England Euro 2016 Tournament Thread [R]

Someone will spill the beans at some point, even if its not Hodgson.

 

Don't half of the squad usually have books lined up?

 

It comes to something when that's considered a plus-point for an england manager... how good you are at resigning

 

England ********ed up big time. Never knew how they would actually attempt to play not to mention players criminally underperforming.

 

Yeah, I'm on the statins too. You get like that when you get older y'know. You walk into a room and you think, "WHY did I come in here?"

It's kinda tragic and kinda humorous at the same time, isn't it.

 

Thanks - We hadn't worked that out yet.

 

For now on I don't care if we have the best team in the easiest group. I'm not getting my hopes up anymore until we come through with expectations. Could be awhile.

 

Yeah, is THAT what it was... I thought something must have gone wrong.

BTW I'm sure most of you will have caught this but, if not, THIS goes some way to explaining why England doesn't do well at tournaments. This man was our manager for a while and he's a pundit reporting after Iceland have equalised and we're trying to get back back in front again... or not...



That guy... I mean, THAT guy, was our manager

 

Been listening to Danny Murphy on 5live
and he talks alot of sense about why england are so tactically behind...he also blames the fa for only employing yes men and people who have no experience in the game and blames youth football academies for ruining talent and taking the fun out of football for promising youngsters... ( what that has to do with last nights result i dont know ).. but harry redknapp reckons glenn hoddle should get the england job again..

 

I agree the FA and its structure is the real problem, yet Murphy has been one of Hodgson's most vocal cheerleaders. They support their own, this lot, and I doubt they would do any differently. The one person who has been consistent in highlighting the failings at grassroots, almost to the point of pedantry, is Chris Waddle.

 

I've been checking out the Italian side that just tore the Spanish a new one...

Buffon; Barzagli, Bonucci, Chiellini; Florenzi, Parolo, De Rossi, Giaccherini, De Sciglio; Eder, Pelle​

I've looked through the clubs they play for and where they finished in the Italian league.

The thing that strikes me is, although a lot of those players play for clubs at the top of their league, it's not ALL of them.

Giaccherini plays for Bologna who ended up in 14th spot and he's been on loan from Sunderland since 2015. He spent 2 years at Juve from 2011-13 but he bobbled around on loan at various clubs from Cesena, (presently in Serie B, apparently), before that.

He's obviously playing because he's doing a job for the team in midfield which I assume is his position and it seems to me that, if he was English, he wouldn't get a look-in because he's not a 'name'.

It occurs to me that our main problem recently, and certainly in this tournament, has been that we've got few dedicated midfielders and, even those people we DID have, we didn't play. Sometimes they didn't even make the SQUAD.

Henderson was there from Liverpool, (8th in the EPL), but Drinkwater wasn't who's at Leicester... Kante is for France. Instead we play Rooney who's a forward because he's a 'name'. Wilshere is but he's been injured for most of the season AND he didn't get to play much anyway. To be fair that's probably because he HAD been injured.

Most sides at the tourie have got holes in their teams but we seem to nobble our chances even MORE because, even those holes we HAVE got, we ignore..

I'm thinking of central midfield, mainly, where we lack those tidy, busy little players who can both keep possession AND can break down an opposition attack with a tackle. I'd say we have got a few midfielders who can pick a pass, (Wilshere, Henderson maybe), although we haven't got many but we just seemed to knacker ourselves with not picking those few fellas we HAVE got.

 

And yet, as I've said before, even when we DID have good players, (the 2008 CL final started with 10 English players), we couldn't even qualify for the bloody euros under McClaren.

Clearly it's not as simple as just, "Oh, you need good players". There's more to it than that.

 

Rent a quote loudmouth.

 

Changing the coach of the national team would not solve the problems. You see, the national team is the pinnacle of a football pyramid, so therefore changing the top won't have much of an impact..especially a lasting one. It's just masquerading the problem. So coming from an Italian fan, it's easy for me to point out the problems in England.

The one of the problems that are real evident is that once an English player retires, the player rarely pursue a coaching career. Instead, he settles for a more comfortable position in sitting behind a desk and become a TV analyst. This is a problem because the regeneration of coaches of a nation becomes non-existent when claearly successful manager was always once a player. This doesn't happen in Italy. Instead, our retirees almost instantly pursue a way to obtain a coaching license. Look at Conte, Montella, Inzaghi, Mancini, Donadoni, Di Francesco, Oddo, etc.

Another problem is homegrown players. Every nation understands that foreign players are a necessity to a league, but too much foreigners and low amount of homegrown players most likely will lead to bad results for the national team. I think Juventus' president Andrea Agnelli put it best when he said:

“It is fundamental to have a foundation of seven, eight or nine Italian players in the squad. They are those who can perceive the mood of the environment, which means they cannot leave the house without hearing the reaction of the fans"

You see, the relationship between the players and the fans need to be present. It's easy just to walk in a press conference after a defeat and answer questions from reporters or journalists in a professional and calm atmosphere, anybody can do it. It's different when you face the angry and furious fans and hear them curse at you, belittle you, mock you, and asks for accountability. It might be ugly on television, but that's where the transition between youth and a man happens and most importantly that's where the soul of a footballer is created....which is clearly missing everytime the England NT steps into the pitch.

There are more, but let's leave it there. Cheers..

 

Regardless, he is absolutely correct. The Premier League is a subject of much ridicule among people who watch La Liga, the Bundesliga, Serie A etc. Tactically we are miles behind.

 

I'll just leave this here....

 

Yea, really like him on MOTD as well. Unlike a lot of former pros ( Shearer, I'm looking at you ! ) the guy is smart and articulate.

The first 60 minutes against Slovakya with an actual midfield of Dier, Henderson and Wilshere were the best performance of England in many years. Hodgson's usual "strategy" of stacking as many attackers as possible is just dumb as shit. The subs were inexplicable too, Wilshere on was the right move, but why on earth for Dier...Wilshere had to play as a midfield destroyer instead of the playmaker he is. Sterling, the probably most overrated player on this planet, should have come off instead.

A 4-3-3 with Dier, Henderson (Drinkwater), Wilshere-Rooney, Vardy, Sturridge would have vastly outperformed this site.

 

The problem for England is simple....they don't have any world class players. Heck, arguably they don't even have any very good players. Don't believe me? Then consider the following:

#1 - not a single England player made the 35-player shortlist for European Player of the Year last year. Hard to believe, but true.
#2 - the last England player to finish in the top ten of the European Player of the Year voting was Wayne Rooney....four years ago.

People tend to think England should be good because of how much attention and hype the EPL gets, but the truth is that England just doesn't have the talent.

 

Even if we assume all of that is true, none of it explains why we didn't beat Iceland.

 

We have enough talent to do well. We need better coaching. I don't give a rats ass about awards.

 

England hasn't won anything for 50 years not just when the EPL started. What about those years from 1967 - 1998? We had English coaches, a lot of English players in the league.

Can't just blame just the league or just the coaches or just the players. Its more than that.

It's a combination of everything. Its a deep problem and nobody knows the answer to it.

 

It is a combination of lots of things, historically it has been about coaching at all levels, but this particular failure I think you can put down to mentality. I don't know that there's much Hodgson can do when Rooney suddenly can't trap a ball, Kane forgets how to hit the target and Hart behaves like the football is an IED.