Decent England performance for once

Jack Bauer said:
Agreed. In my lifetime I've never, ever felt "proud" of an England performance (perhaps excluding one or two World Cup games and the 5-1 v Germany). It's a horrible, cowardly style of football to get a goal and then play like cowards. You very rarely feel that the players are full of pride, or courage.


I cannot begin to explain how shite I think Lampard is, or how much I hate him (I feel like any crap player could play in his position and do the exact same job, he scores a tap-in and he's "amazing"). But, he's ranked the 25th best player in the world according to this month's FourFourTwo (the only football magazine I trust), so I must be missing something.
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Hate, That's a little strong Mr Bauer:shock:
 
YoungGun_UK said:
naa , maybe Lennon for Joe Cole i dont think he plays regular enough to get into the side him and Young both for the LM position
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Lennon has been good but Joe Cole has been my favourite England player for a while- even while we've been drab and awful he's useful been creative or at least had some sparks. There've been a few matches where I've been rather disappointed with the team performance but been able to take some solace in Joe Cole's energy or attacking attitude at the least.


Drop Lampard. Mix it up with SWP, Lennon and even Becks IF he's in form. Nice to have a bit of variety.
 
Wasnt that impressed with england, but I rarely am...

the fact someone on here could only list a handful of decent results/memorable moments in the past 20-30 years says it all...

the tactics, technique etc are always left wanting and they ALWAYS get found out..

there we're a few decent individual performances but isreal we're piss poor...

russia will be more of a test...
 
YoungGun_UK said:
naa , maybe Lennon for Joe Cole i dont think he plays regular enough to get into the side him and Young both for the LM position
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I'm not Joe Cole's biggest fan, but even I can admit that he's been one of England's more consistent players over the last few years. I thought he was decent enough on Saturday to keep his place. As far as Lennon playing, his main competition is going to be Shaun Wright-Phillips for the place on the right. I think you'd have to stick with Shaun for the time being. His recent performance for England was very impressive I thought, reflecting the good form he's shown for Chelsea this season. As long as he's got the confidence he desperately needs, I think we will continue to see the Wright-Phillips of old, pre-Chelsea. No doubt that Lennon will have a good future ahead of him with the national team though. If he gets a chance and takes it, he could make that position his own.

If I was McClaren, I would keep the same team to play Russia. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
 
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Vannizzlefashizzal said:
Wasnt that impressed with england, but I rarely am...

the fact someone on here could only list a handful of decent results/memorable moments in the past 20-30 years says it all...

the tactics, technique etc are always left wanting and they ALWAYS get found out..

there we're a few decent individual performances but isreal we're piss poor...

russia will be more of a test...
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I made reference to stand out moments, not to a handful of decent rsults mate.

Maybe you are young and didn't see the football we played in 86 and 90 under Bobby Robson, but the fact is, it was very good mate and we were only knocked out of both those world cups by the eventual winners. Once via a handball and Lineker getting pushed into the back of the net when he was about to score and the other on penalties.

The fact is people have this tendency to look back on football without a sort of all powerful hindsight. England could quite easily be sitting back with 3 world cups right now but for the smallest of margins, just as Italy could have had one more from 94 etc. In fact we were FAR better in 1990 than we were in 66, but then no one is likely to agree with that given the hindsight we have. We also came close in Euro 96 and again only went out to the winners on penalties.

England have been horrendous under Graham Taylor, Keegan, Sven and MCclaren....and yes we have only won one world cup.

Does that mean we have to turn in on ourselves and re-write history as though there were never any near misses and as though it was always bad?

That's a bit orwellian and 1984 isn't it?

Gaza was a nats wing from connecting with a cross that would have put Germany out of the 1990 World Cup and put us in the final....but we re-write the history that we have always been bad because we didn't win in the end...crazy.

If you asked the German players in that semi final if hey felt it was destined that they were going to win or if it was a very tough game that could have gone either way...I am pretty sure I know what they would say. I think the same could be said for Argentina in 86.

If we are going to hammer England and pretend we were not good in 86 or 1990 then we might as well pretend that Brazil were not good in 82.......it is just bad logic.


As for the person who ominously said "wait until Wednesday".

Again for god sake what is the problem?

No one has cried from the roof tops that beating an dogged Israeli side makes England world beaters. Can we not be a little bit happy at obtaining a reasonable result with a reasonable performace without a "I hope you lose, so I can slag you off" comment?

Of course it will be different on Wednesday and no one is suggesting any different. We hope that we can get a good result and performace but we do not expect it like it is owed to us.

I have not seen one person act that way, or with any arrogance that such a comment suggests...so we don't deserve those type of comments.
 
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Spunk_of_MJ said:
lol - what if i had said that? :lmao:
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My problem with what you have said is not what is said about the team. It is what you have implied about England generally and it is the bile that you clearly imply.

I'm not having a converstaion with you further either in this thread or the other one.

It is an issue of tone and I find you offensive.
 
i find you extremely sensitive.

you've got jack shit to back up your claims of my bile - i'm still waiting for your reply in the other thread...

go on, i dare you - gimme just one example...

i'm begging you - please find just one tiny example of my bile towards 'england generally'...

time to put your money where you mouth is, mate, cos you're talking pure pish...
 
vanzandt said:
It is an issue of tone and I find you offensive.
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thought not...

sadly, 'an issue of tone' isn't something you can judge on a forum, that's the problem with words on a screen - you can never be sure of the tone they were written with, unlike spoken words...

quite frankly, 'i find you offensive' because of your insinuations against my character (of which i'm STILL waiting for some hard evidence) - even a glimmer of evidence - although, it doesn't seem to be forthcoming - i wonder why... bit hard to find is it??? difficult to backup your claims???
 
vanzandt said:
I made reference to stand out moments, not to a handful of decent rsults mate.

Maybe you are young and didn't see the football we played in 86 and 90 under Bobby Robson, but the fact is, it was very good mate and we were only knocked out of both those world cups by the eventual winners. Once via a handball and Lineker getting pushed into the back of the net when he was about to score and the other on penalties.
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I was also refering to Jack B..

lol yes I'm old enough to remember the dates mentioned...

But I can see that you are an england supporter, I'm not passionate about the national team at all...

supporting my own team emotionally and financially runs the proverbial well dry....

so there is no point in going back and forth...

Infact as negative as supporters/ the media are about the national team, I salute your outlook....
 
Vannizzlefashizzal said:
I was also refering to Jack B..

lol yes I'm old enough to remember the dates mentioned...

But I can see that you are an england supporter, I'm not passionate about the national team at all...

supporting my own team emotionally and financially runs the proverbial well dry....

so there is no point in going back and forth...

Infact as negative as supporters/ the media are about the national team, I salute your outlook....
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I understand what you mean in terms of following your club taking it out of you. I am a big England fan in terms of following them rain or shine...sometimes it is terrible so I try and hang on to where it has been good in terms of performances and results (albeit in a limited sense) and remind myself of that. Nice one for the comment by the way mate, appreciated.

I can't say I am especially hopeful tonight, but then again I am always slightly pesemistic these days, have been ever since Keegan and Sven. McClaren just feels like a follow-on in terms of incompetant management. I almost feel it would require an individual to do well in spite of him and his running of the team or a chance picking of the right tactics and players to do well.

I feel that Barry was our unsung best/most important player against Israel, yet he'll only keep his place due to injury to others, Gerrard only given the correct attacking mid role due to Lampard being out and Phillips getting to play because Beckham is injured etc....just seems if we do come good it will almost be via the dice rolling right.

If McClaren proves me wrong in the long term I'll be as happy as anyone, but I cannot see it.
 
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It's gonna be interesting game tonight. Not the most important game of all, still three more games to go for both teams after this one, but it can be important in terms of psychological effect before the next one that will be played in Moscow.
 
Good performance and result, overall happy.

Barry was the man of the match again for me. His distribution was magnificant again and he was always composed. Owen very good as were the wings and Gerrard did ok as well.

Obviously there are better sides than Russia and also a tough away fixture on a plastic pitch...so no point thinking it means anymore than just an improvement on where we were nothing more.

I would still go with Shorey over A Cole at left back as I think Cole is very poor going forward and in distributing the ball...suppose that is debatable though given his pace and in good getting back.

I still question Mclarens tactics at times even if he has got some decsision right.

When we were a couple of goals to the good and overcame the spell that Russia played well, I thought they started pushing high up the pitch. For me that means that Heskey's flick on became far outside the box as opposed to the dangerous ones inside the box and at that point if he was to come off I though that A Johnson would have been a far better sub than Crouch given his pace over the top, running of the channels etc. Crouch came on and was a poor mans Heskey and with Russia so high up the pitch was of little consequence.

Ok in this situation, but in future situations poor subs like that could cost us.

Crouch would have made sense if we were 1-0 down and Russia weer sitting back and the we though his height was of more value. I just think if a team is playing high up the pitch, you benefit a lot more from Johnson.

Small grumbles I suppose on a good night I suppose.

P.S

What a result for Scotland....Jeez brilliant, put ours in the shade big time...well done!!
 
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We played very well in the first half, but again, WTF at the second half?

We did nothing, and we should've gone out and destroyed Russia. Croatia scored 6, why didn't we?
 
matherto said:
We played very well in the first half, but again, WTF at the second half?

We did nothing, and we should've gone out and destroyed Russia. Croatia scored 6, why didn't we?
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Did Croatia score six past Russia?

Do you think you can regularly score six goals against international sides these days?

Yes Croatia scored six past Andorra, well done to them. We were not as good as we should have been and were a little poor against Andorra.

But you expected six against Israel and six past Russia, I do not think that is a realistic expectation personally.

Man Utd are a very good team, how many poor teams do you score six past?

How often does any team in international or high level club football score six?

It isn't FIFA soccer 08 mate.
 
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Are you kidding?

The whole second halves in both game shouldve been an opportunity to destroy Israel and Russia, sure 6 seems like a big number, but going off the chances we created in each first halves, it's definately not unrealistic. We should use second halves to send a message out to people, instead of just coasting and being less exciting than turning the TV off and watching the blank screen.
 
Spunk_of_MJ said:
what were you saying, vanzandt?
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Oh just that I do not think it is realistic to score six goals in international football regularly.

matherto thinks that England should have scored six goals against both Israel and Russia and I don't think that is credible/likely and not something you can ever expect to do these days. I think if you ever land a big result like that you have to welcome it, but I don't think you can expect it against anyone...that maybe you could against some teams in 1980, but not now.

I could be easily be wrong, that is just my opinion.
 
Spunk_of_MJ said:
i commend you on standing up to the arrogance of the original poster...
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It might not be arrogance, it could be youthful optimisum or a a lot of other things.

I cannot say I am right in any regard, I just offered my opinion which differs.
 
England didn't look better as a team, showed nothing impressive tactically and no real teamplay overall, they were just more classy than our players in three situations, plus Owen showed the game that I haven't seen from him for years. 2 moments - 2 goals, all because of Owen superb finishing.

Ashley Cole looked poor giving Bystrov too many free space and just loosing in 1-on-1 situations a couple of times. Micah Richards looked good not giving Zhirkov too many chances to make a good cross he's famous for. Central defenders of both teams looked great. Chances appeared mostly after side backs' mistakes. It were in both Owen goals and in most of Russia's moments.

Gerrard wasn't looking impressive, while Barry was clearly the best one, Russian midfield wasn't really acting as expected, Semshov suddenly was looking poor which happens to him very rarely (got subbed for Bystrov in the first half), Zyryanov looked like a young boy making some stupid mistakes in easy passes, can't understand why it happened.

Heskey and Owen did a great job good pair, much better than Crouch-Rooney. While Sychev looked good loosing a good moment in 1-on-1 with Robinson when he almost hit the ball inches from left post. Arshavin was slow and ineffective as he's been for half of this season, nothing to say here, Hiddink should've subbed him.

These are my ideas about the game not as a fan of Russian NT, but as a neutral person. You can agree or disagree, but you can't say that England should've scored 6, Russia is neither Andorra nor Israel, that's just pure arrogance and ignorance saying shit like that.
 
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Where was Sasha Kerzhakov ?? He is Russia's best player, any why not play Pavluchenko earlier. England were better tonight and win for them was fair... but I think it will be different in Moscow next month :)
 
gomito#10 said:
god i missed you ninja
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Seriously fuck off!!

Stop following me round threads and insulting me and stop calling me somebody I am not.

Get the moderators to check my details or whatever, really have had enough of you doing this!!

Can you imagine how you would feel if you came new to a forum and kept getting followed round by someone calling you a cheeky bastard and a troll for being some other fucker...:roll:

I am not any of the people you have referred to now please stop the bullshit.
 
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Gerrard was poor going forward, looked tentative. But he did mop up extremely well and made stack loads of inteceptions. Made some good runs forward and raised the temp when neccessary, just lacked the killer edge.

Barry was outstanding. Uses his body so well, cool as silk on the ball and offers great delivery with that left foot.

Cashley Cole is just terrible. Bridge/Shorey/Cole should be the order of the day. Wasn't impressed with Rio either apart from the nicely taken goal.

SWP is full of tricks and running, but he just can't cross, he just can't generate enough power. It's infruriating. Players like SWP and Pennant will get into a dangerous position at least 10 times a game but will end up floating in crossess instead of whipping them in.
 
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