Turkey vow to finish off faltering England Turkey have vowed to finish off England's stuttering hopes of winning Group Seven when they come to the Stadium of Light for the Euro 2004 qualifier next year. http://msn.skysports.com/skysports/article/0,,1860-1067548,00.html
We've heard it all before... We always get written off..... Every little slip up is classed some kind of major tragedy... This kind of talk reminds me of all the stuff we heard before we played Germany ,argentina and even denmark.... Write us off at your peril... We always get mouthy gobshites writing us off... its nothing new....
This is just trash-talking. I would like to believe Turkey's coach knows better than to Jinx the whole team. The last time a Turkish team was too overconfident going to England was when Besiktas got their butts whooped by Leeds. Gala on the other hand always had a more humble stride and managed decent matches against Liverpool last year.
To be honest if we continue to play as we have been against Slovakia and Macedonia then Turkey will wipe the floor with us. I'm a proud, patriotic Englishman but i know rubbish when i see it. The thing that worries me is the seeming total absence of any knid of tactics or formation from England. Pass, pass, hoof never won many games at international level.
With the players England have they should be among the 5-10 best teams in the world, so the problem could be Sven who IMO plays far to defensive. Turkey has the opposite problems compared to England. The midfield and offence is great, but the defence is terrible. Even Liechtenstein manged to get a few good chances to score in the latest game. I think the two games are going to very close.
i agree with all thats been said, imho sven seems a bit of a stubborn chap, he doesnt change things up. like wayne bridge, it took him a lot of games before he gave bridge the chance to play with cole, two natural left footers, think they should have had that chance a couple of games ago. on another note, does hakan unsal get playing time with turkey anymore, i just remember his CL goal against i believe it was rangers or monaco,- it was a wicked strike.
Although we have some fantastic players we lack a couple of necesssary players. We don't have a player who can run with the ball to commit opposing players - say a Giggs or a Rommedahl [sp?]. We also don't have a recognised left footed midfield player and however we try to compensate it just isn't happening for us. We need to presure the opposition much higher up the pitch when we lose the ball - you may have noticed, even during the WC, how we are quite content to retreat to the edge of our penalty area before trying to get the ball back. We also need to stop giving good possession away - if Slovakia and Macedonia can hurt us - then Turkey can savage us. It needs to eb sorted out quickly. That is what Sven gets paid around £3m a year for [$4.5m]
You know, I just don't get it. France won the Euro 2000, yet there was so much press on England not winning Euro 2000. What's with the infatuation? I know a lot of this is in part due to the British media spewing many a stories out of proportion. But it seems like with every result that isn't scintillating, or if England gets an unfavorable result - every Tom Dick and Harry bursts from the shadows proclaiming that "The end is neigh!!"
Well every fan wants his team to play well all the time. But that isn't always the case. England were awfull in the second half against Brasil and are still paying for it. It will take awhile for that memory to go away.
Perhaps it's because it's our national pasion - and because it is a game that was standardised in England, maybe we feel we SHOULD be among the best exponents of it. We are renowned as a nation of reserved people - but not when it comes to football !!!! We love our football with such a passion - it is extremely close to us and it is almost physically palpable when we do well. A bad football loss is a minor tragedy [in the loose sense of the word] - but also there is the small fact of us having the richest league in the world, the richest club in the world, the richest football association in the world - so i suppose we feel there are good grounds for us to have a decent national team. Whcih sometimes it is - but often it isn't.
listen up mug.. The only team that has beaten us in recent times is world champs Brazil. You;re one of those doom and gloom merchants who crawls out from under their rocks after every slightly disappointing result... One bad result and we're suddenly a "bad" team. You remind of all the doom-mongers who were predicting we would get hammered by germany and argentina... You aint no england fan. I bet you make a crisis out of every little problem.
Sure i'm no England fan - remember standing on the terraces of Wembley in the late 70's early 80's with 17,000 other diehards against Northern Ireland and Wales do you ? Then 2 weeks later there'd be 100,000 against Scotland - with 60,000 England "fans" selling their tickets to The Scots ? I'm as passionate about England as the next man - it doesn't mean i can't criticise shyte when i see it. We have been playing poorly for a while now - as bad as we have for a long time. The quality of our players means that we should be able to string more than 3 consequetive passes together without having to punt the ball in a hit and hope. You're more of an England fan than me because you're blind to any shortcomings ?? Don't follow the logic there to be honest. Less of the personal abuse would probably make your points a bit more valid.
I dont start predicting doom and gloom after every disappointing game. We get a bad 2 -2 draw against an average team and now some so-called fans are making it sound as if our whole world has fallen apart. remember when we lost to Holland at white hart lane??? we got outplayed and suddenly the press and all the critics came out and said we were doomed and germany would destroy us in munich.. what happened in munich??? we all know what happened dont we??? remember when we played bad agianst sweden in the first round of the world cup?? critics and doom-mongers said ..."ohhh we havent got a chance against argentina ,they'll thrash us.." and what happened??? I dont lose the plot after each poor result...
Okay - i accept a lot of what you say - but it certanly doesn't apply to this England fan. I neevr take friendlies seriously anyway - that is the time to give fringe players a run out - and it's worth risking poor performances/results to see if any players can emerge. I just think that our game has deteriorated - during the World Cup i think we did extremely well - and performances could be offset against an obviously unfit Beckham and Owen, and due to the big loss of Neville and Gerrard. But it pains me to see us play a pass to the full back - into the centre midfield, back to the full back then HOOOOOFFFFFF. Our players are better than that surely ? We don't seem to be able to play as a unit at all and what happened against Slovakia and Macedonia will continue to happen if we cannot keep possession better and pressure the ball better when we don't have it - our tactics have just about lost Owen as a player - he's no line-leading target man, yet he's having to deal with balls 7ft in the air coming from 70 yards away - it is not gonna get us very far playing this way. I thinksome of our players are as good as there are anywhere - but we need to play better football.
The main offender for hitting hopeless long balls is Gary neville IMHO . He was missing during the world cup and we played better in defence. Surely its no coincidence??? Our best ball player in defence is Rio Ferdinand and he missed slovakia and Macedonia. He is the link between defence and midfield . Sol campbell aint really a good passer is he?? I reckon he can get Rio back and ditch Neville and things will improve.... Im midfield...we should put bowyer on the left . Thats if sven can put aside his mysterious non-selection of bowyer from the last 2 games.... I have also noted that scholes performances in midfield aint up to scratch .He must improve or be dropped for someone like Joe Cole . I agree that things are far from ideal but they aint as bad as you are claiming .All this talk about getting "savaged" by turkey is over the top. we dont play as many long balls as you claim either...Its just certain players like gary neville . i would like to see england play a 3-5-2 formation. That would suit us better than rigidly sticking to a 4-4-2 every game.....
To me England always seem to play better when they are up against it. I don't think England handle the burden of expectation well at all. England tactically don't look good. One thing we really lack is a dominant figure in midfield. For example, to me Sakiri ran the show in the middle for Macedonia on Wednesday. If he hadn't been there Macedonia would have been half the side they were. If England had a player like that (and we don't) this would be a very different team.
I think our players are better suited to 3-5-2 as well. We don't see the game exactly the same way - fair enough, it is a game of opinions. But if you look back at the last couple of matches then it's surprising how many times Becks, Neville and Gerrard get the ball, look up and belt it. I fullay agree about Scholes and have been sayiong for a long time that he needs to earn his place again - apart from against Argentina at the WC, i can't remember his last decent game - in Munich ? But if you compare the performance in Munich [as opposed to just the result] and look how we're performing now - what has happened in the meantime to turn us from such a cohesive unit then - to what we seem to be becoming ?
yeah its true... We seem to win when we get written off... See examples of germany ,argentina ,denmark... As soon as hype starts we lose the plot... Thats what happened against Brazil in the world cup .Also in games like Albania ,greece ,etc...
Again you're coming out with all this doom and gloom stuff .Our world hasn't ended just because we had 2 games where we didn;t play as well. The conditions in slovakia were terrible and its hard to blame anyone for playing longer passes on that pitch ...we had a good unit in the world cup and we havent totally forgotten how to play in the space of a couple of games.... We cant play like we did in munich in every game. we had a nightmare start to the last qualifying campaign with a defeat to germany and a draw against finland ....We came back to win the group. We can rediscover our form and all this will be forgotten . If we have a bad time against liechtenstein then I would be more concerned....I dont see why we are having all these debates just because of one bad game .... Italy lost to wales.. sweden drew at home to hungary.. ireland lost to switzerland at home Germany had a bad game against the faroes... i dont see them having these heated debates .. I dont see them predicting doom and gloom. i dont see all the critics jumping on their backs...
Agreed totally, we don't have another qualifing game until April (wow thats a long time with no England). In other words Sven has a long time to ponder what he's going to do to get England back on track. No one's gonna be in top form yet, Macedonia was odviously underestimated and maybe they gave us a serious wake up call for Seamen (I do feel bad for the chap, 2 similar goals given up in competitive games). I think we can turn this all around and beat Turkey at least once, because I think we have a better team then them. Like sinner said, we started last qualifing losing to the scum and tieing Finland and we still won the group. We haven't even lost yet
Re: Sakiri It should be Bolton dammit!!!! Damn work permit crap rules ************ing top 75 bollocks!!!!