One question : why so much worse?

I think the question is 'How did we manage to play well previously?'

group games - poor

today:
first 1/2 hour - poor

15mins to half time, brilliant

linesman + referee - killed our chances, theres no denying it, 2-2 and the whole game dynamic changes, german heads go down and we take control in the second half

45th - 65thmin - great

65th - 70th min - slack twice and its over

Friendlies and games against piss poor opposition are not to be taken as a true indicator of how good your team are.

friendlies ,you can never gauge the strength of a team . no commitment in tackles etc .

somebody has to wake up to these guys getting over £100,000 a week . Football is becoming a joke.

or is the laugh on the viewer/supporter as usual

What do you want? 

The best league in the world? Or the world cup?

Can't have both.

Blame Sky if you want the world cup.

backtolay Joined: 29 Aug 07
Replies: 307 27 Jun 10 19:10   


Friendlies and games against piss poor opposition are not to be taken as a true indicator

I wouldn't exactly call Croatia in their own back yard piss poor opposition - and took them apart.

In a 'non-friendly' match

dave b, want a good national team and fcuk the premier league

Funny thing is, watching those highlights again we didn't seem as bad as I remembered. Plenty chances, disallowed goal, hit crossbar.

and scored a perfectly good one that actually stood too, should add - you can point to defense but we were so obviously chasing the game by then. early game defending was awful of course though...

it went into meltdown in the warm up games. suddenly very ordinary players were being treated as world class.

the comments about only 1 or 2 germans getting in the england side are laughable. the vast majority of the the england squad are hasbeens and neverhasbeens. crouch, heskey, upson, carragher, milner, swp, johnson, barry, defoe, green, hart, dawson, warnock, lennon, cole, carrick.  go back to the england squads of the past (80s etc) that never did anything and none of those would have even made those squads.

shrewdbury Joined: 25 Sep 09
Replies: 2758 27 Jun 10 21:46   


Funny thing is, watching those highlights again we didn't seem as bad as I remembered. Plenty chances, disallowed goal, hit crossbar. 
-------------------------------------------------------
I actually said to a friend on the phone straight after the match that taking into consideration the opposition i thought that was our best performance.....he thought i was mad!!!!
Just dont think we are strong enough in all departments....we have some fantastic players in certain positions but also players that are not international class(in my opinion) in others....
I'd certainly like to have seen Crouch given a game(probably in the slovenia match as we hadnt performed well in the first 2 matches) from the start and would honestly have left Rooney on the subs bench as he hadnt been performing(may have livened him up to have to fight for his place).
Unfortunately though i just dont think we have enough top quality players(we have no lineker or shearer or any prolific scorer in this country....the mad thing is its Crouch that has the best record and dont get a start!) to be a match for the better teams and always fall short.....
Not sure what happened in the group stage......it could just be that the players(like the rest of us) looked at the teams in our group and subconciously thought we would get through with no problem and nearly come unstuck.
The manager has to take responsibility for team selection but those players should still have been good enough to get through our group with no problem no matter what position they played in.

In the PL, these players are made to look good by the foreign players around them.  Stripped of that support, they're shown up for the ordinary bunch they are.  Rooney and Gerrard are good when on their game, but Rooney's never been that consistent, even at club level.

Previous England managers have almost hero-worshipped these players which must have made Fabio's headmaster approach very hard to take for players steeped in the belief of their own publicity - hence the 'unrest' in the camp.  Fans and media must take their share of the blame for adding petrol to the flames of delusion these players suffer from.  Fame, money and power corrupts.  The British game needs a huge correction and when the Sky money runs out, as it inevitably will, some sense of reality might return for everyone.

When you "do well" in the qualifiers you are playing the worst teams in the world, the teams that never or seldom qualify.

Then in the World Cup group stages if you are seeded you meet two weak teams.

In the knock out stages if you place second in your group you are weak (England), and you meet a team that are good and won their group (Germany).

England were knocked out by a higher FIFA ranked team, one with a far superior World Cup record.

The only surprise is that England see themselves as winners when they are at best a quarter-final team.

So no surprises in 2010 for England.

Kincsem, i totally agree with you

^ are you married?   lol

dave b  27 Jun 10 19:30   
What do you want? 

The best league in the world? Or the world cup?


But you've got neither.

It all hype.  PL is a poor standard bar the top 2-3 teams.  England's best players are just above medium quality.  Technically all the English players are v poor.

dave b is spot on.sky tv demands v real england potentials.only one winner at the mo...

I thought we played pretty well at times today. Certainly for the 15 mins either side of half-time, and no matter how poorly we defended, overturning a 2-0 lead in 54 seconds was a massive achievement. Yes, the goal was disallowed, but it was no 'dodgy' decision. It was a clear cut goal that represents possibly the worst decision I have ever seen.

Germany did outplay us, and of course when a team is trying to equalise, and you have pace up front, hitting them on the break is always a possibility.

Overall, the better team won, and if this serves as a wake-up call to English football, then so be it.

qualifying results mean nothing...as for beating average countries at wembley in friendlys, oh that makes us a force. we have the most exciting league in the world,the press and joe public confuse this with being the best....
how many players from Germany, Argentina,Brazil and Spanish national teams play in the premiership...not to mention players like iniesta xavi messi tevez probably would never have made it proffesional, if they had been british

1. We havent beaten any of Argentina, Brazil, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal in a KNOCKOUT phase of either the World Cup or European Championship since 1966(We beat Spain on pens in 96 in the Euros) so our record doesnt suggest a top team for a long while.

2. No second half goals for us in any of the games, Stamina issues, it happened a lot in the previous world cups too.

3. Got to side with people who are saying Where are the youngsters, if this is the golden generation, we might as well bring back the Home international championship as that will be the only football we will see England in the summers to come

^ Home internationals are a great shout but I can't see Wales and Scotland getting through the qualifiers.

Dear englishman, obviously you have to accept, that you are not a great football nation like brazil, argentina, italy or germany. You never reached a final since 1966 and the strength of the premier league has only one reason; That some sheikhs or abramovichs buy the best players from everywhere. But what is british with this league? Nothing: Look at the goalkeepers, James is playing at Portsmouth, green at west ham. oh my lord! And there are no young playes ore talents in the thre lions team.

Perhaps England should bring in players from Brazil and other european countries. Maybe a couple of strikers from abroad and it could have England who scored the first two goals.