England tactically inept

[George Dawes]

thought Capello got in wrong tonight i was pleased when i seen the line up but wasn't impressed with the wingers who for me were playing on the wrong flanks i know Young is right footed and plays for Aston Villa on the left wing and as done for the last three seasons and Johnson(left footed) as strangely been playing on the right for City recently


but correct me if i am wrong the the sole principle of playing wingers in to go around a defence to get good first time balls across the goal mouth but tonight for 90mins we just seen our two wingers cutting inside trying to go through a defence(brick wall)

[Matty the Shrimp]

I thought the wingers were our best players, and everyone else i have spoken to thought the same, funny how people see the game differently. And i know they should be trying to get the crosses in but to be honest, whats the point trying to put a decent ball in when no one is there and when they are there they would do something spectaluarly crap.

Crouch, Barry and Rooney all had shockers, but on plus note i thought Davies acctually looked very good.

[shrimper]

One of those games. They came to frustrate and get men behind the ball. We should have had two penalties and their keeper made some good saves.

Not great but we were comfortably the better side (as we should be) against a team with a 100% record in this group before tonight.

It was crying out for someone like Defoe who can find himself a yard of space in and around the box.

I actually think we'll do better at their place when they'll come out a bit more. And that we'll qualify easily.

[George Dawes]

am not saying our wingers played bad but just about everyone in football wants to see Johnson on the left wing it's been a problem position for nearly 20yrs now since John Barnes and to be right he was hit & miss at the best of times


Ryan Giggs played for ENGLAND UNDER 18s so WHY !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[AJC]

I personally thought England played well, controlled the game for practically 90 minutes, and created a good few chances in the second half. I would've liked to have seen the wingers swap sides during the game, with both Young and Johnson starting on the unorthadox flanks as they do in club football, but then mid 1st half having Young on the right and Johnson on the left, and pepper some crosses in and just generally mix it up bit. Anyway, because we didn't get 3 points against a vastly underrated Montenegro I'm sure it'll be the end of the world for some people and all the newspapers, however if we'd grabbed just one goal, it would be emphasised as us controlling the game and being world beaters.

[shrimper]

Precisely.

Agree 100%.

[mickey]

i have to disagree i thought we were very poor ......trouble with our so called stars is the fact that the teams they play in are pretty much full of world class players making the english players seem better than they are ......unless we can encorperate less foreign players within or main sides then this is how it will always be ........dont get me wrong i love england but we are flooded with foreign players and until that is culled in some way we will always struggle.............FACT

[shrimper]

Nonsense.

We were no better or worse in the 1970s when there were very few foreign players in our league.

The best players will get to play with, and learn from, good foreign players.

What the influx of foreign players does do is make the less exceptional players have to move down the leagues to find football. The very best English players will still get games for their club sides and still get in the England side.

This 'curb the foreigners' argument is dragged up every time we have a bad result or bad campaign - but we always have been in the second rank of national sides, consistently behind the likes of Brazil, Italy and Germany (and then the odd ones like France, Holland and Spain who come and go).

Not enough young English players go abroad to learn more about the game and make sure they play regularly in first teams but I don't think the England team is affected much by that.

We also don't invest enough time and energy developing the technical skills of young players like they do in France, Spain and Holland.

Foreign players in our big sides is a massive red herring in the debate about our national side, I reckon.

[mickey]

NONSENSE...........

going back to the 70's or whatever is bullshit .... im sure you will recognise the improvement in football since the 70's .....all the continental sides have improved ...yes? we are going backwards and no matter how you try to paper over the cracks its because of the influx of players from abroad ......look at top sides in world football how many players in those sides play out of their country????

[mrpotatohead]

NONSENCE... if davies is our saviour up front, we are a third world team, i think the manager is doing his best with what he has available.

Like ours has to.

and our catering staff, you can do a lot with a packet of polos and a bit of gravy

[mickey]

NONSENCE... if davies is our saviour up front, we are a third world team, i think the manager is doing his best with what he has available.

Like ours has to.

and our catering staff, you can do a lot with a packet of polos and a bit of gravy

yeah whatever ..........clown

[mrpotatohead]

neat mickey, really neat.

bolton fan, or just old fashioned care in the community

[shrimper]

NONSENSE...........

going back to the 70's or whatever is bullshit .... im sure you will recognise the improvement in football since the 70's .....all the continental sides have improved ...yes? we are going backwards and no matter how you try to paper over the cracks its because of the influx of players from abroad ......look at top sides in world football how many players in those sides play out of their country????

It's completely random, mate. Winners of the World Cup in recent times have varied between those sides with a lot of home-based players (like Italy and Spain) and those whose players are all over the continent (mainly Europe - and mainly England, Italy and Spain cos that's where the big money is) like France and Brazil.

Leagues in France, Spain, Italy and Germany have seen influxes of foreign players and there's no pattern to how it affects their national sides - none whatsoever.

Yes football in general has improved since the 70s - der! But since the 70s those countries whose leagues have become packed with lots of foreign players haven't done any better or worse than they ever did in World Cups.

Neither has England fared any better or worse, really. It's just that we had a bit of a good patch in 1966 and again in 1990.

Italy and Germany have remained very good in competitions - despite an influx of foreigners into their leagues.

Brazil have also won stuff, despite most of their top players playing abroad.

France and Spain have actually improved as national sides since their leagues started having more foreign players.

It has no effect whatsoever.

[Plain Peter]

The international game is too complicated for the English skull.
English players are basically thick.
They can't get their neck around being asked to play a completely different way than they do for their club.
Capello must go, and Pearce.
We want 'arry

[CASS]

NONSENSE...........

going back to the 70's or whatever is bullshit .... im sure you will recognise the improvement in football since the 70's .....all the continental sides have improved ...yes? we are going backwards and no matter how you try to paper over the cracks its because of the influx of players from abroad ......look at top sides in world football how many players in those sides play out of their country????

All bar 3 of Brazil's world cup squad,thats why they play most of their home games in London.
No matter how many continentals play in the Prem the cream will all ways rise to the top !
We are in a situation where the present England incumbants are on the wain and the next lot are not ready yet...But there is some cream out there...But we have to bide our time."You will never win owt with a bunch of Kids" http://www.thefa.com/England/mens-under ... mid=105016
These lot are not doing so bad

[George Dawes]

i put it down to grass root level and the fact we dont do enough PE/Games lessons at school and when we do we try and cover way to many sports(jack of all trades master of none) like playing football in winter on a full size pitch and then in summer at heysham high doing athletics on a that gritty all weather track and running up to the strawberry gardens and back

get rid of subjects like religious studies where we are that multi national at schools now people can go to sunday school in there own time for that..

[The Marksman]

The international game is too complicated for the English skull.
English players are basically thick.
They can't get their neck around being asked to play a completely different way than they do for their club.
Capello must go, and Pearce.
We want 'arry

You were doing so well until you said that Capello and Pearce must go and get Harry in. I really hope you were joking on those last two lines...because surely, if the first three lines are correct, performing the actions in the last two lines will make absolutely no difference.

[shrimper]

i put it down to grass root level and the fact we dont do enough PE/Games lessons at school and when we do we try and cover way to many sports(jack of all trades master of none) ..

Aye lad.

Time spent on high quality skills coaching of our young players will do far more to aid our chances on the international scene than any kind of restriction on foreign players in our leagues.

[ezz]

The only reason why we think our english players are so good is that there are that few of them they stand out more. They are carried by the foreign players yet all media attention will go to the english ones, the very occasional time one does something good. This makes everyone think they are infact amazing when really they are cack.
Cant be too much of an eye opener when you see how many english players play in top foreign leagues, hardly any.....

[Keith]

The international game is too complicated for the English skull.
English players are basically thick.

Not like you to make an unsubstantiated sweeping statement Peter

[shrimper]

The only reason why we think our english players are so good is that there are that few of them they stand out more. They are carried by the foreign players yet all media attention will go to the english ones, the very occasional time one does something good. This makes everyone think they are infact amazing when really they are cack.
Cant be too much of an eye opener when you see how many english players play in top foreign leagues, hardly any.....

That is if you believe that they don't play abroad because they're not good enough, which is not the case.

They don't play abroad because they get paid so much here and enjoy their home comforts. Many top European clubs have chased British stars but they choose not to go.

Who stands out in the Liverpool side?
Who is the first choice midfielder (justifiably) for Chelsea when he's fit? And who is the captain and leader.
Which other striker, aside from Ronaldo, has stood out for Man U when they've been winning stuff in recent years, including the Champs' league?


All these sides have great foreign players but the English stars are not overshadowed by them.

Our players are not the best, collectively or individually, in the world - but they're no mugs either.

At the moment there are a handful of nations who are better than us in terms of the quality of players - but not many.
We didn't perform so crap in the World Cup because our players are crap. There were other things going on.

[jonnythedog]

I personally thought England played well, controlled the game for practically 90 minutes, and created a good few chances in the second half. I would've liked to have seen the wingers swap sides during the game, with both Young and Johnson starting on the unorthadox flanks as they do in club football, but then mid 1st half having Young on the right and Johnson on the left, and pepper some crosses in and just generally mix it up bit. Anyway, because we didn't get 3 points against a vastly underrated Montenegro I'm sure it'll be the end of the world for some people and all the newspapers, however if we'd grabbed just one goal, it would be emphasised as us controlling the game and being world beaters.

I'm inclined to agree with you there too, the result isn't the end of the world and we did ok.

I still felt irrationally frustrated though. I think the problem at the moment though is that England football team, both as a team and as an institution has used up all of my goodwill. I'm almost as happy (but not) to see them fail as I am to see them win. We've had the mis-management and the poor recruitment in the form of mercenary coaches (Erikson and Capello) and the jobs for the boys (McClaren). The media hounded out the best coach we've had in recent years (Hoddle, although he was never popular to be fair). I don't know whether it is the over hyping of the Premierleague (insert your own foreign players vs English players arguement here) which has led to false expectations combined with the fact that the top clubs are always at odds with international football that has made me feel like international football is somewhat tarnished. I've also found the media circus tiresome, i think Joey Barton summed it up after we got knocked out of the the one of the tournaments with his "I played shit, here's my book" comments. The players complaining about the hype grates as they are all very happy with it when it is getting them a boot/book deals etc etc... I feel that players and the FA are now so detatched from the fans, wembley has been so unaffordable for us and has been about everything other than football (shit pitch but it is an incredible stadium though!).

For me, at the moment, it isn't about the tactics, it's about everyhing else, its about the players, the FA, the Premierleague and the way the media treat international football. It would actually be quite nice to take time to think about what is happening on the pitch but it all seems so irrelevant as the players, the FA, the Premier League, the media all seemed to be more concerned with with what happens off the pitch.

It's a shame really as it was watching England in the 1990 World Cup that originally made me start watching football, it all seems so different now though. In the summer i got more pleasure out of watching Germany and Uraguay.

Moan over.

[marky No.1]

"There were other things going on"

Yeah, mainly between the sheets.

[jonnythedog]

"There were other things going on"

Yeah, mainly between the sheets.

Indeed the "...couldn't score in a brothel" joke is rather redundant now.

[RedRedWine1]

The thing that annoys me is how Capello said that he was going to offload the deadwood and bring through some hungry new young players. The vast majority of players in the recent squad were also part of the shambles in South Africa, if not for injuries it would almost be identical. The same squad that was hammered by what was the German U21 squad not so long ago.

I'd be all for bringing through more of the current England U21 squad through to senior level. That set-up has been relatively successful in recent years. I'd even be prepared to see us failing to qualify for the Euro's to give a manager time to get a squad of young players ready for the World Cup in 2014, we are already playing catch-up to Germany in that regard.

I can see a couple of problems preventing this though:

1) Capello will leave after the Euro's, what interest does he have in the long-term success of England? Very little I'd imagine. Many of the players in his squad last night will be past it when the World cup comes round. If little changes the new manager will have a host of inexperienced players to try and qualify for, and then compete at the premier international tournament. I think he is disregarding the long-term.

2) The players who are U21 need to be playing week in week out at the top level. I'm all for the top foreign players coming over here (Torres, Fabregas, Drogba etc), but there are so many average ones whom I fail to see how they are much better than young English players being pushed further and further down the pyramid.