England Football Team?

[Gillies]

From a non-English person's point of view I thought I would give my thoughts on the current England team ... I'm wondering what other peoples thoughts are, going by the last two performances.

 

Is the England team full of over rated, over hyped, over paid, predicatble players whom just can not play together?

 

The England team don't seem to have any passion at all, they seem to expect to win rather than try to win. There are no natural winners in the team, they need Terry Butcher, Ray Wilkins, Gazza, Alan Shearer type players in the team ... right now there is none. No natural passionate winners!!!!!

 

The current so called "star players" ....

 

David Beckham in my eyes is the best kicker of a ball in the world, but as a player he is nothing special, and his attitude towards the game and other players is horrible.

 

Micheal Owen must be the most over-rated player ever, against a solid defence whom have speed he is next to useless !!!!!!! The only thing he is clever at is diving and getting awards penalties and free kicks !!!

 

The England team needs serious work to it, a wooden defence, a predicable midfield that can "only" play down the right, and no decent strikers. Sven sure does have his work cut out for him for the next game !!!!!!!!!!

 

Also, I think it was disgusting that the England players refused to shake hands with the Macedonian players at the end of the game ... YES they did time waste ... but I seen England do the same against Argentina.

 

England really did come out of that game ... in a different light. And, of course there is poor David Seaman, all these years of tremendous service to the team, and hes now public enemy No.1 ... I dont think there is anyone good enough to replace him !!!!!!!! Calamity James ... or Nigel Martin certainly are not International Level yet !!!!

 

Also, the commentators on BBC 1 were a laugh ... especially Ian Wright, at half time saying England would knock a pile in !!!!!! Yet again, another case that shows the England team is totaly overhyped !!!!

 

You can have best players in the world (or in England case mediocre players) ... but if they cant play together they are useless.

 

What can Sven do to make things right?

[Davy Holt]

Yeh... and like we are in a position to slag off anyone elses team

[Gillies]

I know we cant slag anyone, but what Im getting at is a team with so many so called superstars are playing no where like the old England teams used to play, the players seem to have no passion for the game and believe their vastly over hyped press in the media ... and its easy to see many of them are just totaly over-rated.

 

The media constantly over hype the England team so much, and yet cant take it that the whole team is pretty bad right now.

 

Im not slagging the England team at all, as I enjoy watching England play, same way I enjoy watching Ireland, Wales Northern Island ... and of course Scotland.

[Howard 13]

Yes they are over hyped but that will never change.

 

England could beat any team in the world on the day as they do normally up a gear when playing better teams for example Germany & Argentina.

 

When playing Brazil in the World Cup, anyone watching that could tell they were carrying injuries or just plain knackered due to the length of our domestic season.

 

One thing I certainly won't defend is that they didn't shake hands after the Macidonean game.That sort of behaviour is bang out of order and made me sick as much as anyone, beleive me.

 

That put me off them more than the performance itself.

 

I still beleive we'll qualify, afterall it's not the end of the world.

 

As for Seaman, yes he was made a scapegoat.We still had plenty of time left to settle that mistake by scoring some more ourselves but didn't.I think he is still as good as anyone but would like to Paul Robinson have a chance for the future.

 

HB.

[catchaplenty]

Gillies, on the subject of our national team, how did you get on against the might of the Faroe Islands arf, arf.

[davidP]

England have some good players, even a few international standard ones, but lets face it, footballers aren't reknowned for their brain power. The top teams have their styles of play pounded into the players day after day until it becomes second nature. The English game is fast and hard and we breed players for that type of game - that's one of the reasons it can take the foreign players so long to settle down and fit in.

 

Yet when we get the best players together as England we expect them to play a completely different game after only a couple of training sessions. Is it any wonder they look lost - the poor lambs are confused!

 

The Macedonia match was a case in point. When an England attack broke down, within a few seconds the Macedonians had the ball on the edge of the England box and were pressuring the England defence. Whenever England got the ball, within a few seconds the ball was near the halfway line and then a few seconds later was back with Seaman or one of the back 4. The Macedonian defence meanwhile had funnelled back and all 11 players were correctly positioned. Once England had given them time to regroup then they decided perhaps it was time to try and find a way through. How many English clubs play like that, and how many play more like the Macedonian attack?

 

And another thing - does Sven specifically tell the England players not to run at the oppositions' defence? If he does then it's perhaps the only part of the game where they actually listen too him! On the few occaisions where we attacked the defence we scared them, but it happened so seldom because we were trying to thread 40 consecutive passes together and walk it into the net!

 

Sven - ATTACK THE BLIGHTERS!

 

[ 21. October 2002, 10:44 PM: Message edited by: davidP ]

[Gillies]

The Scotland team is not that great right now, and the game against the Faroes more than proved that ... but it was a wake up call for many player I think. The last two games against Iceland and Canada (not the best teams I know) shown that the player's are at least playing for their jerseys now, and are beginning to play more as a team ... it was very clear that they are now much much better since they played against the Faroe Isles. Berti Vogts inherited a useless team when he first came, and experimented making major changes and gave a number of players chances ... which hopefully will work out! Incidentally German were VERY lucky against the Faroes also, dont you think?

 

Scotland's next game against Portugal, should hopefully be a good indicator of what work needs to be done to make the team something decent. I think the performance more than the overall result will be whats important.

[poledark]

you are all talking rubbish, what about those three good shots on target that hit the goalkeeper? If they had gone a foot or so to left or right then we would have won 5-2.

 

And don't forget that the same thing happened to the Macedonians when playing Turkey, so they were never going to be a pushover.

 

Den

[M.K]

Football's a womens sport!

[Gillies]

Every game is full of "what if's?" what if one or two of the numerous good shots that the Macedonian players were taking from distance at the England goal had dipped earlier or gone a foot to the left or right ... England could of quite easily lost that match!

 

What about the Slovakia game? England were really hanging on for the win at the end there ... Slovakia were running them ragged.

 

It has been terrible England performances, the game against Turkey will be an interesting one. I think both Turkey and England showed complacency and vastly underestimated the Macedonian team.

 

I'm not getting at England, I think some major changes in tactical play by Sven, changes in the team line up, and mostly changes in attitude are needed.

 

DavidP and Howard make some really good points regarding the team I think.