Why are England so toothless as an international team?

France couldn’t beat Hungary today.
neither Spain against Sweden.

football is just to fickle, the best sides in the world have the odd bad game or two. It happens and always will.

If the World Cup was in a league format similar to the Prem. England would be well up there.
 
This is obviously not scientific, but I'm afraid I believe that English players don't play with fire in their bellies any more when they pull on that shirt. What Hungary managed to do against the reigning world champions today, what Scotland managed to do the other night, I'm afraid it has only a limited amount to with tactics, or man-for-man ability. It has a lot to do with that fierce pride. As I say, fire in the belly. It is a long, long time since England have had that. I'd have to go back to the 1990 world cup, and the 1996 Euros.
It's the more depressing that I don't really see a remedy for it.
 
BlueHammer85 said:
France couldn’t beat Hungary today.
neither Spain against Sweden.

football is just to fickle, the best sides in the world have the odd bad game or two. It happens and always will.

If the World Cup was in a league format similar to the Prem. England would be well up there.
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Tactically it was all over the place. I’d almost say inept.

He played Shaw who likes to cut inside from wide, but also played Sterling on the left who cuts inside all the time. That never works in tandem. When Cancelo and Sterling both play on the left together, City look poor on the left. Our left hand side was hopeless last night.

He keeps playing Foden on the right when he’s played there for no more than half an hour in his entire career so far (away at Liverpool for the last half hour in the second half and never again for City). He looks unnatural on that side. Despite that he was our only really creative player last night and he took him off!

Two holding midfielders against a deep defence is a waste of time. Every man and his dog was saying to drop one of the two holders and play another creator, and he didn’t do it.

There’s no structure to our play, and there never seems to be going through many managers over many years. All we did all night was pass it backwards! We’ve always been a poor passing side and even with the few good passers we’ve had over the years, we end up not picking them in their right positions (Scholes was played wide left at times by Sven) or at all (how many caps did Britton ever get? How long did it take us to play Hargreaves?). We take too many touches, take too long to move the ball and thus the opposition around the pitch.

If it was a league format, England would finish a comfortable lower top half.
 
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rowarta said:
England managers since the start of the century, tell me one name there that inspires a team to go out and win a tournament. Reason why I've not bothered with England since 1990, I couldn't afford to be let down by both City and the National team.

Last night playing with two (no 6) defensive midfield players, the full backs not pushing up to provide width and pace, no real number 8 to increase momentum of the game........once again a talented squad with a manager who it clueless

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That’s shocking when you see those names all listed like that is isn’t it? A real absence of quality aside from a past-his-peak Capello.
It goes back years. Why was Brian Clough never England’s manager? We all know why; the blazers. I know the fa do some excellent grass roots work, but really, at the top end of the game, they are and have been a joke.
 
BlueHammer85 said:
France couldn’t beat Hungary today.
neither Spain against Sweden.

football is just to fickle, the best sides in the world have the odd bad game or two. It happens and always will.

If the World Cup was in a league format similar to the Prem. England would be well up there.
Click to expand...
Well yeah. Last time Portugal won it after failing to win any group games, so I'll withhold judgement. I don't mind Southgate compared to what came previously. But doing poorly against a team that sits back can only be forgiven if you then go on to win against the big teams. England have had a history of grinding out results against poor opposition only to go out to the first decent team we face. We desperately need a win against a France or a Portugal.
 
dickie davies said:
Quoting Guardiola

"You have to play football with courage"

And it stems from the England coach that we don't
I think the last one who did encourage it was Venables
Click to expand...
Yes. Again and again the manager tries to get all the big names into the side ‘just because they have the quality/deserve to be there.’

This is a recipe for disaster as it means changing the system to accommodate the players - which isn’t always possible and so leads to outlandish selections/systems which simply don’t work - but which we continually hope will because of the burning belief that the quality of the players in it will prove irresistible.
The failed Gerrard/Lampard axis was a case in point.

Needs a manager who is brave enough to follow their chosen system and tell the press/anyone complaining to mind their own business.
 
I agree with a lot of the reasons here. I also think bad luck at some times, continuous in fact. From Bobby Moore being found to have stolen necklaces, through to Maradona cheating, to various penalty shootouts , gazza's miss v germany in 96, maybe a few others. We've had some misfortune too.
 
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