Were we really humiliated?

[Prenn]

Originally posted by divingheader
So England lost to Australia. So What. The Socceroos are a decent team. The game cost nobody nothing. Sven looked at a lot of new talent. Great. When else should he do this? The fans got to see the national team play, and more importantly, the national team got to play together. The young guns looked good. Again great.

England fans should be excitedly talking about Jeffers and Rooney and Jenas. England fans should be talking about Sven keeping his eyes open and looking to improve the squad with new blood.

IMHO, England is the favorite for Euro glory in Portugal. A very good team that isn't on its last gasp and has a very lot young talent beating on the senior squad for playing time.

Listen to Elvis... Get Happy.

The problem is that this performance is worse than against Macedonia and Slovakia. I see no evidence to put England anywhere near Euro2004 favourites, we're waaay too inconsistent. We saw a virtual U21 side play in the second half, we saw England B, not A and even they didn't 'beat' the Aussies in the time they got. I'd like to have seen some of the kids play with the full team for the whole game but there's very little to be gained by playing them with people who are just back up players in the England squad. The second half of the match wasn't even an international, it was a mid-table Premiership clash.

'The fans got to see the national team play' is taking the piss. I think most of them would have chosen to stay at home if they knew it was going to be like that

'The national team got to play together', yep for 45 minutes and they weren't very convincing. They clearly couldn't be bothered. There's nothing positive about that.

[divingheader]

Originally posted by Prenn
"The national team got to play together', yep for 45 minutes and they weren't very convincing."

Any team needs more time than these guys are getting to come together. England seems to have virtually no camps, no extended training time where the team can gel. It must go something like Sven clapping his hands for silence and saying "Right, if you've been capped before, take a white shirt..., th rest of you lot get a red shirt and introduce yourselves."

Brazil had a tough time in WC qualifying. Rivaldo complained that he had to fly all one day, play the game the next, and fly all day the third day to get back to Europe. But once the team got together for a while (in Asia), they did OK.

[Prenn]

Originally posted by divingheader
Originally posted by Prenn
"The national team got to play together', yep for 45 minutes and they weren't very convincing."

Any team needs more time than these guys are getting to come together. England seems to have virtually no camps, no extended training time where the team can gel. It must go something like Sven clapping his hands for silence and saying "Right, if you've been capped before, take a white shirt..., th rest of you lot get a red shirt and introduce yourselves."

Brazil had a tough time in WC qualifying. Rivaldo complained that he had to fly all one day, play the game the next, and fly all day the third day to get back to Europe. But once the team got together for a while (in Asia), they did OK.

Okay, point taken :)

[rymannryan]

I'm only a ture fan of DCU and USMNT team. However, I "sympathize" with England, meaning I usually pull for them in their games, but I'm not heartbroken if they lose. Having said that, here's what I think . . . . . . . .

1. First, its a meaningless friendly, so it should not be taken TOO seriously.

2. Sven's half game policy doesn't benefit the team. For the new players to get experience, they need to be on the field at the same time as the regulars.

3. Not having a friendly in November during the international window was a huge mistake by Sven. That was when he should have tried out the new players. The recent friendly should have been used as a true preparation for the upcoming qualifiers. Therefore, he should not have made the mass substitutions.

4. Sven needs to stop being slapped around by Premiership managers. He should say f*** you to them. Brazil, France, and other countries managers couldn't give less of a s*** what Whinger or Sir Alex want them to do. So why should Sven? If they start refusing to release players, pull out the FIFA rules and make that player sit out the next game. The complaining by the managers will never stop. Every month is "crunch" time according to them, so he should just stand up to it. If he wasn't trying to appease the managers, he wouldn't do that ridiculous half game policy.

5. And finally, like others have said, he needs to adjust to the players he has when choosing a formation.