals - Lineker I think managed 4 in 1990 and 5 in 86 (I think).

Not enough quality - who are the spine players in the current English set-up that you conisder absolute world class?

I suspect the honest answer in none.

 

[Brovion]

The good thing that has come out of our unsuccessful qualification is that twat Maclaren has gone. If Coppello fails then we know there are deep rooted problems because managers do not come much better than him.

I suspect our inferior technique breaks down when the pressure is on.
I go back to the junior football discussion from last week.

Totally agree - especially with the 'junior football' bit which IMO is where a lot of our problems stem from. Still it's pointless going on about it; if we don't qualify for the 2010 World Cup then you know that Capello will be derided as a 'useless twat' as well and we'll go round again ...

 

[Sheebo]

you f***ing imbecile.

How about you f*** off?

Wrote that in a hurry - you can see my A level in English if ya want you nobody

 

[Sheebo]

I think what aggravates me about the whole England thing is that whenever we fail, people's reaction is just to say "well, we obviously weren't good enough". No analysis, no insight, no thought as to what could be causing our constant underachievement, just a simple "the players are rubbish". So, these English footballers - ten of whom recently played in the Champions League final, a competition with generally a far higher standard than a World Cup or European Championship - are simply rubbish at football are they? Total nonsense.

What galls me is that these people would never say the same about the Dutch or the Spanish, perennial underachievers who have failed so much in the last 15-20 years that they have made us look positively successful. Do Spain continually fail simply because the likes of Cesc Fabregas, Xavi Hernandez , Pep Guardiola, Gonzalez Raul, Fernando Torres, Hierro, Morientes and Carlos Puyol are crap footballers? Likewise with the Dutch - Bergkamp, Kluivert, Cocu, Davids, De Boer, Van Nistelrooy. All shit are they? The Greece team that won Euro 2004 - were they better man for man than any Spanish or Dutch team in the last 50 years? Course not, not one single Greek player from that winning side would get even close to a place in Spain or Holland's Euro 2008 squads, let alone starting eleven.

Similarly, the players in the German sides of the last twenty years couldn't hold a candle individually to the vast majority of Spanish or Dutch players during that period, but collectively they are far more successful. With the possible exception of Ballack, I don't believe one player in the German team who beat Poland the other day would be good enough to get in the Spain team right now, but you can bet your bottom dollar than Germany will get as far - if not further - than Spain in this tournament.

So, if we want to have a debate about the England team's failings - poor management, tired players, club vs country problems, endless injuries, terribly run FA, high pressure from the tabloid press, lack of confidence, over-inflated national expectations - lets have one, but spare me this crap about the players just being simply "shit" and go and watch a video of Steven Gerrard single handedly tearing AC Milan to pieces in the 2005 Champions League Final. Watch Lampard banging them in left right and centre for Chelsea in the Champions League over the last three or four years. Watch Owen Hargreaves bossing the midfield during Bayern Munich's Champions League Final Victory. Watch Wayne Rooney tearing into top European defences for Manchester United. Watch Michael Carrick and Paul Scholes passing Roma off the pitch, just a year after being part of a Man United team who beat the same opponents 7-1. Watch Rio Ferdinand patrolling the defence of the Champions League winners, and Terry patrolling the defence of the Champions League runners up. Then come back and tell me the players are shit....

Was exactly why i said CUE the NSC anti - England lot - cos they all just say we're shit when - you're correct, on paper we're QUALITY...

Good Post Sam - ya knob However i'd say the world cup is overall a lot bigger and better than the Champs lg but has the same players in it really - it'people over hyping the Champs League that ends up with plastic fans of Man U, L Pool etc wanting to win the Champs Lge rather than England win the World Cup...

 

[Sheebo]

I'm positively glad that England didn't qualify and I mean that most sincerely.

Has helped the debate as to why we aren't good enough, had led to people questioning the premiership and has stopped the general "we're good enough to win it" rubbish that masks the problems in English football.

I haven't got the answers, but I hope us not being there may lead us to find them.

If it's given the FA and fans a bit of breathing space to sort it out, then it's a good thing.

Fingers crossed.

Deep down i agree that it's made people wake up and question the youth system etc (tho to say your glad we didn't qualify is a little odd) but yeh at least it will make people work at changing things.

I know it's a while off but the Centre Of Excellence at Burton should make a huge impact - not for 5 yrs at least though...

 

[Sheebo]

Three pages and only one decent post!!! (not including mine of course).

Well thanks f*** you came along to point that out and make in 2 decent posts

 

[Mendoza]

As the Dutch youth coach said on TV the other day.
England try and pick the "best" 11 players for their team, when in reality they should be picking 11 that compliment each other well. If that means dropping some big names then so be it.

Upfront we always try to play Owen and Rooney. Do they compliment each other well, not realy. You then swap Rooney for Heskey (no way as good as Rooney) but the partnership compliment each other well and we won 4 games in a row 3-0.

Lampard one of the best midfielders in the world. Put him in an England shirt next to Gerrard, he is dross.
Put Barry in and him and Gerrard compliment each other brilliantly, and both of them stand out as great players. More so than Lampard does, even though Lampard is probably the best player.

John Terry is another one seen as a great player, but put him next to Ferdinand, he loses that little bit extra. Put Woodgate and Ferdinand together, they gel instantly and England look solid.

 

[Sheebo]

As the Dutch youth coach said on TV the other day.
England try and pick the "best" 11 players for their team, when in reality they should be picking 11 that compliment each other well. If that means dropping some big names then so be it.

Upfront we always try to play Owen and Rooney. Do they compliment each other well, not realy. You then swap Rooney for Heskey (no way as good as Rooney) but the partnership compliment each other well and we won 4 games in a row 3-0.

Lampard one of the best midfielders in the world. Put him in an England shirt next to Gerrard, he is dross.
Put Barry in and him and Gerrard compliment each other brilliantly, and both of them stand out as great players. More so than Lampard does, even though Lampard is probably the best player.

John Terry is another one seen as a great player, but put him next to Ferdinand, he loses that little bit extra. Put Woodgate and Ferdinand together, they gel instantly and England look solid.

Agree except for Terry and Rio - i tihkn they're ok. Weird though how so many players don't perform well for England compared to their clubs...

 

[Uncle Buck]

Good post Chesney - but again this comes down to opinion.

Terry is overrated - you said it - but he is more than over-rated 0- he is not a world class defender

The point I guess is whether you believe that the names you mention among whom are some great club players - Hernandez, Puyol, Kluivert - how good are they really?

Having lived in Spain for some time and worked in Germany it is interesting that there is so much of a divide in these countries as to whether these players were in fact that good.

A number of Spanish people I worked and socialised with never rated a number of the Spanish players that we all thought were fantastic.

Similarly in Germany, players like Brehme, Kohler, Littbarski, Klinsman, Mattheus and Voller were probably the best players in the world / Europe at that time

England, Spain, POrtugal in recent years have never had that depth of quality and stability in a side.

I defy you to tell me that the West German side of the late 80's and more through the 90's was not better than the Spanish 'underachievers but golden talent' teams of the last two decades.

With England there are indeed some very good players who have gelled with some great foreign signings.

BUT crucially there is no spine to the team that is world class - and I think that is the problem - no great keeper, no quality midefield general and no out and out finisher - which every winner has had.

Think of Schillachi in 1990 - who for England in recent times has scored more than 5 goals in the finals - Lineker I think managed 4 in 1990 and 5 in 86 (I think).

Not enough quality - who are the spine players in the current English set-up that you conisder absolute world class?

I suspect the honest answer in none.

Tend to agree with you on Terry, players with pace can give him far too many problems. It seems the media see him as a Terry Butcher esq player and so over hype him.

Regarding the midfield general, Gerrard should be able to do this, but like Barnes before him, he struggles to produce his Liverpool form when playing for England. However now he is not being shoehorned into a midfield with Lampard, we may see a more consistent Gerrard. McLaren stumbled across the fact that he works well with Barry, although I would like to see Gerrard and Hargreaves given a run in the centre of midfield.

Regarding your comment about England lacking an out and out goal scorer, I would suggest Owen’s 40 goals in 80 odd internationals suggests England do have a goal scorer. The problem is that Owen and Rooney do not seem to click as a pairing.

Completely agree about the keeper issue. James has had a decent season, but he still have the howler a game issue. Would like to see Kirkland given a run in the side, I still believe he is the best English keeper and he seems to have stopped getting injured for 10 months at a time.

 

[DJ Leon]

If we had qualified, McCLaren would have stayed and our humilation would have been much more high-profile.

I mean England vs Holland/Spain/Portugal? It would have been embarrassing.

 

[Storer68]

Rearrange the following words to give a saying.

At........................Straws.......................................... Clutching

Re-arrange the following words to make a well known saying.

Do....................I..................Give..............A..............Shit

 

[Sheebo]

Re-arrange the following words to make a well known saying.

Do....................I..................Give..............A..............Shit

~Give a shit I do?

So what's your comment

 

[Sheebo]

If we had qualified, McCLaren would have stayed and our humilation would have been much more high-profile.

I mean England vs Holland/Spain/Portugal? It would have been embarrassing.

Possibly yes BUT ithere's no reason why we shouldn't beat any of those tems - most of them play in the prem with a number of English players in their team if you see what i mean...

But yes it would depend on injuries etc...

Easy 10 is right about the Croatia game - we had half our team out at least!

 

[DJ Leon]

I think what aggravates me about the whole England thing is that whenever we fail, people's reaction is just to say "well, we obviously weren't good enough". No analysis, no insight, no thought as to what could be causing our constant underachievement, just a simple "the players are rubbish". So, these English footballers - ten of whom recently played in the Champions League final, a competition with generally a far higher standard than a World Cup or European Championship - are simply rubbish at football are they? Total nonsense.

What galls me is that these people would never say the same about the Dutch or the Spanish, perennial underachievers who have failed so much in the last 15-20 years that they have made us look positively successful. Do Spain continually fail simply because the likes of Cesc Fabregas, Xavi Hernandez , Pep Guardiola, Gonzalez Raul, Fernando Torres, Hierro, Morientes and Carlos Puyol are crap footballers? Likewise with the Dutch - Bergkamp, Kluivert, Cocu, Davids, De Boer, Van Nistelrooy. All shit are they? The Greece team that won Euro 2004 - were they better man for man than any Spanish or Dutch team in the last 50 years? Course not, not one single Greek player from that winning side would get even close to a place in Spain or Holland's Euro 2008 squads, let alone starting eleven.

Similarly, the players in the German sides of the last twenty years couldn't hold a candle individually to the vast majority of Spanish or Dutch players during that period, but collectively they are far more successful. With the possible exception of Ballack, I don't believe one player in the German team who beat Poland the other day would be good enough to get in the Spain team right now, but you can bet your bottom dollar than Germany will get as far - if not further - than Spain in this tournament.

So, if we want to have a debate about the England team's failings - poor management, tired players, club vs country problems, endless injuries, terribly run FA, high pressure from the tabloid press, lack of confidence, over-inflated national expectations - lets have one, but spare me this crap about the players just being simply "shit" and go and watch a video of Steven Gerrard single handedly tearing AC Milan to pieces in the 2005 Champions League Final. Watch Lampard banging them in left right and centre for Chelsea in the Champions League over the last three or four years. Watch Owen Hargreaves bossing the midfield during Bayern Munich's Champions League Final Victory. Watch Wayne Rooney tearing into top European defences for Manchester United. Watch Michael Carrick and Paul Scholes passing Roma off the pitch, just a year after being part of a Man United team who beat the same opponents 7-1. Watch Rio Ferdinand patrolling the defence of the Champions League winners, and Terry patrolling the defence of the Champions League runners up. Then come back and tell me the players are shit....

We definitely have the players to qualify for tournaments. We also have the players to do quite well, but win them? We're definitely short.

 

[magoo]

Everyone's slating McClaren or referees but the players themselves are more to blame than any of that.

Hopefully the shame of failing to qualify will kick them up the arse!

 

[Chesney Christ]

Good post Chesney - but again this comes down to opinion.

Terry is overrated - you said it - but he is more than over-rated 0- he is not a world class defender

The point I guess is whether you believe that the names you mention among whom are some great club players - Hernandez, Puyol, Kluivert - how good are they really?

Having lived in Spain for some time and worked in Germany it is interesting that there is so much of a divide in these countries as to whether these players were in fact that good.

A number of Spanish people I worked and socialised with never rated a number of the Spanish players that we all thought were fantastic.

Similarly in Germany, players like Brehme, Kohler, Littbarski, Klinsman, Mattheus and Voller were probably the best players in the world / Europe at that time

England, Spain, POrtugal in recent years have never had that depth of quality and stability in a side.

I defy you to tell me that the West German side of the late 80's and more through the 90's was not better than the Spanish 'underachievers but golden talent' teams of the last two decades.

With England there are indeed some very good players who have gelled with some great foreign signings.

BUT crucially there is no spine to the team that is world class - and I think that is the problem - no great keeper, no quality midefield general and no out and out finisher - which every winner has had.

Think of Schillachi in 1990 - who for England in recent times has scored more than 5 goals in the finals - Lineker I think managed 4 in 1990 and 5 in 86 (I think).

Not enough quality - who are the spine players in the current English set-up that you conisder absolute world class?

I suspect the honest answer in none.

I would say that Rio Ferdinand is undoubtedly world class. I would think that many Italians, Spaniards and Germany would agree with that.

Gerrard is borderline world class and I believe that Rooney is - or certainly will be - world class (name me five better performers in Euro 2004 than Rooney). Owen was for a period, but his best days are behind him.

As for Spanish players being overrated, I simply don't agree. The facts show that teams built around spines of Spanish footballers (Barcelona, Real Madrid, Valencia etc) have performed far far far better in the Champions League over the last 10-15 years than teams built around German footballers (Bayern Munich, Bayer Leverkusen, Borussia Dortmund). That is unarguable. The fees commanded for Spanish footballers also far outweighs that of German footballers. Its also very well saying "well, the Spanish actually think Puyol is overrated" but the kind of fee that he commands - and wages he earns - would be far higher than that of any German centre half you could name me from the last 15 years. I could say the same about Fabregas, Xavi and Torres in comparison to Frings, Hitzelsperger or Klose. If they are not better footballers, why are managers paying so much more for them?

As for World Class German footballers, I would agree that Klinsmann, Brehme and Matthaus (who, for me was the best player in the world in the early 90s) were outstanding footballers. However, I'd challenge you to name me one world class player they have produced SINCE (i.e. came through after it) the 1990 world cup. There haven't been any. For Spain, I could name several players of world class in the same period. Just off the top of my head, I would say:

Raul
Fabregas
Xavi
Puyol
Torres
Casillas (best keeper in the world at the moment)
Hierro

And again, I would challenge you to explain that if English footballers are so mediocre, why were there TEN of them performing in the highest standard of football competition on the planet (far far better overall standard than a World Cup or European Championship) just a few weeks ago...?

 

[Mendoza]

And again, I would challenge you to explain that if English footballers are so mediocre, why were there TEN of them performing in the highest standard of football competition on the planet (far far better overall standard than a World Cup or European Championship) just a few weeks ago...?

Part of me thinks that Chelsea and Man U are partly successful because they can pretty much, cheat is a hard word, but get away with a lot without being punished.

They turn into bullies, and know they can bully officials and know what they can get away with in Premiership games.

Man U and Chelsea are the worst 2 teams for surrounding referees when a decision goes against them, yet if the same situation arose in their favour, they deem it OK.

Because they know they can kick, bully opposition and officials in England, they know they can push themselves.

In Europe and International level, opposition stick up for themselves more, and we cannot bully the opposition into defeat.

Also the officials at that level, blow up for far more free kicks etc, stuff we would get away with in the Premiership. A player cant lift their foot above shin height outside the premiership without giving away a free kick.

This eliminates the bully method that the "stars" are used to, and makes them less of a threat when playing for England, and therefore effects the teams performance.

I cannot think of a time where England players surround officials and scream in their faces as much as they would do if it was a Premiership game

 

[Sheebo]

Humble Pie - mmmmmmmmmm