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Puro wrote: A whole career out of ONE FRIGGING GOAL

I think you forgot the other 39 international goals in 89 games and a club total of 196 goals in 387 games (better than 1 in 2 in case you can't work it out).

OK his best period was 1998-2004, but he's the best English striker since Shearer, no question.

Roger Hunt wrote:

Puro wrote: A whole career out of ONE FRIGGING GOAL

I think you forgot the other 39 international goals in 89 games and a club total of 196 goals in 387 games (better than 1 in 2 in case you can't work it out).

OK his best period was 1998-2004, but he's the best English striker since Shearer, no question.

Puro thinks Shearer was $h!t though.

Axeslammer wrote:I don't get it, for me there are 5 players that are on the teamsheet before I even start to think about who I'd play :

James, Rio, Terry, Bentley & Agbonlahor

The rest are there to make up the numbers (and I think SWP would be one of them).

He's got potential, but one of the first names on the teamsheet? I can only think you have not seen him all that much - or only seen the best of him. e.g. if you watched him yesterday, he was on the periphery of the game, kept making the wrong runs, rarely in the right position for Carew's flicks. Admittedly this is against a good defence, but he is still a fair way off being an England starter.

Maybe with the lack of options he should be given a try in the squad (he should be above Walcott, for sure), but he's still got lots to improve on. For now, his best use for England would be on the bench, as supersub to come on and terrify defences for the last 20 mins.

debaser wrote:

Axeslammer wrote: Agbonlahor

He's got potential, but one of the first names on the teamsheet? I can only think you have not seen him all that much - or only seen the best of him. e.g. if you watched him yesterday, he was on the periphery of the game, kept making the wrong runs, rarely in the right position for Carew's flicks. Admittedly this is against a good defence, but he is still a fair way off being an England starter.

It's simply that I don't rate the other England strikers at all.

Give him trust and let him get settled : "no matter what happens, you'll be starting for England's next five matches."

He'll repay that trust

Bullard won't play its a PR stunt(If it is thats a shame because I think he is a better player than Lampard)

Axeslammer wrote:

debaser wrote:

Axeslammer wrote: Agbonlahor

He's got potential, but one of the first names on the teamsheet? I can only think you have not seen him all that much - or only seen the best of him. e.g. if you watched him yesterday, he was on the periphery of the game, kept making the wrong runs, rarely in the right position for Carew's flicks. Admittedly this is against a good defence, but he is still a fair way off being an England starter.

It's simply that I don't rate the other England strikers at all.

Give him trust and let him get settled : "no matter what happens, you'll be starting for England's next five matches."

He'll repay that trust

As far as I can see, he gets exactly the trust you are talking about at Villa (he's pretty much a guaranteed starter), but is still inconsistent. Can be great one game, anonymous the next 3. For England he'd be better being weened in as an impact player, rather than dumped straight into the starting lineup for a few important games, where he'll be crucified if he does nothing (and possibly setback his England chances considerably in the long run).

Capello's giving Defoe a run at the minute, which is more justified, he's being playing at a higher level than Agbonlahor for a longer time (and I say this as a Villa fan). They do have different qualities, but the point remains. Defoe may be on his last chance to impress, but he never was given much of a run in the team before, so it's fair enough.

Squeezing through the qualifying rounds is not good enough. I would rather we not qualify than do a 2006 WC all over again. One thing is for sure no team will play well under long term stress. The team that plays stress free soccer for the longest amount of time has a better chance of playing well in a competition, and imo this is the job of a good coach, getting 100% out of players requires them going out and applying their trade with little or no concern for what is happening around. No matter how weak or strong the side Capello needs the players to buy-in to a system that gets results. These two games coming up could give us good insight how the team will fair. With a two game win Capello can reinforce even entrench his system faster in the squad, even players coming in later will know quicker what is required. With such little times on their hands, seems national coaches really have to be the best in the game.

Theo Wallchart
Wayne Rooney
Emile Hempstead
Nicolas Anelka
Jermain Defoe

haha!

great to see nicholas anelka called up, he's been bangin them in for ages

what is it with england managers and emile heskey? does he offer them sexual favours or what?

England's style needs a wrecking ball to play up front to cause a diversion. This help to make up with the lack of skill missing specially in the strike position.

The Young thing I just dont get.

Beckham's only real reason for still being picked is his delivery at set pieces.

Well Young was the Premiership's highest assister last season, and the majority of those were from wicked set piece deliveries, crosses etc - he's got everything that Beckham no longer has, but also pace and flair.

It MUST be something to do with his attitude- Capello must see something there he doesn't like. I remember in the Trinidad game when Young came on he misplaced a pass and didnt chase back, and Capello was off his seat in a second going ballistic.

He's where Joe Cole was when Mourinho first turned up and saw a player with quality but not enough team spirit.

Problem is, team spirit can only get us so far, as we've proven time and time again with gritty players without enough quality.

They were reports today that Lampard is carrying an injury too.

So with Hargreaves, Carrick, Gerrard and possibly Lampard out it only means one thing -









JENAS TIME!!

Otto's Olympic Dream wrote:The Young thing I just dont get.

Beckham's only real reason for still being picked is his delivery at set pieces.

Well Young was the Premiership's highest assister last season, and the majority of those were from wicked set piece deliveries, crosses etc - he's got everything that Beckham no longer has, but also pace and flair.

It MUST be something to do with his attitude- Capello must see something there he doesn't like. I remember in the Trinidad game when Young came on he misplaced a pass and didnt chase back, and Capello was off his seat in a second going ballistic.

He's where Joe Cole was when Mourinho first turned up and saw a player with quality but not enough team spirit.

Problem is, team spirit can only get us so far, as we've proven time and time again with gritty players without enough quality.

It's surprising though, because MON loves him, and he is one of those managers who's huge on attitude. Young's always had top attitude for Villa, not a sulky/lazy player at all, he runs back and covers.

If he keeps playing well for Villa, he'll force his way in soon enough. I think it's just an experience thing. Capello generally wants experienced players, and for whatever reason he's put Walcott and Bentley ahead of Young as the less-experienced quota - maybe because he has no European football experience?

Parks lives wrote:They were reports today that Lampard is carrying an injury too.

So with Hargreaves, Carrick, Gerrard and possibly Lampard out it only means one thing -









JENAS TIME!!

It's funny how Jenas is so highly rated by Ramos (he's our vice captain now) and Capello, two experienced European coaches.

Im the first to admit that he can be mediocre at best.

Although there are times he is top quality too. But generally for me, they dont happen frequently enough.

I'd love to see Jimmy B get a chance

is there any chance of Bullard and Barry playing in the middle?

Allez les rouges wrote:is there any chance of Bullard and Barry playing in the middle?

It's not completely unfeasible. I'd imagine he'll start with Barry-Jenas, but Bullard's got more chance of getting a run-out now. Maybe J.Cole in the middle, Downing on the left?

If Lampard is out though, there'll probably be another CM brought in to the squad. But lots are injured. From what I can think, we're down to someone like Huddlestone, Parker, Reo-Coker?

Not that fond of Bentley I guess he has to have a chance, Cole covers better on the right and seems to know how to handle himself in front of goal better. Sure Bentley can cross and I cannot see much else.

Allez les rouges wrote:is there any chance of Bullard and Barry playing in the middle?

Just think it could have been Ballack and Bullard for Germany. Would have beaten Spain with that midfield

Barry and Bullard will probably work as Barry can sit a bit while Bullard gets the freedom to attack.

As the cold, dead hand of the international break slaps us hard across the face, this is usually the time we go into a default England mentality, look at the two games and say, 'We should beat these countries easily shouldn't we?' We always say that. We've said it for decades. Maybe that's all changed now though.

For as long as I've been alive, most England fans thought, and in the early years with some justification, England ruled football. Let me tell you people, if you weren't there, it was bloody great.

We would routinely thrash half-assed sides from places we had never heard of and could never hope to go to. And we could beat really good sides too. Regularly. For a few years we were great. We were well organised and had a confidence on the ball that would be priceless today. We had given the world football and we were the Kings.

It didn't last long really - it was pretty much all over by the time Gerd Muller put the third goal in from one inch in the Mexico 1970 World Cup. That's when the belief in our greatness and superiority started to rot.

It went through some death convulsions in the 70s but we hung on to the idea that it was all just a blip and one day we would be great again. We still routinely thrashed countries like Malta or Luxembourg 9-0 but couldn't beat the big boys regularly anymore. We failed to qualify for every tournament.

We thought it might be different in the 80s and 90s as a whole crop of brilliant, skilful players such as Barnes, Waddle and Beardsley came through. But it was a false dawn as our leaden-footed, clunky up-and-at-them defenders found it harder and harder to cope with pace and movement off the ball. Shedding blood and belting out the national anthem, it turned out, was far from enough (Our addiction to lunk headed centre-halves short on skill but big on throwing their broken bodies around and being 'paSsionate' remains tragically intact.)

Football moved on and left England lying in the gutter, puking its guts up after a night on the drink, wondering where the good times went.

The corpse of the culture of the 'great and superior' England twitched once again in 1990 and 1996 but it was merely death throes. It's taken 38 years to die but as we approach a new World Cup qualifying competition, it feels like that England as we have known them are finally dead. We all know now. England are not great, not even good, we are average. We should embrace it.

For too many years we were all little Englanders. It was how we'd been raised by a war-time generation who had their lives decimated by the Nazis. You hung on to national pride to get you through six bloody awful years. Six years that today we can't quite comprehend.

Death's spectre haunted everyone's life and the threat of invasion very real - not by today's so-called 'flood' of Polish cleaners or Romanian cabbage pickers but by ruthless, vicious killers. You had to cling on to something just to stay related to sanity so you believed in our greatness. It's taken us a long time to get that out of our collective psyche and indeed, it must be a mindset that many still have; they buy the Daily Mail and are unhappy.

It's this sense of 'we should be great' and have 'lost' greatness that has affected our expectations and demands of the national football side for so long. Somewhere in our DNA we feel cheated, deprived of our rightful inheritance when England fails to achieve anything at all. It's a hangover from the days of Empire and the days of Bobby, Bally, Bobby and Nobby.

That feeling has been slow to go but in 2008 I finally feel that it is going, going, almost gone.

A couple of years ago it was still possible to hear people on phone-ins and in the bars and clubs saying 'we should be beating them - and it didn't matter who them was - easily'. As though our superiority is innate, it was merely these set of players or the manager that is letting us down; failing to live up to our greatness. That was supposed to be Sven's crime. Turn's out, as many of us knew at the time, he was over-achieving, not under-achieving with England.

Opinion seems roughly split on whether we'll qualify for the next tournament, certainly no-one will be surprised if we don't. We are less clear as to how and why we aren't as good as small countries like Portugal or Holland but we have finally accepted that we are not and it isn't likely to change any time soon.

Let's not delude ourselves about this World Cup group. Andorra apart, it will be very hard for us. Only the winner qualifies automatically, the second-place side has to face a play-off game. We have to travel as far as it's possible to travel in a European group - to Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine. We don't travel well and find it hard to break down what are usually well-organised, defensive-minded sides. Dropping points in all these games would be no surprise.

At Wembley we look awkward, uncomfortable and nervous beyond belief. Defeat in Croatia next week could easily mean in effect we're fighting for second place already. England players can't handle pressure; they're too emotional, too wound up in their own reputations, too insecure about their own technique, too inflexible, and too afraid of defeat. We know all of this now. We expect it even.

It doesn't take much success to get the country into a sporting ferment; even about rowing! We might crave it too much but at last we no longer expect it from our footballers. People who say England fans think they've got some divine right to beat anyone and to qualify for everything are outmoded today. Almost no-one feels like that any more.

And you know, that is actually progress of a sort. England fans have been lied to by press and players and they have lied to themselves for too long, finally we're accepting the truth that we're a mediocre international side. It's a good feeling to have it out in the open isn't it? The pretence has gone.

Because ironically, it is not until both the expectation of success and the feeling of loss and pain when we are not, is finally expunged from the national football psyche will we ever be able to give ourselves a chance to be successful. It is the shackles that hold us all down.

Once we demand less of the players and once they realise we don't demand much of them, maybe then the shackles can come off and they can liberate some of the talent that they occasionally show for their clubs; though that talent is all too often over-estimated, over-praised and certainly over-rewarded.

The problem is of course that one good win and the old culture of 'we can win the bloody thing' will rear its ugly Cross of Saint George painted head again. We need to guard against that because that has been our downfall in the past. We need patience.

I welcome this new realism. England games have filled me with dread for decades but now it feels as though I can enjoy the football more because I'm not weighed down by any expectation of quality or victory. Anything good that happens will feel like a big bonus.

Football is better without blind jingoism and unearned, undeserved nationalist pride and the inevitable bouts of self-loathing that goes hand in hand with it when results go awry.

Accepting your limitations doesn't mean accepting failure, it just means you know where you are and can plan the future accordingly; plot a course towards success rather than just pretending you're are already good enough.

So it's a refreshing position to be in to know that World Cup qualification will be hard for us and we may well fail. We shouldn't fear it. It's all part of the dawning of a new, more realistic era.

It's been a long time coming, it'll be a long time gone.



John Nicholson
(that bloke from football365)

Khadrim wrote:

Allez les rouges wrote:is there any chance of Bullard and Barry playing in the middle?

Just think it could have been Ballack and Bullard for Germany. Would have beaten Spain with that midfield

Well, Jimmy could only have been better than Torsten in the Euro

(teensiest bit gutted by his decision this week )

That's a rather good piece Boro, a very good one even.

yeah that article is spot on.

Top stuff.

Time for the media, players and fans to be realistic and remove the pressure from the England set up : we have good players, but they will never be a great team if they believe incorrectly that they are the greatest ever to walk the earth.

Right now we're average. We should aim to be a good side - like Russia, Czech Republic good. We were briefly this good at Euro 2004, until Rooney got injured.

Only once we're good consistently then aim to be very good, as in Croatia, Holland, Germany very good.

We're not, nor likely to be until things change massively, be an excellent side, as in Spain, Argentina, Brazil excellent.

Reality check; lower expectations and start from the bottom

I like your style Bernd and totally agree with your "step-by-step" analysis, but just one thing I'd take issue with, your labelling/pigeonholing of just how good teams are. As you implicitly recognize, these things are constantly changing, as shown by your omission of Italy and France, your putting Spain in the very top bracket, and mentioning Russia as "good", which not many would have done before the Euro – and there's no reason to see yourselves as belonging to a particular "bracket". Did Russia and Turkey think like that at the Euro? Did they f@ck, and quite rightly they were gutted to go out even in the semis.

May have got the wrong end of the stick here but it's a bit of a bugbear of mine, because one of the recurring discussions I've had since the Euro with England fans has been "what d'you think of Turkey? how d'you think you'd do if you played them tomorrow?" The response was nearly always (after an acknowledgement of how well they played in the Euro) "I reckon we'd beat them", which (given the respective recent showings of both teams) just strikes me as a crazily arrogant and blind belief in some mythical "old order" of things which no longer exists, of the kind that the 365 article was trying to put to bed.

You can't just talk about certain countries as "minnows", "teams we should be beating" any more – this is the problem I think England have had. There's no such thing any more as a general rule, which is bad news for some, but good news for everyone in a way too.

Allez les rouges wrote:I like your style Bernd and totally agree with your "step-by-step" analysis, but just one thing I'd take issue with, your labelling/pigeonholing of just how good teams are. As you implicitly recognize, these things are constantly changing, as shown by your omission of Italy and France, your putting Spain in the very top bracket, and mentioning Russia as "good", which not many would have done before the Euro – and there's no reason to see yourselves as belonging to a particular "bracket". Did Russia and Turkey think like that at the Euro? Did they f@ck, and quite rightly they were gutted to go out even in the semis.

May have got the wrong end of the stick here but it's a bit of a bugbear of mine, because one of the recurring discussions I've had since the Euro with England fans has been "what d'you think of Turkey? how d'you think you'd do if you played them tomorrow?" The response was nearly always (after an acknowledgement of how well they played in the Euro) "I reckon we'd beat them", which (given the respective recent showings of both teams) just strikes me as a crazily arrogant and blind belief in some mythical "old order" of things which no longer exists, of the kind that the 365 article was trying to put to bed.

You can't just talk about certain countries as "minnows", "teams we should be beating" any more – this is the problem I think England have had. There's no such thing any more as a general rule, which is bad news for some, but good news for everyone in a way too.

I hear you loud and clear old bean,


however things do chop and change extremely quickly, and whilst the Euros remain the current yardstick for the countries I've mentioned, I was only throwing some national teams in there for a tangible comparison rather than labelling/pidgeonholing.

On the issue of Turkey: I think Turkey played well above their station at the Euros. They were extremely fortunate against the Czechs, and by the time they played Germany they no longer had anything to lose. As they showed in 2002, they are potential for excellence, but I feel that if we were to play them tomorrow, I would tend to agree I'd be optimistic, if anything because they have a problem playing us, just like the Poles do against the germans. Turkey have never scored a goal against England, let alone won a game, and although I do agree the majority of perception should always be about the here and now, tradition does play a small part in it, and always will do.

However I would never say we would beat them easily- right now we're lucky to beat ANYONE considering how $h!t we've been for the last 2 years.

But those names I've put into those brackets are based on the very much here and now, based on what they have done without relying much on luck per se, as the Turks did if we're totally honest with each other.

We're currently 15th in the FIFA rankings, but frankly we should be lower, or at least see ourselves as lower, gain some perspective and strive to prove people wrong who say English football is in ruins.

I think the failure in the Euros coupled with the Olympics and the obvious strength and excitement of the domestic game has knocked down the English National team a few pegs. It was long time coming, and we should now accept we must do much better before anyone starts up with the old "8 world class players + Rooney" horseshit

Well, I guess to an extent it's a question of interpretation – I'd certainly be less inclined to put the awesome Turkish comebacks (hilarious and genius that they were ahead for, I guess a total of well under ten minutes in the tournament!) down to luck (less so in the Croatian case maybe), the more so given how decimated they were by the semi-final. I think the sheer quality of their play should have been an eye-opener for many – as an angry friend texted me from England after the semi-final, all this "lucky Germans, heroic Turks" is such a load of stereotyping cop-out shite – they weren't heroic, just damn good...

Yeah I suppose emotions/romanticization gets in the way, as the drama of their games seemed to repeatedly prove that this is the greatest sport on earth. Made sure we were out in front of the Rathaus with their fans for the Czech game – the scenes there will live long in the memory...

Yeah, well the Turks always could play - when they weren't focussing on kicking lumps out of their opponents ;-)

They were brilliant against Germany considering their injuries, but lets be honest, by that point there was no pressure on those players, no one gave them a chance in hell, and as we all know when the pressure is off players tend to perform far better.

Which is exactly why we need to take the pressure of the English team with ridiculous expectations.

We're not the only ones who suffer under such pressure -

the Germans were built up since 2006 as odds on favourites for 2008, which Im certain did you no favours. Contrast with 2006 when Germany entered the tournament with little expectation, and played blindingly well.

The Brazilians once again managed to wilt under the pressure for them to finally win the olympic gold (admittedly Argentina were probably just far too good in fairness then to blame it on pressure),

the Italians looked shamelessly like the WC2006 had gone to their heads,

so lo and behold - the teams with little expected of them , but who we all kind of knew were useful (Croatia, Russia, Turkey, Holland, even Spain who were written off as perennial underachievers) all stole the show.

Well little should be expected of England - that is the only way we're going to progress - hit rock bottom and claw steadily out of it.

On this note- I'm going to the Kazakstan game (lucky me) at Wembley. Why? Because me and the lads will get to dress up in Borat mankini's and have a laugh with the Kazakhstani's, more entertaining than the game will be I'll wager

borocooper wrote:We thought it might be different in the 80s and 90s as a whole crop of brilliant, skilful players such as Barnes, Waddle and Beardsley came through. But it was a false dawn as our leaden-footed, clunky up-and-at-them defenders found it harder and harder to cope with pace and movement off the ball. Shedding blood and belting out the national anthem, it turned out, was far from enough (Our addiction to lunk headed centre-halves short on skill but big on throwing their broken bodies around and being 'paSsionate' remains tragically intact.)

It is a pretty read, even though the guy started off not telling the truth. England were never that good. The only difference our leagues were more established than most. This was not the time of great football either all they new was what was happening down at their local club and what the papers wrote. The 40's 50's 60's were even a bigger lie. We sowed the seed long long ago. Today the fans are more truthful than anytime in the past.

England always had that 'we are the best mentality.' They ignored the World Cup until 1950, believing they were entitled to be considered the best in the world because they decided that they were.

They lost, albeit unluckily, to the USA in 1950, but let's not forget that Hungary tore england a new one both at Wembley and in Budapest. Where was the reassessment then? The biggest problem was 1966 as it convinced too many that there was nothing that needed to be addressed and was lived off for years.

The mentality is shocking. Even now there is no long term plan and can't be while the decision to hire Sven and Capello is criticised on grounds of their race - being foreign - rather than football reasons. That led to hiring McClaren a disaster in the making that duly became the disaster people expected. They need to look at the whole international set up from youth level upwards and work on bringing the most talented through with adequate support on thheir way through.