Personally, I think the goalie issue isn't even the most troubling news for England. The problem is the combination of shaky goalies and a toothless attack. England should have created more chances and they should have scored more goals with the chances they had. And the way England created their chances was not through team effort, but through rare occasions of individual class. At no point did I get the impression that a second England goal was immanent. And after around 60 minutes, the little strategy they had broke down completely and all they did was to play long and high passes up front, hoping that Crouch would reach them. The US on the other hand once again proved that you can achieve a lot through determination. Even towards the very end when you could tell that their legs got really heavy, they still managed to hold back the English and even had a couple of chances to win the game. The US team had of course even less of a game-plan going forward and they were relying on individual plays even more than England, but they made up for it with willpower.
England stopped playing after the early lead, that's Italian but no English style. The English guys should know that they have to score a second as safety to compensate a goalie mistake - maybe the Italian coach didn't know that...
They scored plenty of goals in qualifying but the Poms lacked a ball-winner midfield and that's why Capello brought Barry to SA.
playing like they did last night, England wouldn't have qualified for the tournament. Other country's players seem able to raise their game for the world cup. Ours leave you scratching your head wondering why they look so much better playing club football. It's easy to say it's a higher level, but is it? Would the USA squad be anything special if it played in the Premier League? Probably not. And it's not as if the style of football would have been anything of a culture shock either. England have lost the momentum they had during qualifying, playing well below par in the warm-up games. Hopefully a win over Algeria will kick-start the team, as getting out of the group stage will be an achievement playing how we did yesterday. Mind you, who has looked any good so far? Argentina looked good until they scored, but appalling attacking play seems to have been a feature of the world cup so far. 7 goals in 5 games is not good.
capello is to blame 4 last night no one else. he picks the side why put a right sided player on the left and why pick heskey anyway
And we were told in the pre-match thread that Capello was the decisive element here and would 'ave the team better prepared than ever.... England is in dangerous waters here. No doubt they will get the win against Algeria. But if the Slovenes get the win also against Algeria and the US beats Slovenia, well England will need a result against Slovenia in the final match to get out of the group. They can't sit back and rest on their druthers... neither can the USA. Either way this group is going to be interesting and not as EASY as all of England thought. I still have my doubts that England will survive this group. The US gameplan was to neutralize Rooney, Lampard, and Gerrard and pick their moments well to take their shots. They executed and several players came up big time. Now they need to get the win against Slovenia and then a tie against Algeria will be enough, but the win will probably win them the group.
IMO, England's main problem is lack of creative midfielders who can penetrate defense from behind the box with deliberation. The percision passing football is great but it can fall victim to a team like USA which uses team speed and hustle to break up the opponent's game plan.
It would help if we went with our best team and formation : Hart Johnson King Terry A.Cole Lennon Lampard Milner J.Cole Gerrard Rooney Assuming King is out injured, Dawson should take his place for the Algeria game and hopefully Barry will also be available, so it should be : Hart Johnson Dawson Terry A.Cole Lennon Lampard Barry J.Cole Gerrard Rooney
Hilarious picture. Would have been perfect if whoever PSed it had taken off the reflection on the table.
Didn't Heskey put Gerrard's goal on a plate? Which, if I'm not mistaken, is his job. He's not there to score -- he's there to bring others into the offense. At least that's been my understanding.
Yesterday I saw a team in control of the game up until a freak goalkeeping howler. That team went on regardless of controlling the game, pushing forward, and simply failing to take their chances. The other team defended with most of their men behind the ball. Had only one chance and scored off one that they never should have. Had we been talking about two other teams here. We'd say that the first team was very unlucky not to come away with the win. But no, we're talking about England here. England are supposed to win every game and play to absolute perfection. And if they don't, everyone likes to make a comment about how poor they are with having midfielders with no "imagination". lol And I thought USA were supposed to be a decent team? Everyone likes to pick on Heskey but he played far better than Rooney. Even if Rooney was fouled everytime he touched the ball. I don't even care about this result, I know England can play far better. What annoys me is the stupid horns in the games. This World cup has the worst atmosphere in the history of World cups.
Odd though it may sound, that's exactly what Heskey is... And he did his job pretty well. Of all the players you could hang that result on, I have no idea why you'd put in on him.
Poor Green. The world is blaming him, but in my book, his error was no greater than Clark's. Clark let his man get goalside and then decided not to follow him. That's a high school level mistake. Just horrible IMO.
Well he is there to score. But I know what your saying. His main job is to assist. To set up Rooney, to create space for others. To draw in players, hold up the ball, win headers. Heskey was one of Englands best players. Had he scored when he was through on goal. He would have been Man of the match.
I've got a feeling you are a bit one sided if you think the US had only one chance- do you recall the 12 shots? Jozy's header that went just wide? Jozy's shot that was parried off the post? Perhaps you are being a bit myopic ?
I think its down to capello m8 why did he take Heskey instead of Bent heskey couldn't hit a barn door from 6 yards lol. he brought right philips on and played him on the left where it obvious he isn't happy there why not bring on joe cole. The top and bottom of it is he is playing most of them out of position
I really don't think Capello is England's problem. He's far and away the best England coach in quite some time. An insane media and ridiculous expectations are England's problem. It's almost like they want their boys to fail. It's just WAY too much pressure to put on 23 human beings.
They love to say in Europe to teams that either lose or draw; they deserved it so why that doesn't pertain to this game as well to many; I don't know. The USA earned the draw today. The USA controlled most of the First Half and England controlled the Second Half. As far as the goals; both the US and England made mistakes. Whether Green fumbled that crazy ball or Ricardo Clark fumbled following Gerrard, they are mistakes never the less. "IF" Clark had stuck with Gerrard, he wouldn't have scored and "IF" Green had moved his hand over another inch.... It was a fair game and pretty entertaining but the media over hyped this match as usual. Between the horns and the ball, something is not right so far with this WC as justified by the scores and tons of errors happening in all the matches so far. Bad passing has been rampent. Why is that? Rooney was shut down. If Rooney had that one v one instead of Heskey, I believe he would have scored though. Why Hesky started over Crouch, I don't know. A fair earned draw in the end.
I think there should be some worry in the US camp. There have been very few post that talk about how out goal was the result of pure luck. The shot was from about 25m out and directly at the keeper. Apart from that, the danger came from Altidore...twice. Sure, the US shut down Rooney (or he just had an off match, whichever...), and sure Howard had a quality match. Sure that Gerrard and Lampard are unable to work in the midfield. Sure that Lennon and SWP have lots of speed. But England sliced through the US defense to score. They were dangerous down the sides, particularly the right. The US only had a few FKs and Altidore's run past Carrick. Other than that, the US was not very in the last 25m/30m of the pitch. That should worry us. Hopefully the lack of defensive concentration that both Algeria and Slovenia showed today will make this better.