England v Uruguay

[prestonibbo_mcfc]

The sooner England accept the fact that they are not a top quality team, and lower their expectations, the better. The pressure would be gone, the expectations would be gone, and all that would remain is support. Look at the likes of Ireland, or even Australia, they go out and compete every time with top teams and do well. Look at Australia the other night, quality wise they shouldn't have gotten near Holland, but they did. Nearly beat them. They all worked as one, they all supported each other and played beyond their means.

However when England play it's all negative, they're never good enough, never score as many goals as they should etc. Every time an English players pulls on that jersey it has a negative effect on them. They pressure they're under is ridiculous and undeserving, because they're not that good.
Yet they're going to get as much grief from the media in England as Spain will,

England has a pretty decent premier league, but it's more of a host to the football than the home of it these days.
Every team, whether it's us or Newcastle, is full of foreign players.
I think it says everything about the state of English football when you see that we only have two players in the squad. The team should rightly be full of our players, but it's not because nearly every single one of our players are foreign, and that's just the way it is.

So we can either lower the quality of football in England (for the time being at least) and concentrate on just developing players, or we can leave it as it is and just accept the fact that England are an average football team.
A team that if they had the support, worked hard and played for each other, without the pressure might actually do well..well better than they are at the moment.
It's the attitude and level of expectation that is killing England, more than anything else. Weaker teams are able to compete better, because they have the right attitude.

Who remember the Euro's. How God awful Ireland were? What happened when they were getting hammered by Spain?
[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7GonYtZrZw[/video]
They just had a good time, had a bit of a sing song, and enjoyed themselves. They knew it was over, but when in Rome..
If that was England it would have been relentless booing. Sometimes it's about rolling with the punches. When you're down, you're down, might as well go with it.

One day, maybe England will live up to the hype, but not as long as the premiership is completely dominated by foreign players. A sacrifice needs to be made, one way or another.

No they can't blame expectation on well below par performances. I agree that we aren't as good as some expect.
But I for one expect them to be able to control the ball and pass it to a team mate. Would have thought that was prerequisite
for a professional footballer. Must be the foreign players that drag the English players through a Premier League season,
because they look fucking lost when all together.

 

[penguins4kompany]

The end of the Golden Generation once and for all.

Bye Gerrard, Lampard and a few others...

What exactly has Lampard done wrong? keeps possession, plays intelligently,shows composure and generally not a whiny,moody, uninspiring scouse twat.

 

[penguins4kompany]

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tg8ypOknFlY[/video]

another classic

 

[pudge]

The end of the Golden Generation once and for all.

Bye Gerrard, Lampard and a few others...

What exactly has Lampard done wrong? keeps possession, plays intelligently, shows composure and generally not a whiny,moody, uninspiring scouse twat.

Also holds the record for most shots without a goal at the World Cup

cue that Germany game..

 

[Mdr]

No they can't blame expectation on well below par performances. I agree that we aren't as good as some expect.
But I for one expect them to be able to control the ball and pass it to a team mate. Would have thought that was prerequisite
for a professional footballer. Must be the foreign players that drag the English players through a Premier League season,
because they look fucking lost when all together.

Obviously there were other factors, and there are so many reasons why they have failed, but if the expectation wasn't so terribly high they'd have some breathing space.
Every time, they bottle it because they expectation is too much.
My point is that despite the fact that there are poor quality players in there, they should have done better.
Look at the teams that have no expectation on them, and are viewed as weaker teams, most of the time they can go and compete with the top teams, get a result and do well. Why? Because the pressure isn't on them.

I doubt any of those players look forward to playing for England. The fans criticise them, the media rip them apart, the "star" man, ie Beckham, Rooney etc gets torn to pieces. etc. Nothing is ever good enough, because they're not good enough, yet people expect them to perform better than they are capable of.
They know that all that waits them is pressure and inevitable negativity and criticism. You saw that as soon as they got that goal back, they panicked, because if anything, the pressure increased.
The media and the fans expect too much when they've not right to.

The best players in the league are foreign players. We won the thing and have only two guys in the squad.
That says it all really.
Look at the starting team to night, take the bench as well sure.
How many of them would make it in to the German, Spanish, Dutch, Italian side. etc?

Yet people expected what exactly? A quarter final at least? Look at the players for God sake, the ONLY player Uruguay were concerned with tonight was Rooney, they man marked him the entire game, harassed him, isolated him, take him out of the equation there was no attacking threat. People are on about how he should have been taken off..and replaced by who exactly? Who was going to come on to save the day?

Do you think that the level of expectation for that team matches the quality of the players available? Man for man, with the players available, do you really think that the high level of expectation is justified for this team?

 

[AltrinchamBlue]

This is what really pisses me off with football in this country and the average 'England' football fan.

The argument that 'this is what happens when the premier league is so full of foreign players' is just utter bollocks.

There is absolutely no way that if city as a team had an option on a player that was better than silva, better than toure, better than aguero; THAT WAS ENGLISH, that they wouldn't be playing for us. The fact is that we haven't got players like that and as a result we won't be signing them and playing them. The fact that we don't have good enough english players is not a consequence of foreign players in our league, it merely stands to highlight the point that we don't have high enough standards in this country.

There is a certain xenophobia when it comes to other ways of going about producing fine players. A suspicion of anything that isn't English. Well trust me the gap between England and Holland, France, Spain and Germany will only continue to get bigger. The argument that Spain have had an awful tournament too is moot. They have just come to the end of what was perhaps the most dominating international team ever.

I'm seeing comments here making light of statements such as 'we don't prioritise skill and technique as much as power and height and work rate'. It's this attitude that will keep us from ever winning anything ever again. I've said it before and I will say it again, England winning the World Cup in 1966 was the worst thing to ever happen to English football.

I'm sick of it. And the sad thing is, if even if they do manage to qualify somehow (and they definitely don't deserve to) all of this will be forgotten. I'm just bored of it.

 

[Blue Is the Opposite of Blue]

At the moment the big problem for England is quality players, but England have always had quality players in the past.

Hart - Premier League x2, FA Cup, League Cup
Seaman - Premier League x3, FA Cup x4, League Cup
James - League Cup, FA Cup

Neville - Premier League x8, FA Cup x3, League Cup x2, Champions' League x2
Ferdinand - Premier League x6, FA Cup, League Cup x2, Champions' League
Terry - Premier League x3, FA Cup x5, League Cup x2, Champions' League
Cahill - FA Cup, Champions' League
Campbell - Premier League x2, FA Cup x4, League Cup
Cole - Premier League x3, FA Cup x7, League Cup, Champions' League

Beckham - Premier League x6, La Liga, Ligue 1, FA Cup x2, Copa Del Rey, Champions' League, MLS Cup x2
Gerrard - FA Cup x2, League Cup x3, Champions' League, UEFA Cup
Scholes - Premier League x11, FA Cup x3, League Cup x2, Champions' League x2
Lampard - Premier League x3, FA Cup x4, League Cup x2, Champions' League, Europa League
Hargreaves - Premier League, Bundesliga x4, German Cup x3, Champions' League x2
Joe Cole - Premier League x3, FA Cup x3, League Cup x3
Carrick - Premier League x5, League Cup, Champions' League
Milner - Premier League x2, FA Cup, League Cup

Rooney - Premier League x5, League Cup x2, Champions' League
Owen - Premier League, FA Cup, League Cup x2, UEFA Cup
Welbeck - Premier League, League Cup

So what stops them playing as a team? Attitudes, organisation, grass roots? That's the balance England need to find, and they need to find it at some point over the next 10 years or else they'll be fucked for another 30.

 

[gh_mcfc]

Englands future is gonna be down to the success of our academy isnt it?

Yeh but don't tell anyone, it'll ruin our reputation.

Keep it to yourselves but I have seen the future.. MCFC U11s .. shhhhhh patience is a virue

 

[mrt4919]

This England team........
Rooney and Gerard
Both out of date and time
We were playing 9 men against 11
A midfield lauded by the the idiot media second best and second rate
The second rate Liverpool dimension to the team, don't make me laugh, again built up by the idiot media
I knew this second rate bunch of no hoper's would not clear the group
60% of the premier league are foreign in the Premier
What are they left to draw on as English players ?
The nearly men
Not seen a match so far that compares with Gods own club in style and movement.

 

[ROCKET80]

Gerard has been our Achilles heel for a number of years now. He’s not disciplined nor is he technically efficient enough for International football.

Sure he’ll look good against teams like Macedonia and San Marino but when coming up against a quality midfield he’s useless. He mastered the art of running around a lot and striking a ball very, very hard. That is it. He is not an intelligent enough footballer to play possession based football.

The less said about Rooney the better, we can no longer afford to accommodate him.

Welbeck will soon be sold to Sunderland or Hull and then we’ll never see him wear an England top again, that day can’t come quick enough. Henderson, who had a fairly decent season is back to looking distinctly average.

Our defence is woeful but then so many of the teams at this tournament suffer from the same thing. We lack a world class player, Italy and Uruguay have at least 1 each.

We’re just not good enough, haven’t been for a long time and it won’t get better until a manager is appointed who has the balls to pick players on merit and who fit into a team and not pick players on past reputations or the fact they play for a certain club and manage to shift a few more shirts.