Mails: Remember who England are missing…
Date published: Wednesday 12th October 2016 10:23
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What happens when the pylon is pulled down…
Could Sarah Winterburn please confirm if that was indeed England’s brighter future we have just witnessed?
I was stuck behind an ugly pylon you see so couldn’t really tell.
Oops.
Richard, Manchester
(Yes and wasn’t it beautiful? – Ed)
Rooney is not the victim
I am so sick of hearing Wayne Rooney’s ex-pro mates constant media support campaign. No one cares what you think about your mate, Rio Ferdinand. His comment after the game “PS… oh and I believe the draw was all Wayne Rooney’s fault as well! zzz” – what a stupid effing thing to come out with, and it’s this vaguely antagonistic, “I know better” bullsh*t attitude makes it all the more aggravating.
Rooney has been woeful for United for the past two years, he did nothing against a very average Malta side, and showed nothing good in his 20 minutes off the bench last night. So on what basis should he be reinstated to the team? The fact that his replacements didn’t exactly set the world alight in 70 minutes without him isn’t justification for putting straight back in. It’s become abundantly clear that Rooney is on a steep decline in quality now; we (England and United) are far better served committing to progressing without him. and giving his replacements the same time and patience as he received at the start of his career.
A comment on the retirement issue: it isn’t going to happen. He cannot possibly retire from international football now, because it would be a virtual admission that he knows he isn’t good enough at that level any more, and he just won’t do that. What is more likely is that stories of unrest and ‘ill treatment’ from his managers will lead to him being painted as the victim, and he’ll use that as his excuse to move on for his benefit, rather than the truth that he’s lost his places because he can’t cut it any more.
In terms of last night’s match: a draw was just about a fair result, though Slovenia could have won it a few times were it not for a pretty good Hart performance. Though the problem with England is that we always struggle against a team that is either organised or energised. The Scotland match could be a problem.
Ted, Manchester
Italian job good for Hart
I normally make a point of avoiding mainstream media after any England match as I don’t like getting myself wound up by the more extreme PFM elements of the press – but I am considering making an exception this time to see if any PFMs will even come close to admitting they were wrong about Joe Hart.
It’s widely recognised (outside of PFM circles) that Hart had a shocking time at the Euros. Without going over old ground, fast forward to last night’s match, and rather than Hart being bailed out for his mistakes, suddenly he is the one doing the bailing, and looking back to his best. So what changed?
I think the big difference has been his loan to Torino. Many PFMs disagreed with Guardiola’s decision to drop Hart, and few had much positive to say about the loan move (Ian Rush being an exception). However this has clearly given Hart the best possible route to recovery after a poor tournament – regular football without ever move being over analysed and publicly dissected.
His opening game for Torino was the subject of a BBC live ticker (surely one of the first, if not the first, time the BBC has done that for a Serie A match?) – lo and behold Hart makes a prominent error. However once the interest and furore died down, Hart has very quietly gone about the job of being a thoroughly decent goalkeeper, keeping two clean sheets from four games and only conceding twice (once to a Totti penalty – he’s not the first keeper to concede one of those).
I was half wondering if this would be mentioned by either the commentators or pundits during the match last night – that Hart’s resurgence might be as a direct result of his loan move to a foreign league – but for some reason this didn’t seem to come up at all.
It will take a brave PFM to come out and admit that England’s Number One made the right move by leaving the Best League In The World Ever TM for Serie A – but I think it’s at the very least a contributing factor (and given how toothless we looked going forward last night, long may that continue…!)
Terry Hall, Switzerland
New England is same as the old England
Sure you will get plenty of these, but…
Rooney finally dropped after so many people (including me) were calling for it desperately, so that meant that England were going to suddenly be fantastic right? Fast, flowing football, a fluid front four, penetrative passing from deep! Oh…
It’s almost as if one player wasn’t the cause of all of England’s woes after all, and basically the whole team are, at an international level, “average”.
Here come the new England, same as the old England.
Niall, London
…Well that was the expected sh*tshow wasn’t it?! Southgate dropped Rooney, bought in the ‘yoof’ and yet we still managed to look like a Sunday Div 17 pub team.
My concern is the lack of direction and style, last night I was ranting away to all and sundry about what we were actually supposed to be doing tactically? As far as I could see it was pass the ball sideways and backwards, lose ball, rely on either Joe Hart or some dodgy control by an opposing player and then repeat. There was no decent movement, no link-up play, no midfield creator, not even a hold-up plan?!
I have coached several teams over the years, and whilst I will never claim to have set any leagues on fire, my teams have all been set up with what I’m sure most people would refer to as a ‘game plan’ and a plan B just in case it all goes wrong. Last night we showed yet again that we have no actual idea what we are meant to do, it’s so bloody infuriating!!!
We have been laughed out of the Euros, laughed at due to BFS getting caught out and last night got made to look second best to a team that we are more than capable of beating. We need to stop trying to copy other teams methods, find something that suits our limited players skill sets and get on with it, all this pi**ing around will just continue to annoy everyone.
Mind you, could be worse, could be a jock.
Ian (STID) Cyprus
Lessons from England vs Slovenia
* Joe Hart: Well don’t we all look stupid and fickle for writing him off, and mocking his edgy performances in the Euros? He was the best man on the pitch by a mile (you might even say HEAD AND SHOULDERS above the rest), and looked like the only leader/captain that England had tonight. Seeing him out ticking off Lingard was great – at least someone was stepping up to the plate, unlike….
* Jordan Henderson: Unfortunately, doing an impression of Roy Keane by giving an angry, icy stare into the distance while standing in the tunnel is not all that is required of a central midfield general. The similarities with Roy ended with the pre-match pout, and nervy normal service resumed. As Football365 and most media outlets delighted in saying over the weekend – there are indeed better players at playing midfield than Rooney – however Jordan Henderson is rarely one of them. Speaking of…
* Rooney. We all give him so, so much flak, but he’s no worse than the rest of that Championship/League One side we fielded tonight. Not much better either mind – and don’t even get me started on those limp corners he took.
* Marcus Rashford: Lively, and as Ian Wright predictably championed, pushing for a starting slo t- but can we please not pronounce him as yet another saviour of English football? He isn’t – he’s going to be very good I have no doubt, but football is not a one man game – not even Messi himself could propel Argentina to glory, and he usually has a much better supporting cast than Rashford will ever be afforded.
* Defence: As water-tight as a tissue paper umbrella in monsoon season. Woeful at times. Cahill, Stones, Henderson and Dier seemed to be having a private competition for worst back-pass of the year award. At least, unlike Cahill, Stones might actually get better as time goes on. Rose was nippy, but lacks the end product for England that Luke Shaw may one day provide. If he stops breaking every two minutes.
* Attack: To quote Inspector Grim from the classic 90s sitcom The Thin Blue Line, “please do stop fannying about”. No one was more deserving of the phrase tonight that Daniel Sturridge, who for all his movement and fluidity too often chooses a bizarre pirouette over a simple pass, and his failure to cross to Rooney late on was criminal.
* The Boss: Southgate has done little to stand out and cement his place in the England seat full-time, and if November holds a very predictable laboured win over Scotland, and a narrow loss to a Spanish B team, it will be hard to call which way the FA will go. Unless Wenger hits late mid-life crisis by December and buys a motorbike, grows a beard and takes the England job, we might be seeing more of Gareth’s crooked nose for sometime to come.
Mike (Editor will lap this up for the Head and Shoulders pun alone), Manchester
Where’s the creativity?
We have no stars in this team. It is a team made up of players who, for their clubs, are workhorses. They are surrounded by players who provide the guile and creativity. Henderson and Sturridge have the likes of Coutinho and Firmino. Dier and Alli have Dembele and Erikson, Walcott has the rest of the Arsenal team.
These aren’t worthless or bad players. Every team need these players and they excel at their role. But put them in a team together and you get a insipid collection of uninspired footballing cavemen, each looking for another person to provide the creativity as they cannot provide it themselves.
There is hope though. Rashford is still young and holds tremendous potential – let’s hope the media do not build him up as our saviour as many a upcoming talent has been stunted that way. And I can only hope that with the two players missing from this first 11 – Lallana and Sterling – who are the only two players at their clubs who may break this pattern – will add that creativity that we so desparately lack.
And the defence…Well it was a clean sheet I guess.
Andrew CPFC
Still backing ‘average’ Southgate
The Editor said last week that maybe Southgate was perfect – An average manager for an average team. Certainly after yesterday’s performance you can’t deny either of those statements. Although I will anyway and here are my reasons..
1. Yesterday’s team was far from England’s best. It was deprived of the best English player from the last six months (Lallana) and two years (Kane). It was missing the country’s most exciting dribbler (Sterling) and it was missing what was once the best left-back and he should become so again as long as Mourinho doesn’t kill his spirit completely (Shaw). It also wasn’t playing Marcus Rashford.
2. With the embarrassing exception of Gary Cahill these players are excellent for their clubs in a highly difficult league. The stats prove this. Why do they so rarely do it for England? I believe this is because they have better managers who also have more time to drill them in their allocated positions and also because they get to know their team mates and how they play. I think this is a common problem with international teams, even those with the best players. Stability is needed which is why well drilled little teams do better than they should.
3. England are a good international team. There is a reason almost all teams play so deep and a reason England are capable of beating teams like Germany. There are obviously a few who are better. In Europe – Germany, Spain, Belgium and France have a better first choice team. However look at Belgium, Germany and Spains results in the last few years. Even the best teams are a bit rubbish.
4. The thing is England are one team of many who are capable of winning international tournaments. Did you see that Portugal team who won Euro 2016? They almost lost to Iceland for goodness sake… Wales proved they also can win tournaments and they have two – three players max who would make England’s first choice team – one of whom is English. The key thing is having a manager who can gel a team quickly. International football management is the hardest and the choice of manager is critical. As is luck.
5. Which finally brings me to Southgate. The average manager. Maybe. But then Coleman was pretty average until Wales. Even Steve Mclaren won the Dutch league and he is obviously a terrible manager. Sometimes a job just fits and they become more than an average manager. Maybe there is no such thing as an average manager – just right and wrong. It would take a harsh man to not root for Southgate. Especially after dropping Rooney. It’s a leap of faith but I say stick with him. Let’s see if this supposedly average manager turns out to be the right man for this not particularly average team.
Howard (Hart (c), Clyne, Smalling, Stones, Shaw, Dier, Lallana, Alli, Sterling, Rashford, Kane).
Dropping Rooney just the start
I’m sure some people (not mentioning any names) will write in stating that dropping Rooney didn’t help and they were right all along. But these people are missing the point. Dropping Rooney was just the start, this was still an England team lacking direction, cohesion and a clear style of play for many years. Hopefully we can get a manager in who can instill these things into the team but it’ll take time. We were being held back by one particular player and a series of managers, we need to solve both those things before we see real progress.
Jim, Norwich
Sturridge: Awful
I know that Sturridge is one of F365’s ‘boys’, (along with Sterling and Juan Mata) but I feel that if Kane or Vardy had put in a performance that bad, they would have earned more than two lines of faint criticism.
Roo Cumner-Price
Ed’s England thoughts
* I only saw the second half of the England game, but it was still difficult viewing. England could have played for a week without ever scoring. Too often half-chances went begging because players insisted on shooting rather than passing to a better-placed teammate.
Ultimately, a draw away from home in qualification should be a good result for England (with obvious exceptions), so there’s little to worry about here. A bit of entertainment wouldn’t have gone amiss though.
* The one England substitute to make a difference was Andros Townsend, who came on and did what he does for Crystal Palace – as a counterpoint to the patient passing England were using elsewhere on the pitch, Townsend was full of direct running, beating his man and then putting in a cross. Unfortunately, none of his crosses reached a centre-forward. They were all put to areas that his Palace teammates like to attack, rather than to where England’s forwards could have made use of them.
* Zing of the evening. On 51 minutes or so, the cameras cut to Wayne Rooney. Clive Tyldesley remarked that Rooney actually started the last three Manchester United games from the bench, before adding “people have said England should use Wayne Rooney in his Manchester United position”.
OK so it’s hardly Bill Hicks in his prime, but it was the closest either Tyldesley or Glenn Hoddle were going to get to saying something negative about Rooney, with their usual riff being references to “the match-winner on the bench”.
Ed Quoththeraven
Giggs has not earned a hearing
First off, a massive (f*cking massive) thanks to JM, DCFC for doing the research so many armchair fans/pundits are too lazy to do.
As a United fan, I do sympathise with Ryan Giggs for being denied the United job after LVG. Giggs’s loyalty to his club/manager was NEVER questioned (despite his loyalty being questioned, several times, off the field), on top of which he had an incredible playing career. If there was an agreement to hire him after LVG left, then, in an ideal world, it should’ve been honored (and thus, planned for accordingly). That said, LVG was supposed to have left in better circumstances and a ‘proven’ option was suddenly available. Hence, Ryan Giggs was rightly overlooked. But, my sympathy for Ryan Giggs ends there, because he left on his prerogative. He wasn’t told to quit. He wasn’t fired. He should have hung around. He should have worked with different youth levels and at various positions in the coaching staff, for the next five, ten years. He should have become a shadow too big to ignore. But he left, and hasn’t done any thing since.
Vik M is horribly wrong. Giggs, much like Savage, is contributing nothing to this world other than his opinion. Thus, every word he utters into a microphone should be met with as much credit/ridicule as it merits. Frankly, Giggs should have said “I’m still working at Manchester United so I’m available, but not yet interested” when asked about the United gig this past summer; in three years, when Mourinho has gone up in flames, Giggs should again say exactly that; and he should keep saying that till every fan, staff member and player of Manchester United says “there is literally no one but Ryan Giggs who should be appointed manager of Manchester United FC.”
Ryan Giggs got hurt and quit Manchester United. He thought he was destined for the gig, and so did I, but he didn’t stand strong enough. Giggs then did nothing to improve his coaching ability, then he applied for the Swansea vacancy, where he was also denied the job (incidentally, Swansea are quite shrewd with most of their managerial appointments before Guidolin; Martinez, BRodge, Laudrap and Monk were all consecutive, successful appointments…Bradley will hopefully prove Guidolin was the exception). If he prefers clubs he has a connection with, then why not take up the reigns at Salford City and bring them up the ladder? Or the Cardiff job, when made available? Or the closest team to his childhood home? Or, f*cking anything, at all?
Alan Shearer, Ian Wright, Jermaine Jenas, Rio Ferdinand, Jamie Carragher, Steve McManaman, Paul Scholes, Robbie Savage and Michael Owen are all incredibly difficult to tolerate mostly because of their non-existent experience of actually doing the job (Carragher being the exception). I prefer listening to Glenn Hoddle and Graeme Souness only because, at least, they actually have a history of coaching/managing. It doesn’t, ultimately, matter if Hoddle or Souness were bad because, again, they would know how to actually do that job, even if it was 20 years ago. I can’t wait for Gary Neville and Thierry Henry to return as pundits and openly talk about their coaching experiences in their punditry, because Micahel Owen and Robbie Savage do not educate me. Ryan Giggs has now firmly joined that list of players who should be contributing so much more to the sport at various clubs and age levels, up and down the football ladder.
But, no. Giggs, like all those pundits, quit when given the opportunity to coach. As a result, today we see foreign (and American) coaches being preferred due to their coaching CVs, not their nationalities. British ex-players have preferred the sofas of ITV/Sky/etc to the coaching jobs of ‘lesser’ teams. So, if Giggs has as much coaching experience in the last two years as Robbie Savage, then it’s his own fault for being treated like Robbie Savage.
Emad, MUFC, Boston
Love for Maldini
I did a bit of name dropping following the Cruyff Icon piece and got published so here I go again!
Having shared a lift with Maldini in the Principe di Savoia hotel in Milan, I was seriously doubting my heterosexuality by the time it reached the ground floor. My girlfriend at the time was in no doubts of hers and could barely contain herself. He was very gracious to a pair of overwhelmed muppets.
A Rolls Royce of a footballer (he was so much more than a defender) who alongside Baresi, the famous kit and the wonderful San Siro really captured my attention during my teens. So much so that when I was a little older and could afford to, I made regular trips to watch Milan on the £20 Ryanair flights from MCR to Bergamo. Bellissimo.
Ciao, Plato, MUFC
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