Team for Slovenia

[Acker79]

I can't believe so many of you include Lennon. He was BEYOND SHIT on Friday. Truly, truly woeful.

Excites people, looks good. You always think something will happen when he gets it. It never does.

Aaron Lennon = Jake Robinson.

Personally, I include him because there isn't a whole lot of difference between him and SWP for me at the moment, and I don't like too many changes out of worry it upsets the team balance too much.

 

[casbom]

James
Johnson Terry Upson Cole

Milner Barry Lampard Cole

Gerrard
Rooney

Go on Crapello, you know it makes sense

 

[Dick Knights Mumm]

I can't believe so many of you include Lennon. He was BEYOND SHIT on Friday. Truly, truly woeful.

Excites people, looks good. You always think something will happen when he gets it. It never does.

Aaron Lennon = Jake Robinson.

Lennon can do it though. He just looks scared shitless. We need to inject him with something before he goes on.

 

[Albiontilligetold]

A win is all i want!

 

[Mellotron]

James

Johnson Terry Upson A Cole
Barry Milner
Lennon Gerrard J Cole
Rooney

PLEASE.

Lampard has been invisible, stick Milner in as he is much more similar to Hargreaves and can do the job of just running his arse off for 90 mins winning the ball. Gerrard needs Lampard out of the way, and Joe Cole needs to play.

Sorted.

 

[Scoffers]

james
cole,terry, dawson,johnson
joe cole ,barry ,lampard,lennon
Gerrard
rooney

OR, if the manage insists on 442

james
cole, terry, dawson, johnson
gerrard, barry, lampard, lennon
crouch, rooney

 

[Iamapen15]

Tell you what, Theo Walcott is looking a better player for not making the squad!

I'd go: -

James

Johnson...Terry...Upson...Cole

Lampard...Barry...Gerrard

SWP...Crouch...Rooney

Sort of 4-3-3, sort of 4-5-1 and sort of 4-4-2 depending on what stage of the game we were at.

 

[Acker79]

Wayne up front with Gerrard/J. Cole just behind him?

MARTIN SAMUEL: Rooney and Gerrard up front? That didn't work before, lads

By Martin Samuel

There is only one problem with the players' grand plan to dig England out of a hole at this World Cup: Fabio Capello beat them to it by more than two years.

Wayne Rooney up, Steven Gerrard behind, France 1 England 0, March 28, 2008, Stade de France, Paris. An experiment that worked so well Capello abandoned it at half-time and never returned to it again. Before that, against Switzerland, he had played Rooney as the lone striker with Joe Cole behind. That was another one-hit wonder.

Times change and Rooney now has greater experience of what Capello calls the No 9 role, playing there for Manchester United this season with great success. Gerrard frequently operates for Liverpool as a No 10. Yesterday in training, they played as a forward partnership again. Yet the reason Capello has until now resisted this supposedly radical idea - beyond the obvious hierarchical issues - is that he has heard them all before.

When Capello came to England, his first thought was to play an Italian system spearheaded by an imposing target man who could hold the ball up, and score goals. Clearly, this was no job for Michael Owen, whose position Capello said was 'No 12'.

Having viewed the candidates, including Emile Heskey and Peter Crouch, his options at this World Cup, he decided the man for the job was Rooney. It took two matches to persuade him that this was not the case, and the second of those spelled the end of Gerrard as support striker, too.

I have just re-read the reviews of that night in Paris. 'Did not link reliably,' The Guardian. 'Can surely be struck from Capello's list of bright ideas,' The Independent. 'As dull as ditchwater . . . vapid and one paced,' The Times. 'Made little impact on the game,' The Scotsman. 'Lacked ideas, lacked inspiration, lacked the killer instinct,' The Daily Mail.

If Rooney and Gerrard had been a show, it would have closed after one night. As it was, Capello shut it down after 46 minutes, introducing Crouch and Owen, to even less effect.

John Terry stuck his head above the parapet this week and hinted the players would like a change in approach against Slovenia. He was immediately shot by both sides, management and the players who resented his role as self-appointed spokesman, but Gerrard must take his share of responsibility, too. It seems whenever an England team is failing there is invariably talk of Gerrard being unhappy with his role. It is a familiar refrain that Gerrard regards his left-sided starting position as the graveyard shift.

He is believed to favour playing in the middle, with Rooney as the spearhead. Yet when Sven Goran Eriksson used him in precisely this position in a friendly against Hungary in 2006, Gerrard was scathing in his criticism. 'I was gutted when I saw the No 9 shirt hanging on my peg,' he said. 'That's a recipe for me being destroyed. Talk about pressure. Get real - I'm an attacking midfield player, not an emergency striker.'

Yet nine is only a number on a piece of cloth. Gerrard wasn't the central striker that day, Owen was. Gerrard was in the hole behind, exactly where Capello is being asked to play him now.

Not that, at 64, he has shown much sign of bending to outside influence so far. Capello engaged with his players in his fashion at Sunday's team meeting, but not in a way that encouraged debate on team selection. Don't get too excited.

He may be considering Gerrard behind Rooney as one of several options, including Jermain Defoe as spearhead of the attack. Whatever he decides, player power is unlikely to be the catalyst.

This is one of the greatest managers of the post-war era who, two years after taking the England job, is now hearing speculation around whether he will resign or be sacked if his team fail to beat Slovenia tomorrow. At the very least, if his time with England is to end badly, Capello should fail by making his own mistakes, not indulging the misjudgments of others. He has to pick his team, not the one handed to him by an ad hoc committee of his players.

Most would start Joe Cole against Slovenia but for Capello he has never been more than a substitute. Until now, the likeliest change has been Defoe for Heskey with the hope that a goal poacher will end a desperate drought for England. Having scored after just four minutes against the United States, they are now beyond three hours without a goal.

The team the players are believed to favour is Rooney, with Gerrard behind and Joe Cole on the left. Capello is contemplating this, but also an alternative of Defoe with Rooney behind and Gerrard on the left.

Previously, Capello has been reluctant to move Gerrard inside. He feels it almost obtuse that a position occupied by players that would be considered inferior to England's captain - Dirk Kuyt and Robinho to name but two - is such a burden to him. The twist in Capello's forward line would be to move Gerrard to the right, play Joe Cole on the left and keep Rooney and Defoe.

Capello appeared to accept yesterday that change was required against Slovenia, but he will only countenance change for the better; and unless his memory is fading as he approaches pensionable age, that rules out appeasement, or ancient history.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/worldcup2010/article-1288451/MARTIN-SAMUEL-Rooney-Gerrard-That-didnt-work-lads.html#ixzz0rZTXyiWc

 

[Silent Bob]

I can't believe so many of you include Lennon. He was BEYOND SHIT on Friday. Truly, truly woeful.

Excites people, looks good. You always think something will happen when he gets it. It never does.

Aaron Lennon = Jake Robinson.

Watch him for Spurs, he's class.

For England he suddenly lacks confidence, won't take on even the slowest of leftbacks (Bocanegra), just stops and passes backwards. In other words what happened to Walcott also when he put on an England shirt.

 

[jharris]

James
Johnson Terry Upson Cole
Barry
Milner Lampard
Gerrard
Rooney Defoe