Kenny Dalglish Won't Be Delivering the Module: English Premiership 2011-12

98 or 02 tournament performances were good iirc, maybe even 00 but i didn't see a lot of that one. don't have any recollection of a string of convincing performances under either capello or schteve

04 was good until Rooney got crocked

maybe 3 matches good?

well croatia away was v good, don't know what the 2 games following that were though.

2000 was keegan i think, england were terrible iirc lost to romania and portugal i think

yeah 2000 was comical, late Neville fuck-up iirc but can't remember which one

phil, gave away a penalty.

thought that was group 98 wc tbh

nah, 98 was Owen wonder goal and Beckham sending off

no that was le saux fucking up and us conceding late on after owen equalised. keegan was doing the commentary and had just said "there's only one team that will win this now" (i presume he meant england)

xp

we beat colombia in last group match then lost to Arg

http://a4.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/419969_250175661723813_160886773986036_571051_1731275724_n.jpg

:D

Didn't we have that exact same picture on here yesterday?

such a disspiriting mess, the england team. can't think of the last time they strung 2 or 3 coherent, convincing performances together
....
i only consistently watch the tournaments so i'll take your word

The last time I can remember watching any England qualifier / friendly was seeing the last ten minutes or so of McClaren's umbrella disaster, so I'm far from qualified to answer this - but I had the impression that qualification for the last WC under Capello was pretty impressive?

i dunno i surf on my phone at work, apologies

xp no, it was efficient and competent but hateful to watch for the majority of the times iirc

I'm prepared to believe you, given that England were incompetent and hateful to watch in SA, and given that I couldn't name a single one of England's group opponents under Capello apart from Croatia.

A piece on City's away form - "City’s struggles started with a 1-1 draw at Anfield on 27 November. Since that day only Wigan, QPR and Fulham have taken fewer points away from home, and all have played five games to City’s six."

Must say I hadn't noticed the pattern, and am a bit shocked by this. Big game against Villa then, who are dreadful at home iirc.

Haven't looked but would guess that their lead is pretty much the same at the top as it was on 27 Nov though.

So after tmrw LFC haven't another League game until March?

fuck international weekends

Neither we do. Six games scheduled for April though, and that's not taking into account any cup run.

matthew stanger piece in f365 today so determined to portray redknapp as an idiot that it's .... idiotic, tbh

fuck international weekends

― dayove cool (Noodle Vague), Friday, February 10, 2012 10:54 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Seriously. They make me all 'old man yells at cloud' IA.

i think, tbh, that attitude has come about because of what's being served up. I don't remember that ever being an attitude that prevailed under eg venables, hoddle. Under sven, nope?

Under staunton, trap- yes. Under kerr- sometimes. McCarthy, not always.

Comes back to football as a aesthetic entertainment imo. If you are compelled by loyalty to watch shite, you'll resent it very quickly- particularly if

i) the shite interrupts weekly portions of non-shite

ii) the same ppl can deliver either shite or non-shite according to whim

I don't remember that ever being an attitude that prevailed under eg venables, hoddle.

Premiership wasn't as all consuming then?

I think I've always hated international breaks

both epl & international football were better, tbh, i dunno about all-consuming, but where and how does a change occur there?

International games weren't breaks 'till a few years ago, they were just squeezed in at midweeks. Which was fine, really. I can see the appeal of a decent break for qualification double-headers - if more than a handful of such games actually mattered - but a break of a fortnight for a friendly is the absolute worst.

I've got a lot invested in this tweet

rioferdy5 Rio Ferdinand
When Welbz + @tomclevz23 bring their 1 2s I see in training to the PL its going to be OVER for opposing teams, trust me!! #SameWavelength
21 hours ago Favorite Retweet Reply

i think, tbh, that attitude has come about because of what's being served up

I was thinking last night about the travails of watching Scotland. I think most assume it's torture because the SPL is shite and we don't produce any players anymore but the torture started long before that - when we still had some good players! It started with Andy Roxburgh and his slide rule UEFA coaching badge hyper cautious approach which Craig Brown carried on with plenty of cowerin' and timorousness but not enough sleekitness. By the time Brown was finished we didn't have any good players anymore and we were almost as scared of our own shadows as Brown himslef was. Since then a couple of comedy managers in Vogts (who actually got us to a playoff) and Burley and then the grim Siege of Derry tactics of Smith and McLeish. Now Levein, nice guy, intelligent (wears glasses), puts out a team against the Czech Republic with no forwards, we lose + we're fucked once more, plus ca change...

otm

I could recite a similar litany of tragic persecution but we'd be a right clichèd pair of moaning celts then eh?

International football is about more than scorelines, and imo it's about a lot more than qualification. The 45 mins against france where we played football was worth every point or three earned in the two years before or since

I'd settle for being able to moan about what you've got to moan about tbh

^ this

But then I'd moan about that too.

England under Venables was 2 years of friendlies followed by a tournament where England were outstanding in one game, good in one, and decent in one.

matthew stanger piece in f365 today so determined to portray redknapp as an idiot that it's .... idiotic, tbh

Harry Redknapp? The guy who's spent two weeks swearing to his own idiocy under oath?

a big improvement!

I don't think that being unable to read and writes constitutes 'idiocy' but whatever.

http://images.45cat.com/norman-wisdom-dont-laugh-at-me-cause-im-a-fool-hmv.jpg

Unable to read, write, use a computer or use a mobile phone while managing an organisation with a turnover of £120m may not be "idiotic" but the guy was playing on his own ignorance in court, still 'e's got the lads 'avin' a go an' that's all you can ask for innit.

if the article was a snide go at arry's laughable-but-effective court schtick, fine, but it's not.

'e's got the lads 'avin' a go an' that's all you can ask for innit

In the context of the national team, maybe it is. If you can rule out being genuinely good enough to win things, and can take a certain degree of competence as given. England haven't gone out 'aving a go since 98 (2004 maybe, and the recent lols do massively cushion the blow imo); Scotland for much longer than that. They're generally not swashbuckling sides to watch, at least Arry might bring bring a bit of that from Spiders.

Need a manager with *passion*, is what I'm saying.

if the article was a snide go at arry's laughable-but-effective court schtick, fine, but it's not.

ok I'll read the blimmin thing :)

ok if I'm reading the right thing the first three quotes are directly lifted from the court case:

http://www.football365.com/f365-says/7499868/The-Nagging-Logic-Of-Harry-Redknapp

"I write like a two-year-old and I can't spell."

"I couldn't even fill a team sheet in."

"I am the most disorganised person, I am ashamed to say, in the world."

yep, he's starting with that as if that was a reasonable assess,ent of arry's intellectual/tactical ability

"I am the most disorganised person, I am ashamed to say, in the world."

That could be a quote from Albert Einstein

Oh yeah he obviously camped all that stuff up in court but even if it's true that doesn't equate to idiocy. I'd agree that he knows how to speak brain-dead-footballer in the way that someone like, say, Villas-Boas might not. I'd say he's pretty astute in terms of giving a player a job to do and making sure they can do it without actually confusing the hell out of them, yer thicker footballers are more likely to take tactics on board if they're not thinking of them as tactics.

He can still make dodgy substitutions and he's never been good at making a squad game work, mind.

Worked for the Sun for 18 months and didn't know he wasn't being paid? There's laying it on thick and then there's actual thick. I'm in some weird other world here were ILF hasn't been ripping the absolute pish out of 'arry's "simplicity" for a decade.

That article credits him with exactly what Matt is saying - he speaks fluent footballer and keeps tactical fuckeraroundery to a minimum to get results.