Liam Posted May 26, 2006 Report Share Posted May 26, 2006 (edited) BTW, the topic title is wrong...it was Belarus, not Belarus 'B', according to BBC and Sky Sports. Just out of interest....unless that had already been mentioned. Unless it is by default a "B" international...I don't get how these things work Edited May 26, 2006 by HGwannabe Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IAceI Posted May 26, 2006 Report Share Posted May 26, 2006 I think Belarus fielded their full strength team - do they have more than 15 internations or so anyways? ¬_¬ The B just shows that nobody should give a shit about the outcome as far as I'm concerned. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liam Posted May 26, 2006 Report Share Posted May 26, 2006 If it makes anyone feel any better, Sweden drew with Finland the other day. Sweden were a little under-strength, but not by much aparently. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IAceI Posted May 26, 2006 Report Share Posted May 26, 2006 If it makes anyone feel any better, Sweden drew with Finland the other day. Sweden were a little under-strength, but not by much aparently. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fineintent Posted May 26, 2006 Report Share Posted May 26, 2006 1. Sweden were missing Larsson, Ibrahimovic and Ljunberg. That's more than a 'little' under strength. 2. Belarus weren't full strength. Hleb was a noticeable absentee. They are the 65th ranked team in the world, we should have won. You'd expect a Chelsea/Man Utd/Arsenal B team to beat the 65th best team in England (which I imagine is a League One team) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IAceI Posted May 26, 2006 Report Share Posted May 26, 2006 It was just a friendly warm up match at the same time, it was essentially a practice match to give people match practice. When your league team loses preseason friendly matches - nobody cares because it's just letting the team gel and run around a bit. Belarus will have took that match a lot more seriously than we did. Also Belarus weren't full strength because of Hleb? Just as a matter of interest - which other big names were they missing? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fineintent Posted May 26, 2006 Report Share Posted May 26, 2006 Also Belarus weren't full strength because of Hleb? Just as a matter of interest - which other big names were they missing? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IAceI Posted May 26, 2006 Report Share Posted May 26, 2006 None - but they weren't full strength because of 1 player? It's not that Belarus beat England though - it's to give players a chance to get playing competitive football going into the World Cup. A win would have been good to show we can finish, but the England players will have it out their systems already and looking forward to the next match. Think about how whats that team Geneva Under 20's feel after playing Germany . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Summers Posted May 26, 2006 Report Share Posted May 26, 2006 Lol. The point is we lost to Belarus. How pathetic, lol. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IAceI Posted May 26, 2006 Report Share Posted May 26, 2006 It hardly matters. Australia beat Greece, does that make them better than every team in Europe as of 2004? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Summers Posted May 26, 2006 Report Share Posted May 26, 2006 No, because we know Greece have been shit since. Who said Belarus beating us made them super awesome team #65? I'm saying they're shit, and beat us, with ten men. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris the Human Posted May 26, 2006 Report Share Posted May 26, 2006 It hardly matters. Australia beat Greece, does that make them better than every team in Europe as of 2004? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liam Posted May 26, 2006 Report Share Posted May 26, 2006 No, because we know Greece have been shit since. Who said Belarus beating us made them super awesome team #65? I'm saying they're shit, and beat us, with ten men. Beat us by beating a bunch of unfit players and youths who were just getting a run-out? Great.... Acey got it right in so far as this is just like pre-season friendlies are. Who really cares if a pretty full strength (aside from Hleb) Belarus beat a side of ours full of players that wouldn't usually get a game? No-one would have given a shit if we won, it was a simple test run to see who played good and who didn't. The fact that Lennon and Walcott looked good, and we saw that players such as Carrick weren't that good was all to be garnered of interest of the result, the result just didn't really matter. And the difference, fineintent, between a Man U/Arsenal/Chelsea B squad is that arguably they'd be better than what we have to offer (I'm sure Chelsea's would at least), and they actually play regularly together (in Reserve matches) or at least train all the time. You can't just throw a bunch of players together and expect fireworks or them to get into a groove straight away. Oh, and Sweden were missing 3 big players, but that was about it. Plus , most of their young "superstars" that get regular Sweden international caps were out, so they arguably had a stronger side relative to the England B side we had. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mj3 Posted May 26, 2006 Report Share Posted May 26, 2006 Im with you on this one, even if they are a solid team, we should still have the class to break them down, if we havent got enough players to be able to field 2 competitive teams, then we are doing something wrong as a "football nation". And you seemed to have missed the point where we need players to fill gaps in our main team, which we have, and to give us better options, which we have. Do we need a whole second 11 that can play TOGETHER well? No, we don't really. Not every starting 11 you can put out from your 23 man squad can be uber effective, as this match showed. What we need is players to plug the holes, and in that 11 last night we do have that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liam Posted May 26, 2006 Report Share Posted May 26, 2006 (edited) But the point is that the team shouldn't have to be able to field 2 strong teams, 11 and 11 (although it would obviously be nice). They should have requisite cover for pretty much all the players in the team, but that doesn't mean we have to expect a strong showing from a team full of cover players who don't usually play together. England can field more than 2 competitive sides when you look at the crossover of players in a squad, (if two or three players were injured, we can plug the gaps, basically) but when you take the best part of the whole of our main players out, and the ones that are left in are regaining fitness, then no, the team won't be as competitive as some may hope. When will people realise that you can't just stick any 11 players out there, name value or otherwise, and get a resullt based purely on that? Ireland (until recently) show you can get results without it, whilst Italy and Spain have flatered to decieve with it. This didn't really affect the circumstances around the game, and what the game was essentially for...to give people a run out before the World Cup, get some minutes under their belts. EDIT: Whether it would be against Belarus or whomever, I'm sure a lot of the bigger named teams would struggle (whether they win, lose or draw) playing just a second string 11 (due to similar circumstances that befell us), apart from probably Brazil. SECOND EDIT: I'm drunk, but I believe its pretty coherent. Apologies if otherwise. Edited May 27, 2006 by HGwannabe Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IAceI Posted May 27, 2006 Report Share Posted May 27, 2006 So if we look at the match in the perspective we were supposed to - Aaron Lennon was extremely impressive and didn't seem fazed by the occassion. Okay so they were playing Belarus and they were listed as a B squad but it's still a big deal for the lad. It's a shame about Green though to be honest. Although I don't rate him as highly since that one season with Norwich which was about 2 years ago he's still a solid goalkeeper. Although we'll be pretty hopeful that Robinson will be playing all the time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liam Posted May 27, 2006 Report Share Posted May 27, 2006 (edited) Lennon was good, as was Walcott apparently when he came on. Carrick and Jenas (aside from the goal) were seemingly a bit of a letdown from what I heard. Edited May 27, 2006 by HGwannabe Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IAceI Posted May 27, 2006 Report Share Posted May 27, 2006 That's what you come to expect from Jenas though - he's never been particularly good. Walcott had some good efforts, everything he done was a bit over analysed though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mj3 Posted May 27, 2006 Report Share Posted May 27, 2006 But the point is that the team shouldn't have to be able to field 2 strong teams, 11 and 11 (although it would obviously be nice). They should have requisite cover for pretty much all the players in the team, but that doesn't mean we have to expect a strong showing from a team full of cover players who don't usually play together. England can field more than 2 competitive sides when you look at the crossover of players in a squad, (if two or three players were injured, we can plug the gaps, basically) but when you take the best part of the whole of our main players out, and the ones that are left in are regaining fitness, then no, the team won't be as competitive as some may hope. When will people realise that you can't just stick any 11 players out there, name value or otherwise, and get a resullt based purely on that? Ireland (until recently) show you can get results without it, whilst Italy and Spain have flatered to decieve with it. This didn't really affect the circumstances around the game, and what the game was essentially for...to give people a run out before the World Cup, get some minutes under their belts. EDIT: Whether it would be against Belarus or whomever, I'm sure a lot of the bigger named teams would struggle (whether they win, lose or draw) playing just a second string 11 (due to similar circumstances that befell us), apart from probably Brazil. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Heresy Posted May 27, 2006 Report Share Posted May 27, 2006 Lennon was good, as was Walcott apparently when he came on. Carrick and Jenas (aside from the goal) were seemingly a bit of a letdown from what I heard. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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