Tragic Football Stories - Let us Kick Around the misshapen Jabulani that is English football right here

What about this young Barkley fellow at Everton?

England have always produced good pacy wingers who can consistently beat their man to the touchline before crossing it into the opposite stand.

and the fullbacks are not 'slightly flaky' they are pacy non-footballers, or at best non-defenders, with only a very few very notable exceptions.

yeah thats pretty much not true at all when the best young english player is a cm, although wilshere is just about the best of any age, and rodwell is the best u20 player and he will end up a cm, and wenger intends to develop aoc to play more centrally

england fbs are mostly imbecile runners like kyle walker or like.....carl jenkinson

their wingers aren't worth shit either in the grand scheme of things, even zaha is completely unproven and nobody would rate him over much younger players like bakkali

ugh rodwell = barkley

rodwell himself is better than any fb/winger but he is very english in his dynamism and lack of concentration or composure

gonna have to step in here - jenks far more aware a defender than walker

yeah i wasnt categorizing jenkinson with walker i was saying he is his own thing

Wilshere is the best young English player by some distance but appears to be particularly injury prone. Rodwell's also had his problems and City doesn't really look like a great environment for him to be developing in.

People like Sterling and Townsend may well progress but yes they are unproven and don't look like world class players in the making.

Nothing to do with Pellegrini as a coach, they're just stocked with much better options. I'm still not convinced by AOC, steam train athleticism notwithstanding.

sterling is good but he seems to be a horrible little cunt and could go either way
townsend is epl level but not technically good enough to step up to cl level
redmond was the best u21 player this summer and should be a good player

jonjo shelvey

are any of these better than jermaine pennant was at the same age

and he has had a quietly half decent career, which is the sort of level this lot should aspire to

zaha has the size to maybe become more of a direct threat

connor wickham ftw

shelvey is trash, utterly mindless player

Also England's long-term prospects at CF look utterly dreadful, only Sturridge is worth the time of day and he's a greedy cock as well.

Welbeck?

sturridge is the only english cf in years who even looks like a natural striker rather than a converted sprinter or a 6'3 200lb lump like wickham

welbeck doesn't do it for me tbh but people have been getting more excited about him

sturridge has v good vision and seems to have worked on his finishing

welbeck doesn't seem to have the right instincts, tho he has good physical and reasonably good technical traits

being a greedy cock is forgivable in a CF as long as he delivers regular goals, my concern for Studge wd be the extent to which he's a confidence player

i've been quite impressed by how sturridge uses the ball, he will actually bide time until there's a worthwhile pass, gives "holding it up" a new meaning, rather than it describing a player whom you can hoof the ball at.

xposts

Welbeck is good but is never going to be prolific and is better suited to a deeper role I think.

I've just realised how long it's been since I watched an England game.

the reason i bumped the liverpool thread yesterday is that i consider them to be playing the best football in england right now, sturridge is a big part of that

There are lot of players who could do a serviceable job on one side of a main striker but hardly anyone who can play that role in the middle.

Sturridge is excellent, you're lucky to have him. The worry might be that when Carroll hits a run of form/fitness, it's going to be very hard for any England manager to resist him.

anyway the important thing is that even if its nowhere near as good as the best countries, this gen is way better than the mid80s lot

go look at a prospects list in 2005, bentley, reocoker, jenas, curtis davies, carlton cole, scott carson etc etc

http://img196.imageshack.us/img196/7999/cfnq.jpg

poor Roy's really been thrown a hospital ball here

That generation has mostly just disappeared from the squad altogether, it's either really young and inexperienced players or old stalwarts like Gerrard and Lampard. The exceptions are relative late bloomers like Cahill and Baines although the continued presence of wooden horse James Milner is depressing.

james milner is the prince of this rotten borough, twp the king in exile vomitting up another round of roast dolphin and krug somewhere in monte carlo

go look at a prospects list in 2005, bentley, reocoker, jenas, curtis davies, carlton cole, scott carson etc etc

i wonder will there be a group of jaded late 20's/eary 30's wasters on a forum somewhere in 2021 looking at names such as those listed itt and listing them in the same tone of disgust tho?

i hate international weekends btw

^^

pretty sure there'll be a group of jaded late 30's/eary 40's wasters on a forum somewhere in 2021 looking at names such as those listed itt and listing them in the same tone of disgust anyway

nah we'll be in our 40s and 50s by then

deems that is mad insight but im describing the players as they are now, wilshere sturridge walcott etc are already better than they ever were

Not sure any of em have replicated bentleys saison d'etre at blackburn tbrr

im wilshere sceptic and on record as such probly ad nauseum by now.

Combined irish welsh scottish team vs england must be getting close to parity at this stage

throw in the Icelandic lads and yeah, maybe

more relevant to throw in the norwegians tbh

dvblinia and all that

does twp make the side though?

im not pickin that side for them

he wouldnt make my side were he eligible tho

Matt:

and people like Tom Cleverly are not going to get any better than they already are

So Cleverley's, what, 22? 23? What is it about him which makes you think he won't get any better? I'm guessing you're not saying that no player gets betterafter his age.

I'm not saying he will get better, you understand, it's just I see this phrase sometimes and I wonder what it means.

There seems to be a real backlash against Cleverley atm, which I don't get. He's no Wilshere, but is a good player imo.

I might possibly rephrase that as "not going to get radically better". Cleverley strikes me as a good but limited footballer operating near the top of his capabilities. He's a tidy passing player but he doesn't really seem to have a playmaker's awareness and insight and I think that's something that manifests itself quite early in a player's development. I don't like Wilshere at all but he's already considerably more advanced in that regard.

Cleverly also doesn't have the physical attributes that would enable him to step up a level.

Admittedly, England's main problem has been one of composure for as long as I can remember so any player who can complete passes and doesn't crap themselves under pressure is welcome.

a lot of hype about cleverley but ppl in this country can't tell the difference between a neat, tidy, possession player and a really first rate technical player......like the gap between joe allen and modric is HUGE

― A.R.R.Y. Kane (nakhchivan), Tuesday, 21 August 2012 14:51 (1 year ago)

that was 2k12 tho, the gap right now is probably something like connor wickham to luiz ronaldo

Cleverley is a better player than Allen btw. I'm not sure if Hodgson has ever fielded a Carrick-Wilshere-Cleverley midfield and it would be distinctly un-English and not exactly world-beating but would at least be able to retain possession for longer than most England teams.