England's World Cup Shame
In his previous post Jimbo asked why i'd not posted about the World Cup defeat yet. The reason is simple, it's just been too depressing to mention.
I don't blame the players. I blame Sven. He made such an appalling job of picking he squad, leaving the team awash with midfielders and lacking any bite up front. He also left Rooney isolated, a player that works best with someone to play with.
You can see why he picks teams in this way. He's a man who wants to be popular. So he picks all the players the newspapers want. He thought he could take the best players in the country and that will do. But that's not the way it works.
Success requires building a team. So no Gerrard and Lampard in the same starting eleven. Each needs a team building around them, together they cancel each other out. Peter Crouch tried hard, but he's not international material. Owen Hargreaves was a revelation though. He played like a proper English player, working hard and running at the oppoition, not trying to be a fancy dan. This is the kind of effort we need in an English team, play to our strength's and not trying to be a rainy version of Brazil.
He played Lennon too little despite the player energising the team every time he was allowed to play. And poor Walcott was just there because the papers wanted him. But Sven had no intention of letting him play.
Could I do better? I don't know. But here's the starting 11 I would go for if I had the job.
GK P Robinson
DF G Neville
DF J Terry
DF R Ferdinand
DF A Cole
MF O Hargreaves
MF S Gerrard
MF D Beckham
MF A Lennon
ST W Rooney
ST M Owen
Opinions?
| Print article | This entry was posted by Harry on 04/07/06 at 11:37 . Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. |
04/07/06 @ 12:07
Not sure about the midfield as we really do lack a natural left footer. Downing might well turn out to be the solution but Joe Cole has been the best of a bad job. IMHO Beckham has had his international career and should really have quit from international football and not just the captaincy - one free-kick and one assist isn't enough in my book.
04/07/06 @ 12:11
I think I'd have rather had calamity in goal. Robinson never looked assured, either coming for crosses or corners or defending long range shots. This means the defence tends to play deeper, creating a gap between midfield and the defence which encourages the opposition to attack.
Otherwise, I'd play downing on the left, Lennon on the right and Gerrard and (probably) Beckham in the middle.
And I would play to win, not play for penalties >8(
04/07/06 @ 12:12
But without those Jimbo we wouldn't have even got to the quarter final.
04/07/06 @ 12:22
Didn't deserve to get to the quarter finals, we had an easy group and in theory an easy draw that should have seen England reach the semis. Your right thought Sven c@cked up by playing Lampard & Gerrard in the same team, by playing one upfront (Rooney/Crouch) and by taking Walcott rather than Defoe/Bent/Beattie etc. Infact if you want to defend the decision to take Walcott, why take Jenas? Too many midfielders.
04/07/06 @ 13:53
You just don't know how differently the team would have played without Beckham in it though. What were struggles may have become goal fests as Lennon could have provided half a dozen pinpoint crosses per game.