The England National team thread

I thought Gerrard's been alright... not his classic liverpool style performance, but he hasn't been as bad as lampard... gotten in some fantastic challenges..

what is wrong with alan smith... he's fast asleep.

ok, here we go 2nd half

Brazil are simply denying England to work the ball forward...
They're pretty much dominating the match... but it's not new that England usually struggle against strong teams with great skill...

Luis Ah-Hoy;2336479 said:

Brazil are simply denying England to work the ball forward...
They're pretty much dominating the match... but it's not new that England usually struggle against strong teams with great skill...

Click to expand...

Yes, Brazil are also creating many, many chances and ripping us open. Yes they've had more possession, but are they doing anything remotely useful with it? No.

haha Becks with the assist!

seriously.....Wesley! Great 1st touch....

Well done England...thrown it away yet again.

why so many defensive subs?

why jenas?

whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

ZamundaMan;2336465 said:

I know the english have pride but there are seldom any good english coaches. Seriously, once Steve is exposed England need to nationaly pray for someone more tactically suited.

Click to expand...

This is not to start a fight... But can anyone mention a good english coach in the last decade or two?

Thanks.

I repeat, its just a question and is in no way meant to be an offence.

Harmsworth1;2336575 said:

This is not to start a fight... But can anyone mention a good english coach in the last decade or two?

Thanks.

I repeat, its just a question and is in no way meant to be an offence.

Click to expand...

Would Robson count? I think he did some good stuff at Porto but I can't be sure. Feel free to correct me.

ShearerM4;2336466 said:

Embarrassingly poor first half. We should have simply invited the Feroe Islands for the first game at Wembley.

Lampard his usual waste of space.

Click to expand...

They would've declined, big game against the World Champs tomorrow


can England score off of anything other than set pieces??? Becks should play in NT until he's 40, or until England ever comes up with some sort of style or attack.

SlowSilver;2336486 said:

Yes, Brazil are also creating many, many chances and ripping us open. Yes they've had more possession, but are they doing anything remotely useful with it? No.

Click to expand...

In the first half, Brazil were arguably the better team... althought they didn't create any real 'goalscoring opportunity', they had many more 'intentional' shots on goal, and were playing the best football...

But anyway, crappy second half for both teams... England even managed to look a bit better than Brazil at this stage of the game...

Fair result!

Welcome back Becks.

Wonder if anyone is still saying Becks is shyt. I mean, all he did in the WC was score goal and provide assists, he didn't make any run at defenders. Look at him now, he's still the same, utter shyt.

Becks plays better with Real but he was alright. Gerrard was the player I thought was shyt. He couldn't pass at all and he never looks offensive in internationals. At least Lampard looks threatening at times. Hopefully Hargreaves will come back and play as a DM and they'll take Gerrard off so that they can play in a diamond. It'd benefit Joe Cole and you wouldn't need a left back if Ashely Cole was running up the pitch. I wouldn't mind putting Downing on the left in place of Joe Cole though if they keep using the flat four midfield.

treble41;2336963 said:

Gerrard was the player I thought was shyt. He couldn't pass at all and he never looks offensive in internationals. At least Lampard looks threatening at times.

Click to expand...

Gerrard was working hard and altho he never looked offensive, he still managed to make his presence felt in the game...

Lampard was invisible for like 95% of the game, and in the very few times he touched the ball, or got more involved in the game, he looked crappy to me...

I honestly thought Lampard was worse. Contributed nothing and ran into trouble a couple of times. At least Gerrard put himself about and won the ball a few times with perfectly timed tackles.

Well, it seems obvious to me that Gerrard doesn't look offensive in the NT because of Lampard's presence. McClaren thinks this way is better than having Gerrard in a more offensive role and Carrick/Hargreaves doing the defensive duties, and he's the coach, so his opinion is what matters.

No, Gerrard didn't play well, but you can't really criticize him for doing what the coach told him to.

******* hell Gerrard was named man of the match! And rightly so! (Not saying he was best overall, but it being at Wembley, he was England's best player anyway).

McClaren simply does my head in Roeder-style. Grow some balls and ditch Lampard already. It should be a simple case of Hargreaves and Gerrard in the centre, if lack of one, then he had Carrick there yesterday to do the defensive work. But he's just a yes man continuously trying to force square pegs into round holes.

Then he throws Jenas in for god's sake! Mister no point by defenition! When Bentley was the cryingly obvious choice. The guy has been great all season.

England should play like a premierleague team. They did that for about two minutes against Brazil yesterday. We put in some great challenges in the first half but no wonder we get dominated.

Kaka complained that England 'rough housed.' If they could really have rough housed and played Premiership style like you said then the results would've been different.

Dunga seemed to be complaigning a lot... but none of the tough challenges were unfair... all played the ball. Robihno was the worst.. who pretends to be injured that much and stays lying on the ground like that in a friendly? a ******* pussy.

Joe Cole was also very annoying in that department.

Skillful players moan a lot. They act like fairies adn playact a lot. Yh your a good player. But as a defender my job is to put you in wall. simple as they'll get over it!

You cant let Brazil play. You have to get in their faces and breathe down their necks. Something technical players dont like. This isnt fairy football like in Europe. Like England are supposed to let them play.