England vs. Holland, Friendly: Wednesday 29/02/12, 20:00 Wembley, London [R]

He should have picked a style/philosophy and built the midfield around either Scholes or Lampard; rather than trying to shoehorn those two (and Gerrard who was no central midfielder) into the same midfield.

 

The team was effective in 04. Rooney's injury, accompanied by homer ref robbery, had a huge impact on how far we could have gone.. Sven in the later years got too defensive.

 

I, for one, and excited about the young blood that is coming up and starting to blend in with the squad, or will soon get their chance... Welbeck, Sturridge, Jones, Smalling, Butland, Ox-Chamb, McE, Barkley, Wickham etc... A lot to be excited about

 

people who say sven was too this and that, i would give my left nut if he was still there now. 08 wouldnt have happenned and 10 we would have come top and had a joke run to the semis. and we would also currently not be in the joke situation we find ourselves in.

 

Baffling reading the views from some people suggesting the current young players coming through are of a lesser standard than previous generations. Surely the current state of the national team is due to the failure of recent generations coming through to step up and make an impression, and is anymore evidence needed than a player like Parker who has become a regular so late in his career and is now even captain?

 

I am yet to see anything in Mceachran to warrant the hype, but Welbeck looks a player.

Wilshere is more talented, and perhaps more importantly, a more continental type of player than all those from the 'Golden Generation' you mention.

 

Your posts constantly repeat the mantra that people are influenced by the media(it's rather 2004), yet you're still influenced by the Golden Generation guff and seem to think that not only Gerrard and Lampard were/are are CMs, but could also play together in CM.

 

Sven shouldn't have always started Owen in 2004 - sure he was still a great goalscorer, but he should have created more room in midfield for Scholes to be a CM. This to me was his biggest mistake, but I generally agree with Lost that he was good for England (of course he did have Rio, Campbell and Hargreaves)

 

That's very true actually. Really you would think a coach would have noticed at the time that his soft shoe style was suite to a deeper role.

 

didnt do too badly from deep in 02 from my memory, plus in 00 he was one of the few half decent players on display. and 04 was his last tournie, which, but for bad luck he might have won.

 

Re. McEachran... all what hype? All I've seen is one poster mention him in passing.

McEachran's still very much a work in progress, like fellas like Barkley at the toffees. They MIGHT become a player at some point but then again, so might lots of people.

We had some good players about 5-10 years ago and if they'd have been used better we'd have had more success. Unfortunately part of that period was wasted with people like Keegan and McSven but, more to the point, I'm not sure anyone on here's ever called them 'the golden generation' have they?

Some of the 'meeja' might have done but that's another matter.

Regarding whether Gerrard and Lampard could play in midfield on their own or not... where did he say that?

I've said I thought they could play in the same side with someone like Parker, Barry or the other fella behind them but that's another matter. In any event that was proven more or less right by our most successful run of games in recent years early in fabio's reign.

You just sound like you're trying to find something to moan about tbh

 

A lot of that was paper-talk. Eriksson's said himself it was all nonsense and that he started speaking to his senior players when he started managing.

The reason for the reversion to a 4-4-2 was that he couldn't make his mind up as to who to drop and the formations he had tried in training hadn't worked.

Scholes was one of the greatest midfielders in Europe in the early to mid noughties.

Scholes could have done it back in the day but he needed the right players alongside him and Eriksson had allowed the 'meeja' to dictate a list of several players who couldn't be dropped including Lampard and Gerrard and that just ain't gonna work.

But in terms of what we're faced with now I agree that Carrick could be that player. However, like Scholes before him, he needs a particular group of players around him for it to work as he's one rather paced and isn't the greatest tackler in the game.

 

Well they are young players, they're gonna be unproven. Silly argument.

 

I think Jitty was referring to the fact that Scholes was an AM in the early part of his career.

 

Well, that raises an interesting question, doesn't it.

The tragedy of the England set-up for me is that we've had 3 players, Steven Gerrard, Paul Scholes and Frank Lampard, all of whom have been among the best attacking midfielders in Europe at various parts of their career and we've managed to contrive to use them ALL in the wrong way for different reasons.

For me Gerrard isn't as neat and tidy on the ball which makes him unsuitable for a central midfield role. That's why he sometimes wasn't played there even by his club... BUT he's got great running power, is decisive when he's got some space and is also a good tackler.

Frank's very good on the ball and can be relied upon generally to keep possession. He also makes those late runs into the box but he's not really a tackler, (although he does get into decent defensive positions so the team keeps it's shape). Overall, I'd say he's more disciplined than stevie both positionally and in not trying hollywood balls but that's more an impression than anything.

Scholes could both tackle, (although he was more likely to give away a FK or even a pen than the other two) and create with both passes and shots. He's also one of the few English players that can be said to be as good, (probably even better in his day), as ANY of the continental midfielders at not giving the ball away. That's why the Madrid dressing room were said to be huge admirers of him when Zidane was there.

The point I'm making is that ALL of them have their failings.

You couldn't have Lampard and Gerrard alone in midfield because that would quickly lead to one of them, (probably Lampard), on his own there. Great if Stevie's marauding run leads to a goal... not so great if it doesn't because Frank's not a terrific tackler.

An option might have been for Frank or Stevie to play alongside Scholes but then the 'meeja' would have been up in arms that the other one wasn't playing or had been moved to a position he didn't really fancy. That's my argument with Sven... that he wouldn't make the decision or made ones that I think were simply wrong so we had Gerrard and Lampard in central midfield and SCHOLES moved wide. For me, that layout makes no sense.

As I said before, the above is why I was convinced, (despite people saying Gerrard and Lampard couldn't play in the same team), that playing Frank and someone else who could keep possession, even if they didn't really do a great deal else, (such as Barry), alongside him and moving Gerrard further forward and wide could work and it was proven correct in the early years under Capello.

The annoying thing for me is that we COULD have tried that years ago.