The England thread

[NobBe Nobbs]

I don't care how good Israel have been, I don't care if they did well against France.

We're fucking England.

Our players are worth too much.

& they're paid way too much.

And that, right there, is why I love listening to England fans.

Israel is a team that *never lost* during the 06 World Cup journey. Only Switzerland and possibly Italy can possibly claim that. I wouldn't be surprised if Israel is in South Africa in 2010. For you to think that Israel was going to be "Oh, shit, it's England -- we'd better roll out the red carpet" is arrogance and pathos.

You're in a down cycle -- it happens. Happens to US all the time.

[therockbox]

I don't care how good Israel have been, I don't care if they did well against France.

We're fucking England.

Our players are worth too much.

& they're paid way too much.

And that, right there, is why I love listening to England fans.

Israel is a team that *never lost* during the 06 World Cup journey.

[Lord Nibbler]

What gets me is playing people with a good reputation and out of position too much. Yes, Phil Neville, Aaron Lennon and Jamie Carragher can play where they played but surely we could do better than that? Lennon should have started on the right, Banies deserved a call-up to play left back or put Barry there. Neville or Young? Tough call but I would have preferred Young just about since Ricahrds wasn't fully fit.

[figos]

So Portugal won 4-0 against Belgium. Yours truly Ronaldo scored 2 but it was Quaresma who scored one of this year's best goals. If anyone wants to watch them they can do it here

[Steeb]

Good goal. Hardly one of the year's best though.

[ravenjuice]

Wrong thread surely :\

Can I ask though, as you can't tell from the size of that video, but was the second goal going in anyway or did Ronaldo need to turn it in?

[figos]

There is not a thread for the whole "Road to Euro2008", so I posted in this one. But yeah, when I watched the game yesterday I tought the same.

Edited March 25, 2007 by figos

[lanky316]

England aren't THAT good, the sooner we learn t the better. We've got a few good individuals out there but it's nothing.

On his day Rooney is good but he has a lot of games where he's completely annonymous and aside from that first competition when Owen got him loads of space he's not really done anything sensational on the world stage. Also not helped by the lack of regularly playing strike partners, AJ plays regularly but I still don't see him as world class.

Defence are fine, I know we don't have a lot of depth in full backs but there are a lot of good centre backs in the country. Defensively injuries to the full backs are my main concern. Robbo in goal is also safe, he's made a couple of mistakes for club and country but name me a keeper who doesn't make a mistake.

Midfield is the funny one for me, We have Gerrard, Lampard and Lennon. Three top class players who are exciting to watch at club level and have moments for the country (Lennon benefitting more now from a side not lumping it forward all the time) but regardless of the fourth man w should create chances. Okay so with a Crouch in there somone may have got on a couple of Lennons crosses but there were very few times when you feel there was a real chance.

Can't figure ou what's wrong with them but maybe as nation we're not that good. Even the top English sides (ignoring Arsenal with 0 English starters when full strength) have foreign players who are essential, e.g. Man Yoo with Ronaldo would be a different team, Chelsea have a large amount of foreign players in key roles, Spus with Berbatov for example. I would expect our players to be able to compete but they don't really do it together.

[Summers]

I don't care how good Israel have been, I don't care if they did well against France.

We're fucking England.

Our players are worth too much.

& they're paid way too much.

And that, right there, is why I love listening to England fans.

Israel is a team that *never lost* during the 06 World Cup journey. Only Switzerland and possibly Italy can possibly claim that. I wouldn't be surprised if Israel is in South Africa in 2010. For you to think that Israel was going to be "Oh, shit, it's England -- we'd better roll out the red carpet" is arrogance and pathos.

You're in a down cycle -- it happens. Happens to US all the time.

Who said we thought they'd roll out the red carpet? It's not that they should do anything, it's that WE should win. We shouldn't be drawing to teams like Israel. We should be winning, it's not called carrogance, Dukes, it's called we have some of the best players about, and should have a very strong national side.

& lanky, we're not saying we're THAT good. Ugh, we KNOW that. But to say we're not [or well, we shouldn't be] good enough to beat Israel is just stupid.

[therockbox]

But maybe that's the fault of the coaches? I don't buy into the Gerrard/Lampard/Rooney etc. only play well for their clubs because of foreigners argument, it's a load of bollocks and generally used by people who don't want to face up to the fact that we've not been able to produce a decent manager in donkeys years.

I'm the first to criticise Frank Lampard, but surely there's a reason why he excels for Chelsea but just doesn't do it for England? He's been given his holding midfielder and yet he still goes missing whenever England play.

Good managers know how to get the best out of their players, but McClaren isn't a good manager. He was an extremely lucky club manager who has been found out.

[lanky316]

And in that respect I can see the current régime making some effort, Playing Hargreaves/Carrick in th middle as that holding midfielder and shunting Gerrard on the wing means we have a defined holder and Lamps can get forward BUT you're sacrificing Stevie G in the middle for that. This is what I don't see, why do we need to play the holding player? I trust our defense (providing full backs don't get too over exposed) to be competent so let's see some attacking football rather then using this player as an extra defender. I'm sure that with both players doing what they do for their clubs.

As for McClaren, we all know the only reason he's in charge was due to the FA obsessing over an English manager. Big Sam was the only real contender in that field and with the panorama exposé teFA couldn't touch him. McClaren gets the job by default after desperately saving a couple of high defecits. As if noone would thnk to go for it when three down

[Liam]

I'm just glad that Martin O'Neill talked to Randy Lerner and said that if it comes up in the future, he'd be interested in taking it, apparently.

Allardyce and O'Neill KNOW how to get the best out of thier individuals, and the fact that they were overlooked was pretty shocking.

[9 to 5]

'Safe' option the Fa went for. The fucking crackheads. (N)

[AJ]

Quaresma's goal was pretty awesome. Shame every single one of the (6, was there!?) replay angles were rubbish and couldn't do it justice.

Ronaldo looked to have a good game, but then he doesn't often have a bad one. I'm 99% sure that cross/shot was going wide if he hadn't put his head to it. Despite the crap quality of the youtube video.

As far as England are concerned, the less said the better. :ohwell:

[IAceI]

I reckon it was gonna hit the post, even if it was going in - better safe than sorry.

On the England front, we're playing Andorra on Wednesday, there only competitive win was against Macedonia in 2004. So we'll have to watch out for them, if they can beat Macedonia, they can beat anyone, right?

[lanky316]

Well we've drawn with mighty nations such as Liechtenstein and Macedonia before, as well as losing to global giants Northern Ireland. Home win for Andorra

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

To make the most of Lennon's crossing you don't need Crouch. Most of his crosses are low or at average head height. Also Crouch is hardly an excellent header of the ball. If anything, Johnson would probably be a better choice to play with Lennon as he's more of a fox in the box type player. For Spurs it's Keane and Berbatov who get the most out of Lennon's style of play and not Defoe.

Basically McClaren, especially agaisnt Andorra, needs to tell Lennon to take on players at EVERY opportunity to stretch the defence and cause them problems. If, by beating his man, he can draw a central defender out towards him, then there's a lot more space in the middle.

[Bigal]

Well we've drawn with mighty nations such as Liechtenstein and Macedonia before, as well as losing to global giants Northern Ireland. Home win for Andorra

[FireDoughnut]

England midfielder Frank Lampard has been ruled out of the Euro 2008 qualifier against Andorra on Wednesday due to a cracked bone in his wrist.

The 28-year-old suffered the injury during training on Monday when he was struck by a Wayne Rooney shot.

But the injury is worse than was first thought and Lampard will not feature at Espanyol's Olympic Stadium.

Stewart Downing is expected to step in to the midfield on the left, with Aaron Lennon playing wide on the right.

Ashley Cole is back from suspension and will replace Jamie Carragher at left-back, while Micah Richards is set to step in at right-back in place of Phil Neville.

Meanwhile, England boss Steve McClaren has launched an impassioned defence of his players' attitude, saying they do care about playing for the national side.

The squad have been criticised for a lack of passion after recent below-par displays.

But McClaren said: "They care. They're passionate about playing for England.

"It hurts them when they lose. It's 10 times harder playing for your country than it is for your club."

Saturday's 0-0 draw with Israel leaves England three points behind second-placed Russia and five adrift of Group E leaders Croatia - and in danger of not qualifying for Euro 2008.

McClaren added: "There's no problem with their attitude.

"They want to win. They failed on Saturday because they didn't score a goal, end of story."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/i...als/6497817.stm

Could Lampard's injury be the catalyst to England performing well? Steve McClaren doesn't have to fit Lampard and Gerrard into the team as Frank is out. Is it possible that we will see a very balanced England with two out-and-out wingers playing and therefore allowing Hargreaves and Gerrard in the middle? Yes/No? Thoughts?

[TMM]

It's amazing. There's three guys in my office (including me) and none of us were remotely interested in the game tonight...until we heard Fat Frank was injured. Now we're all going to be watching. That says something about England (if not Lampard for England) doesn't it?