[Prenn]

Right lets get this out of the way.

Heskey and Murphy are not interntational class. Heskey may have set up the first goal but his play against part-timers was abismal, he's also statistically England's worst striker ever. Get rid of them. If Heskey can get in the England squad on his form over the last 3 years then Beattie should be an automatic choice. He can't be any worse than Bruno.

12 minutes for Rooney? Sven's taking the piss.

What a poor performance; rushed, panicky and clueless. It's almost all down to the tactics. We don't have the players for 4-4-2 and why the ************ is Scholes so deep? Play it to ************ing feet!!!

I've said it time and time again why hit long balls to a striker who is under 6 foot?

I fully expect Turkey to get a result against us on Wednesday and hopefully that will mean Sven's out of a job by Saturday. He's not the man he was when he first took over. He used to select players on merit now he selects names and has his 'favourites' just like Keegan and Hoddle before him.

The wins against Germany and Argentina were freak results and a distant memory and I dare to suggest that Keegan may have done a job that was just as good, if not better than Sven has done up to now.

Dare we forget England 3-1 Albania, when they had a perfectly good goal disallowed late in the second half at 2-1 and it took a late Andy Cole goal to make it look 'convincing'? England 2-2 Greece? we should have won, a place at the world cup was at stake for God's stake. England 1-1 Sweden? A great first half performance was follwed by turgid crap. England 3-0 Denmark? 3 goals from 3 mistakes and not a hint of another chance. England 1-2 Brazil? The start of Svens downfall, an inept performance all round lacking in any tactical flexibility. England 2-1 Slovakia? Again a win when we didn't deserve it; clueless, no creativity and downright awful. England 2-2 Macedonia? Need I say more? And no Liechtenstein 0-2 England, the odds were 8-1 for this result, you could get better odds for scores of up to 7-0. Sven said not to expect a rout, he was just covering his back but I say he was wrong, we should expect a rout and so should he. This game pointed to all that is wrong with Sven's game plan and team selection. It was truly dire.

Sven may have lost just one competetive game but he's drawn with teams he should have beaten and the performances have been appalling. Face Sven's England against any top 10 side and we'll see just how good he is (let's try wednesday for a start). to put it simply his record is below average and flatters to deceive.

This is a rant, no two ways about it. I gave Sven time even after that Australia game because I saw a light at the end of the tunnel but now I am firmly behind the Sven Out campaign. In his reign he took one step forward followed by three steps back.

I firmly believe this man should play no further part in the future of English football and I dare anyone to challenge this.

[SJFC4ever]

Bit of a rant there, Hope you've calmed down by Wednesday.

OK, looking from not-so-far, I think your manager has two principal problems:

1. His obsession with a fairly rigid 4-4-2. He has slightly tinkered with this at times, maybe pushing Scholes up, but generally the same (predictable?) shape.

2. His obsession with players from certain clubs. If you take Sven's first choice XI, I would bet that they would almost all be from Arsenal, ManUre or Liverpool. (maybe Dyer on the left, and some players from other clubs filling out the squad)

Now this has its advantages, such as understanding between players (eg Gary Neville - Beckham). But it is also very dangerous, since he is not very open to other ideas. I am astonished, for example, that Alan Thompson isn't somewhere near that team. I thought Sven watched Liverpool-Celtic, but perhaps he was wearing blinkers, or maybe he didn't realise that Thompson is English!

Then you also have the situation where one of the top scorers in your league is kept out by four strikers with a sum total less than his, which is obviously daft. As someone pointed out this week, if Beattie had scored 20 goals for Arsenal and Jeffers had scored 4 goals for Southampton, there would be no-one even suggesting Jeffers for that squad.



But to defend Sven, I would point out that he has made England very hard to beat (unfortunately). This was not the case under Keegan. He has also integrated some younger players. His main danger is that he over-relies on certain favourites, who may end up letting him down. He has to be ruthless, and get rid of some players (Heskey!).

[Prenn]

Originally posted by SJFC4ever




But to defend Sven, I would point out that he has made England very hard to beat (unfortunately). This was not the case under Keegan. He has also integrated some younger players. His main danger is that he over-relies on certain favourites, who may end up letting him down. He has to be ruthless, and get rid of some players (Heskey!).

I agree with most of your observations but I disagree in this respect. I feel he's made England easier to beat, Liechtenstein had several good chances tonight that a top team would have buried, it certainly wouldn't have been pretty for England and I certainly don't think we'd have won. I worry for wednesday

I also debate the issue of younger players, true he has some in the squad but isn't he playing pretty much the same team as Keegan? For instance he should have given up on Seaman before the world cup but persisted with him and we suffered. 10 minutes for Rooney? Surely he deserved 45 and what about wonder boy Jeffers? Jenas?

Also questions must be asked tactically, not just in the formation but in the brand of football. Does it make sense to bypass England's midfield (undoubtably our strongest area) with long balls? It's horribly predictable.


On an different note I watched your lads notch up a hard fought win against Iceland and with Germany drawing with Lithuania (and I thought England had it bad!) I'm sure you must feel confident of qualifying for Euro2004.

[sinner78]

Sven is predictable..
teams already know what team he will pick and the formation...
Will sven know what Turdkey have got planned for the next game??? not bloodly likely...

We've got a decent pool of talent..
we should play better ..
A decent manager would be able to craft a useful team from the players available...

[Desigol]

Personaly, I think Seth Johnson should play on the left. He was groomed for that spot in the England team. Then he was axed in favour of Barmby (who sucked arse in that position). Move Dyer to Right Back and play Barry (another player groomed for England stardom only to be sacrificed) at Left Back.

[Wildman262]

The Sven bashing is fine, but there were still 11 players on the pitch that play in the Premiership. From the sound of it, England they struggled against some minnows.
Is the rest of the world catching up? Lithuania tied Germany today.

[RichardL]

Originally posted by Wildman262
The Sven bashing is fine, but there were still 11 players on the pitch that play in the Premiership. From the sound of it, England they struggled against some minnows.
Is the rest of the world catching up? Lithuania tied Germany today.

Liechtenstein has a population of 35,000. England 48 million. I don't care how organised they are, they should stand no chance at all. They may have one or two pros in their team, but the rest would be at best Div 2/3 players in England, and that's being polite. Saying that, the result didn't surprise me one bit. I dont think Sven has any belief at all in the ability of England's players to play anything other than his "hit a long ball to Owen" tactic. All the talk in the camp seemed to be along the lines of "we dare not fail". The team just seems pre-occupied with failure. It's as if all they talk about is how bad it'll be if they don't win. That sort of mentality virtually guarantees failure. I hate to say it but I can't see anything other than a Turkish victory on Wednesday.

[Prenn]

Originally posted by RichardL
Liechtenstein has a population of 35,000. England 48 million. I don't care how organised they are, they should stand no chance at all. They may have one or two pros in their team, but the rest would be at best Div 2/3 players in England, and that's being polite. Saying that, the result didn't surprise me one bit. I dont think Sven has any belief at all in the ability of England's players to play anything other than his "hit a long ball to Owen" tactic. All the talk in the camp seemed to be along the lines of "we dare not fail". The team just seems pre-occupied with failure. It's as if all they talk about is how bad it'll be if they don't win. That sort of mentality virtually guarantees failure. I hate to say it but I can't see anything other than a Turkish victory on Wednesday.

The Liechtenstein pros are division 3 standard, the rest of the team is sub conference level. Most of the players play in the Swiss 4th division. Most small English towns should be able to put a team together capable of beating Liechtenstein.

[sinner78]

Liechenstein held rep of ireland to a 0 - 0 draw a couple of years back.
They are one of those teams that play with a ten man defence and generally hope to lose by as little as possible ..They usually lose by 2 or 3 goals with the occasional big thrashing.
They are similar to andorra or luxembourg.

[Clan]

This of course now brings up the question of when and where to bring in some new blood and tactics.
Do we do it against the Turks?
Run out a few of the rather inexpierenced players against a rather expierenced Turkish side that will have the smell of a win in their collective noses?

The team selection-not the squad selection as he has shown this to be nothing more than a ********in joke for quite some time now-should be interesting.

I have said on many other posts here that Heskey is a decent player at best, certainly not international standard.But if Sven keeps up his bollox of hoof and hope he has to play doesn't he?

It wasn't that long ago that talk of a defeat to the Turks would be silly.Now, with the team of yesterday coupled with the tactics i think a draw will be a push.
Something simply has to change.

McClaren for the step up?