Roy Keane on England's World Cup Exit

No fan of keane generally - bit of a rent-a-quote about him.

However at the end of this when he starts going through the team in terms of world class players and the season they actual had - its pretty accurate. Makes you realise that you can be fooled by the hype.

Spot on keano.

Not his greatest fan but he's spot on. Cant blame the manager its the players. Just not good enough.

Can't blame the manager?  He picks the players, he picks the tactics, he motivates the players (or not).  If players aren't performing they shouldn't be in the team.

Agree 100%.Wallflower,you are spot on

Can't blame the manager?  He picks the players, he picks the tactics, he motivates the players (or not).  If players aren't performing they shouldn't be in the team.

Live 4, England don't have many other world-class players

We shouldn't be judging players on whether they are 'world class' or not (whatever the hell that means), we should be judging them on whether they can do a job for the team. 

Maybe that's part of the problem.

world class is the most overused and misused expression in football,england have one potential world class player ,his name is wayne rooney and he happened to have a shocker at the world cup.

Agreed with misuse of "world class". What I meant was the I think Capello picked England's best players. They just didn't perform

Can't blame a manager in this sort of case is always an odd thing to say - if we can't blame (bad word but we mean look to the manager) him then why do we fork out X million for him??

Lots of teams have lesser players but are made into better sides by the manager...

The England players are happy dominating Burnley week in week out, winning the odd international game and going out theatrically in the 2nd round of world tournaments. They are not willing to make the individual sacrifices needed to advance their careers to WORLD CLASS levels.
The culture of English diet is not easily reversed. Refer to Wayne Rooneys diet of sausage, beans and chips when the Everton nutritionists made enquiries. Look at John Terry, Gareth Barry. Can they honestly say they are athletes, WORLD CLASS athletes. Total jokers. They arent willing to as Keane says in his book "live on pasta and water". The team's diet was described in The Times article. 200 bars of chocolate, bottles of ketchup and sauces to flavour "inedible" pasta.....To be a WORLD CHAMPION you have to be WANTING to make dietary sacrifices.
One look at WR with his top of reminded me of two words "ICE CREAM". smooth as.

It doesn't matter how good or bad your players are.  It's the managers job to work that out and play to your strengths.

Look at the so called "minnows"  New Zealand, Japan, Paraguay, Uruguay, Slovakia.  The USA and Ghana are not top sides but they play to their strengths.

Of course players play differently for different teams,just look at the results of the transfer market .Some average players suddenly become good as some that were overhyped get exposed when changing to another team.This must apply with England,Capello certainly did not get the best out of the limited material he had to go to battle with.There is no doubt in my mind that with that same side better results may have been achieved with a more motivating manager.
Terry saw there were problems,that was why it made headlines.

English players have deficiencies in their technique that are masked by foreign players in the Pl. When do Gerrard or Lampard ever stay in the middle third and dictate for their clubs, they don't because they can't and England have noone that can. England fans would want to get real, they haven't beaten a major Nation in the knockout round of the World Cup since 1966. You lack technically gifted players, no amount of motivation can make up for that, class is class, I'm Irish and our lads have the same problem

i'd be interested to see if any england fan can name 2 central midfielders other than gascoigne and scholes who had the techical ability to compete with the best midfielders in the world.
To my mind that's 2 players in 20 years,a damning indictment of the english game.

off the top of my head i can think of quite a few for germany ,sammer,mattheus,effenberg,ballack,schweinstager and now ozil............i'm sure there's a lot more though.

Le tissier but he couldnt get a sniff for england!!

David Batty

Roger De Bris
One look at WR with his top of reminded me of two words "ICE CREAM". smooth as.

I agree.  Did he take off his jersey after that last friendly England played against the local league team?  My immediate reaction was he is a stone overweight.  Then he said (not sure where) that he had a nice few weeks off.  He should have been in steady training.  Extra weight equals poor acceleration early in the game, and late in the game a disappearing act as he can't contribute.