i know im late here but....
Capello fucked up.....need goals? Put on Heskey...wtf???
Don't start Joe Cole in any game?
Putting Gerrard on the left where he has less influence??
Scared to take Rooney off when he's obviously still injured and playing shit??
a few other squad selection questions too.....should have brought Adam Johnson...should have left Green behind....should have given the giant a bit more game time....etc etc.
i've heard this first point over and over, but heskey was never in the team as a goalscorer and that obviously doesn't mean he isn't there to contribute to the attack. if he's gonna be a stubborn dick and stick to the 4-4-2 then i don't see why bringing on heskey was a bad move, the whole point is to create space so that other more threatening players have more time to work their magic. obviously this doesn't really work when players like rooney and gerrard fucking suck as well, but still...
i was calling for joe cole as well but honestly it's clutching at straws, joe cole is no way gonna be the player he was 4 years ago, he hasn't been fit in a long time and i really don't think he would've changed england's campaign significantly.
i suspect capello figures you can't really play gerrard where he wants to be played 'cause he and lampard just get in each other's way, this happens even when gerrard is playing as a forward off rooney, 'cause gerrard tends to naturally drift deep in search of the ball and because rooney also drifts deep, gerrard's gonna have to drift even deeper until oops he's stepping on lampard's toes again. then again, even when he's on the left he fucking drifts into lampard's space all the time. i'd personally drop the fuck out of gerrard after his disgraceful performances for england on the big stage over the last several years, and because he's positionally really indisciplined, and he pretty much epitomises the english bottle-under-the-pressure mentality. and i hate his fucking face and his cheating and his bullshit that whiny liverpool cuntrag.
uh...yeah rooney should've been dropped. just awful. at least ronaldo managed to be even worse though lmao, anyone been paying attention to his absolutely godawful infuriatingly selfish and wild performances in this WC?
capello should've played joe hart who's clearly the best of those three keepers. rob green is SO not the best keeper in england, jesus christ, i could've told him that long before that stupid error.
anyway, even if he'd righted all these wrongs germany still would've dicked us, so... i'm not that bothered. i do think capello's tactically outdated, and not very good at communicating with either the media or his players. i also think that english football is crap and archaic at the grass roots, as proven by the teeny amount of coaches at the top level and the fact that english players just don't have the technical ability, the pass-and-movement of the best european and south american sides; it's all just POWER PACE DESIRE STRENGTH SET PIECES with us, no fucking intelligence. i don't believe that limiting foreign players in the prem will help either, that's such a load of crap, the upheavel needs to be at an earlier level so that teenagers can actually break through to prem sides on merit, if a guy can't get into a prem team by the time he's 18 or 19 without a limit on foreigners then it's not like he's gonna turn into a world class player just from getting some first team action. just look at all the billions of fucking amazing spic and kraut youngsters coming through, they could pass our seniors to death, the lot of 'em.
anyway i'm hoping capello's taking a long hard look at himself now and that this whole trying new players new formations etc thing is not all just sven soundbites - but i have my doubts. then again i don't want some other cunt coming in saying OH YEAH I CAN GET THE BEST OUT OF GERRARD AND LAMPARD WATCH THIS either so. personally i can't wait 'til all the old twats retire and the likes of a. johnson, wilshere, rodwell, cattermole, delph, gosling, mancienne, smalling, vaughan, baxter, wickham etcetc start to break through...
@Ananth: Agree about Scholes man. He's missed badly. His dependable quality is irreplacable.
a demigod walking the earth.
Carragher's quality, and Bent would have been superb.
carragher WAS quality. bent... hm, yeah, his record speaks for itself, i'd give him more of a shot. then again i'd play a fit rooney up on his own as i've said before.
Gerrard's had a poor season. His motivation or focus wasn't an issue.. his form was. It's the same whats happening to Torres in Spain.
oh come on, he's been exactly the same in every single major tournament dude, yes he had his worst season domestically but i hardly think that's the only issue here. he was the worst player in the last WC, worse than either lampard or beckham despite those two being made into the primary scapegoats.
Lampard never.. ever.. struck as a good player to me. Even in Chelsea. He's limited as fuck. He even needs the movement to be precisely suited to his likings. And at some level or the other, they're all looking for their club's playing style on the pitch from their fellows.
haha i dunno man... i think lampard is pretty obviously a very good player, but he's a team player, and yes, he needs to play with a bunch of other team players, not a bunch of disorganised individuals. but i think you could say the same about a lot of top players, they are made to look ordinary when their teammates aren't moving around them. lampard is another one whose record speaks for itself, he is
the main man at the top club in england right now, you can't just pass that off as being 'oh he's made to look good by the players around him'. i just don't think we've ever played him in a system that suits him (like gerrard), and he's another one who seems to fold mentally when things start going wrong in an england shirt.
Adding Barry there was a good plan, but that formula works only if you have a big tall holding striker (WITH QUALITY, NOT A GIRLY FIRST NAME) upfront. I would put Carrick in the middle there for some distribution rather than Barry. Barry isn't a natural distributer. He's naturally inclined to move forward too, which makes sure he isn't there when counterattacks build.
not sure i understand this comment, what relation does the inclusion of a deep(ish) lying playmaker have to the kind of centre forward we have? i don't think barry was there just to hoof it up there to the big man or whatever, he was there to make interceptions and then play simple passes to the more creative players. i don't actually think carrick's a particularly good distributor either, i've been watching him regularly at utd for years and he's got a poor first touch and the success rate of his killer ball attempts is actually really low. he is however a bit more subtle positionally than barry, he really sits in the hole and gets a lot of space from which to create, and he prob provides more protection off the ball as you say. i just wish he had the vision and technique of an alonso or pirlo though - he's just a decent playmaker and a decent holding midfielder, not great at either role. a fit and healthy hargreaves would've suited me more - hargreaves and barry with lampard sitting in front would suit me even more.
Ferdinand was BADLY missed.
lol yeah but dude, rio would not have coped with the germans' movement either. he wouldn't have been so badly embarrassed, but he's had an awful lot of dodgy moments himself this year (when fit).
I also think that the Green own goal kind of set things off on the wrong foot for england in the very first game. They just became whinier and whinier and drowned in media pressure.
yeah but like, if it wasn't that, it would've been something else. just takes the tiniest thing to set them off. if they play well then immediately everyone's like YES HOYL SHIT WE'RE GONNA WIN THE WORLD CUP (this usually happens in the qualifiers) and the pressure amplifies and they inevitably break under the pressure as soon as they don't look like living up to the billing, so they start playing shit again, then once everyone's like 'ugh england suck they'll never win anything' then they start playing well again 'cause the pressure's off, and it's just this endless cycle. couple that with our technical and tactical deficiencies, as well as fitness problems, and we just never stood a cat in hell's chance basically.
oh well. there's always 2014.
