Jags is to injure prone for my liking plus as people have said cahill, jones and smalling are all better. Most over rated england player is fat frank can't remember when he was last good for us.
Have to admit that I've not followed England's progress closely for many years. In fact, since MLT was blamed for the loss to Italy, when it was another one of those collective England performances which was really at fault. However, occasionally I'll drag my disinterested arse to somewhere and watch highlights, or even a match live on the TV, as I did tonight, before I turned over to something more exciting, like Francesco's Italy on BBC4. Anyway, I agree. Has he ever put in a performance worthy of the shirt. I mean truly worthy of the shirt..? There might be one or two occasions where it has been arguable, but none that were definite, IMO. 80+ something caps, the bloke has, and for much of the time he's been bloody invisible, apart from several goals. And if he manages something more than a square pass it's as if he's performed a bloody miracle.
i agree that jags is too injury prone, but i still think he is better than cahill. lescott is also better, it is just fashionable to say he is bad, all last season he looked good; not a world beater, but good, and certainly better than cahill. I also agree that this is a dud argument because jones in 2 years will be a shoe-in, it just annoys me that cahill gets mentioned all the time as a solution to both Rio's injuries and Terry's lack of pace, for the moment, if those two are fit they play. i am also perplexed as to why frank has consistently been on of the best midfielders in the league for the past decade, but just doesnt quite do it for england, and that wont be changing any time soon, i dont think it is a coincidence that we play better with him out of the team. apart from goal scoring prowess, at which he is better than any other midfielder in england, i think he is worse at breaking up the play and is generally less dynamic than the similarly aged parker.
Lescott didn't look good last season though, he looked good in two seasons for Everton but has always been crap other than that.
I was at the cricket so missed the game and can't comment on performances. Having said that, I like Terry and I always feel he is one of few people that still show passion at his age. I'm sure Phil Jones will be a great defender one day but we can't just throw in so many youngsters in at the deep end. Have we not learned from Saints' season in 08/09? We already had Smalling and Cahill in who are hardly experienced players. I don't think it is right to have so many youngsters starting all at once in a big derby game against Wales. I think people are asking too much if they think we are going to murder teams with total football in a derby game against Wales (who have some very good youngsters of their own).
english players are so overrated, how can anyone call milner quality? cahill is hyped up by media sooo much, as is the likes of downing, parker, barry, jones and basically our whole ****ing team. we are not that great of a team, capello gets too much blame when it seems that our team is distinctly average.
Agreed with the bit in bold. Yes, as manager he can employ different tactics and use different players, but it's not like club management, where if there's a gaping defficiency in a team, they can buy in talent. Capello is stuck with what he has. And if what he has isn't good enough, then that's not really his fault. On the other hand, as previous people have said, Milner in the England team? Come on Fabio.
Milner is pretty good, Cahill is very good, Downing is excellent, Parker is excellent, Barry is ****e, Jones is going to be one of the best defenders in the world. Let's not be too harsh.
parker is ok, the media just seem to love him. Cahil is decent, but he too has suddenly become the medias lovechild, Downing is overrated, would much rather we play johnson instead. and to be fair jones will probably be really good. But the fans and media just seem to think we are far better then we actually are, we are miles away from being able to compete with teams like holland and spain
Parker is really, really good. Every time I watched West Ham last season he seemed to be the only one who knew what he was doing. Gary Cahill is very good too, positioning is top notch. To be fair, I'd rather we played Johnson too but that isn't a slant on Downing at all who I think is very good. Just, Johnson is a very talented youngster who I'd love to see being made into the new breed of English side. Nobody cares about Euro, really, let's spend the qualifying campaign, and the tournament, blooding players like Johnson, Smalling and Jones into the side. Feel bad for Stockdale, think he's class but you can't really drop Hart.
Couldn't care less really,not an england man because i'm fed up with being represented by a bunch of egos who care more about their hair and money than football.Southampton football club is my only football team and the only team i care about.
Didn't even bother watching. Instead, I watched a different England team, packed with talent, performing at their very best, playing for one another without fear and getting yet another superb result!
Wales were unlucky not to get something from this match. England teams have always been better when they play at pace and take other team by surprise. This slow passing game does not suit them. We need a British manager. If we were going to win anything, we would have done it a few years back when we had a good side. The world is full of teams who qualify but have no realistic hope of winning. It's time for England fans to realise that is what we are. We qualify most times, we should get through the group games, but that is about our level. On the other hand, our cricket team is packed full of good players and we won again.
England are so over hyped its unreal, when will people just learn to accept that we are about a top 8 team in the world so reaching the quarter finals of a competition is about our level. Sure we may go further if we get a good draw/players perform better than their level, but the players never will as they don't really care about England because of all the added pressure. In recent times players like Gary Neville and Carragher have come out saying that they hated playing for England as the media would asct as if it was a God given right that England would win every major tournament that they play in then they slate the players for every mistake if they lose a game. It is clear to me watching that there are very few players with over 20 caps who look like they are playing with pride and passion, most look like a shell of themselves when compared to how they perform at club level. The other problems England have are deep rooted. By having "the best league in the world" as our domestic top flight has meant that teams have ridiculous amounts of money and therefore are always looking for a quick fix in terms of players, which normally means buying a player from abroad rather than nurturing and developing a young home grown player. If you look at the Bundesliga a few years ago they had similar problems and when Germany had a poor international tournament their FA addressed it. They changed the rules in the country which basically meant that a club couldn't be in debt, all the debt was the chairmans, so if he walked away he took it with him and the club was fine. Or something along those lines. This meant that most clubs stopped paying large wages and transfer fees on foreign players and started investing more in their academies. Sure the German league was **** for a while but it is getting better and better and they have a lot of young home grown talent emerging. Look at their team in the last World Cup with players like Khedira, Ozil and Muller as players who have come through since th new system was introduced. This will never happen in England as the clubs are far too dependent on TV money so would never vote it in. The other major problem is the way young players are spotted and taught how to play. It is almost all about the physical side of the game. I played in an academy for 3 years when I was younger and there were players there with great technical skill who were encouraged not to try step overs and tricks in games to beat a man, but to bulk up and tap and go and use upper body strength to hold players off. This logic meant that I knew of some very gifted footballers who didn't make the grade because of their size/physique/pace and one player I know who went pro was by far the worst player technically in the side, but was a very good athlete. This doesn't happen in other countries like Spain where it is all about technical ability, you could be 5'2 and still make it there if you are good enough as a footballer. I agree about having an English manager, but realistically I can't think of anyone who would do a better job than Capellos done. I mean seriously who is there? Arry? The medias golden boy, if you think that Capello is tactically clueless then I'd love to hear what you have to say with Redknapp in charge. I want him to get the job just to see how the media would react if he fails in their eyes ie not winning a major tournament (which I think he would). Well done to anyone who bothered to read the whole thing, that turned into a bit of an essay
I missed the start, watched 10 minutes and thought to myself "I should care as it's England." But I didn't and watched Holby instead! I even had the TV to myself as my wife was out!