Euro 2012 Quarter-final: England v Italy 24/06/2012, 19:45, Olympic Stadium, Kiev, Ukraine [R]

nice, imo just like people on the arsenal forum, u can't just judge teams from 1 or 2 games and evaluate their whole history, same as people who read club forums and use the fans knowledge as their own.....watching a team regularly through different eras is the only way u can evaluate....pseudo knowledge is what i call it!

ox can defend his position as well as young at least and he doesn';t lose posession or is barged off the ball as easily

young is shite for utd, i know a season ticket holder who hates him too....useless player

 

I think having a couple of central defenders who are good on the ball would help, Lescott makes John Terry look like Xavi. He looks scared when he's on the ball at the back.

3 midfielders is a must, even if they don't have the skill of the other countries, we still need three. I can't see how Barry can argue that having 3 midfielders is not a good idea because they don't have the talent of the Portugal midfield 3. Does this mean we should have 2 midfielders and look even weaker in the middle of the park?

 

what england need is wilshere to be fit or to have a deep lying midfielder who will come and get the ball off the cbs and start moves a la pirlo as well as competent passing central midfielders....with good service welbeck will be dynamite, if carrick had not been an arrogant twat, we may have looked better

 

Well I think having Rooney and Welbeck/Carroll stuck up the field doing nothing was a waste of time. It would have been better to have any midfielder in there even if they aren't the best. They couldn't do any less than Rooney and Welbeck were doing. They could have told Phil Jones to man mark Pirlo and that would have been a hell of a lot more useful than Rooney and Welbeck sat there watching the midfield run round in circles.

'Hodgson had little time and stuck to what he knew'

I would say that if Hodgson only knows bunker 4-4-2 long ball then the FA made a huge mistake in hiring him. I don't know why we keep getting managers who insist on playing and failing using this system, it's clear as day that we always get over run in midfield yet manager after manager comes in and slaps the old 4-4-2 formation on the board in the dressing room.

 

He didn't do that well, Pirlo still had a huge amount of time on the ball when Welbeck was on the pitch, once Carroll came on the situation just got worse. I don't know how Welbeck who is suppose to be the furthest man forward can man mark Pirlo out of the game better than a Phil Jones could have done.
That's my point, I'm not blaming Welbeck but Hodgson shouldn't be asking a forward to do the job of a midfielder, Welbeck should have been up front on his own with the sole job of getting the ball and putting it in the net, not being asked to pick up Pirlo.

 

I get the impression he's a bit of a flat track-bully/ small-timer. Lot's of talent and if he's the most gifted player on the pitch he will shine, with and against good players he hides.

 

I have a question for you Barry. Do you think Norway, Belgium, Sweden and Ukraine had a better 11 players on the pitch than England when we played them?

 

Pirlo can have the ball around his own 18 yard box, he isn't doing any damage there, I was more worried when he was in England's half and no one was within 20 yards of him.
Rooney and Carroll both in Italy's half stood there watching.
I don't care what player has the ball around their own 18 yard box, I am worried when opposition's best player has the ball in our half and no one is anywhere near him.
Pirlo may come and get the ball off the central defenders but he doesn't stay there, he works his way up the field so he can play a killer ball

Phil Jones should have been on with the instructions that the moment Pirlo crosses the half way line you stick to him like a fly on sh!t

 

If thats so, hopefully Hodgson has now realised it is massively flawed system in a tournament environment. We shouldn't be being dominated by second and third tier teams which includes players from lower\lesser leagues. It's unacceptable.

 

u don't want pirlo man marked? then the team has to defend him and put pressure on him and recover in zones....we were awful, at least danny tried to limit pirlos time on the ball

if anything, take rooney off for carrol!

 

I wanted Jones on so Italy wouldn't have the ball for the whole of the second half. I wanted him on to break up their play and not make it so easy for them to keep possession and finally I wanted him on to stop their best player from doing any damage.
Swapping Carroll for Welbeck didn't exactly give us more of the ball or create more chances in front of goal, you need to get hold of the ball in the first place for that to happen. It's not rocket science.

 

I never said dominate.....Being on par with the likes of Norway\Sweden when passing in midfield is not a lot to ask for. The passing, movement, positioning throughout all 6 games has been atrocious...I don't know why you're defending it.

 

That I agree with. Apart from anything it implies that if you haven't got the best midfielders in the world you shouldn't bother having any at all.