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

Maybe take some of the Britishes interest navel-gazing out of the proper World Cup thread I thought?

Lennon Huddlestone Wilshere Young Agbonlahor Walcott
c'mon fabio you know it makes sense

― ,,,,,,eeeeleon (darraghmac), Tuesday, 29 June 2010 09:41 (11 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Maybe I shall regret going here but I wonder what it is about those guys that mightn't appeal to England's core fan demographic as much as Lamps and Stevie and Rooney and Barry

― Mertesacker Emptiness (Noodle Vague), Tuesday, 29 June 2010 09:42 (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

can't understand who chairmen/managers think they're pleasing when they buy a player in to sit on the bench and play 5 times a season.

In Scottish football, historically this has been a method used by the Celtic and Rangers to make sure they have the player and no-one else does

― I am utterly and abjectly pissed off with this little lot (Tom D.), Tuesday, 29 June 2010 09:43 (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

ooooh NV

cmon seriously?

― ,,,,,,eeeeleon (darraghmac), Tuesday, 29 June 2010 09:46 (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

As long as they're winning they'll be fine

― I am utterly and abjectly pissed off with this little lot (Tom D.), Tuesday, 29 June 2010 09:47 (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I dunno. No, not seriously, but let us consider the "type" of an England "hero". Let's think of Stuart Pearce's bulging neck veins as he shouts for Carling in that ad or whatever. I mean "Englishness" is a definite thing for a lot of the England hardcore. And I definitely think the FA is more bothered about the Brand than the football, tbh.

― Mertesacker Emptiness (Noodle Vague), Tuesday, 29 June 2010 09:48 (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

There's a shitload to unpack in what are widely considered the virtues of the English game compared to the virtues that other big football nations espouse. I really really don't want to kick start a clusterfuck but it was a fleeting thought when I looked at that front 6 of darragh's up there.

― Mertesacker Emptiness (Noodle Vague), Tuesday, 29 June 2010 09:50 (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

saw the england-usa game in a south london pub where the guy behind me was a passionate england fan who shouted abuse at the team from the start, culminating in calling robert green a "fucking paki". so i could imagine this becoming a thing.

― joe, Tuesday, 29 June 2010 09:52 (21 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Thought this could be a general argument about the England team rather than a race clusterfuck but am leaving the steps that led here in the interests of full disclosure.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/sport/football/worldcup2010/3033609/Is-David-Beckham-the-man-to-replace-Fabio-Capello.html

oh, great.

Somebody told me that one at work yesterday. Got plenty of love for Becks but I rolled about laughing at the idea. He's too much of a politician to want the job I'd've thought.

yeah this was needed tbh

I suppose the model there is Klinsmann and Germany

if only for the poetry

Becks has no coaching badges, no managerial experience and has never courted the job. So on the surface he would seem a high-risk successor.

But

Classic But

becks is no klinsmann

Sheringham won't take it, seems to have no interest in coaching.

scholes hates the publicity

You're gonna be stuck with Gary Neville imo

what England needs is a player-manager.

but that man must be Maradona.

Seriously Beckham might be more use to English football right now if he got involved with FA politics à la Brooking.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/world_cup_2010/8766476.stm

g taylor talks sense here imo

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/world_cup_2010/8688093.stm

this article a chastening example: According to European football's governing body Uefa, Spain had almost 15,000 Uefa A and Pro Licence coaches in 2008 - more than double the number of any other European nation. And that is despite it taking 750 study hours to acquire a Pro Licence in Spain, compared with just 245 in England.

Should go the whole hog and have John Terry as player-manager if England have no hope of anything ever for the next 10 years.

xp saying that, the english u20s are looking pretty good actually

guess they always do though

Capello will get massive abuse in the media and inevitably eventually the sack, and will likely largely get off the hook here. I reckon the media closer to the truth than we are - the guy created an unhappy camp, took a poor and unadventurous squad, and in any case you're not telling me that that team couldn't've been put out to perform better than that. But I'd still keep him because:

- the guy's track record is still outstanding, even with this massive blot on it
- you don't get a track record like that without learning from your mistakes - no way are England going to turn up at another tournament looking like that
- surely this debacle is at least partly the result of him acting against his instincts - let him have free reign, and if it means a lot of bruised egos well so be it, massaged egos haven't brought results either
- he's getting paid whatever - giving possibly the outstanding club manager of the last twenty years £10m not to work for you is indefensible right now
- realistically, what's the alternative?

- realistically, what's the alternative?

A Scottish manager

england u-20s have always looked good, yeah.

the last england u-15 side i caught ina full match was pretty amazing, AFAIR a certain A johnson was only one of maybe three Middlesborough players in the midfield.

Capello gets free rein from me for creating an unhappy camp, if the alternative is to create a happy camps of spoiled brats.

Bringing the 23 players he did, after picking what i thought was a very bright and encouraging 30 to begin with, yeah that's a black mark.

Selecting the 11-15 players he did from those 23 consistently regardless of performance- ey Fabio this ain't the league mate.

rationally speaking capello should probably stay but the taint of failure is often insurmountable past a point

harry redknapp is the only alternative worth considering - he would do it but the tax fiddling's most likely knocked it on the head

i think whether the fa are prepared to pay £12m to scapegoat capello is going to be a good litmus test of their appetite for real reform, which is why i expect him to get the sack. if they wanted him to stay they could have said so immediately - after two weeks of speculation, he'll be glad to get out i imagine.

I'd keep Capello + get rid of Lamps + Gerrard.

How is letting Capello have his way not going to create another unhappy camp, unless different players are involved? And as you say, Capello picked the squad. So either this was a knowing ploy to get rid of a lot of the old guard after failure, or he's not the judge of a player we might've thought he was, or there's a near-insurmountable pressure to pick guys who aren't good enough/fit enough/mentally right that will still be there whoever Capello is replaced with.

he's getting paid whatever - giving possibly the outstanding club manager of the last twenty years £10m not to work for you is indefensible right now

realest talk, but watch and learn

joe totally otm. Capello sacked, new boss, business as usual. Especially if the new boss is Arry as he would be the perfect expression of the FA as Business Ueber Alles.

redknapp should be able to settle with the revenue. pay them £40,000, call it a misunderstanding. it'll all be dug up again the moment england go through a bad patch but i could see a desperate fa turning a blind eye now.

"ey Fabio this ain't the league mate" pretty much sums up dude's failings, yeah

Arry is also a great exponent of 442. Sticking with Capello would be the 451 thing to do, IMO

^yes I went there

Redknapp would be a disastrous international manager, he thrives on being able to bring in players to solve problems and if those players are just not out there in the 'market' I'm not sure he'd be able to fix things. Also the FA were pretty nervous about Venables' dodgy dealings and I'm not sure they'd take that risk with Redknapp. Also I don't want him to leave Spurs.

Hodgson at least has some experience as an international manager. He'll do.

Far as I can see, only 3 English managers having any degree of success at the moment: 'Arry, Hodgson (off to the 'Pool) and, errrr, Steve McClaren. Go for the younger man I say.

classic material from alan shearer's column in the sun today. it begins: "NO ONE likes kicking a man when he is down..."

oh yeah? http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/85000/images/_86318_alan_shearer_and_neil_lennon_after_kicking_incident300%2830-04-98%29allsport.jpg

Remember when Kings used to lead their armies back in ye olde times? Get Prince William in there and make that sponger earn his salary from The FA.

DAER SPURB FANZ wud u take swop caleppo and renkdapp

i can't remember where i read the slow cooking/fast food domestic league vs internationals analogy but i'd trust arry & sandra to whip a quick buffet sooner than fabio or woy tbh

Redknapp, and I don't want it to happen for two main reasons, would be the ideal manager for this group, and I think that he's done well out of players he already had at Spurs as well as buying them in Matt.

Also, that would be ignoring that he could 'bring in' any number of players like Walcott, Huddlestone, Dawson, Rodwell, Wilshere, Zamora, whoever.

Bentley and Bent could suck it tho

Did Arry really say that about swapping a bentley for a honda on BBC after the Japan game btw?

Honda have quality cars, get into a Civic.

he did

it was a groaner but the shaggy-dog delivery was kinda impressive for a pundit imo

Remember when Kings used to lead their armies back in ye olde times? Get Prince William in there and make that sponger earn his salary from The FA.

― They'll be dancing in the streets of Košice tonight (King Boy Pato), Tuesday, 29 June 2010 10:17 (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Astride a horse = unwanted redux of Crouchch-on-as-sub high ball tactics

er, Crouch

DAER SPURB FANZ wud u take swop caleppo and renkdapp

― so you want Mark Ronson to cry into your ass (acoleuthic), Tuesday, 29 June 2010 10:17 (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yes; Calippo would not

Astride a horse

http://www.fortunecity.com/bally/avoca/277/kingbilly.jpg

would definitely have capello as the successor to arry. he'd cane bentley up and down bill nick way imo

World Cup 2010: Blatter sorry for disallowed goal

sorry usually means you'll try not to let it happen again.

An idea that just occurred to me - absolute squad limits. Clubs pick their 23 men on day one and are stuck with them. You *can* buy youngsters to sit in the stands, but everyone would have to be honest about it. Any kids in the 23 would be guaranteed playing time. The other kids, if they had any useful mentality whatsoever, would go elsewhere. Also a handy way of (i) shifting talent down the pyramid a bit, and (ii) keeping budgets down a little.

Of course it'd have to apply to the premier league to achieve anything, and there's almost no incentive for the premier league to agree to it. Which seems to be the problem with English football in a nutshell.

xp Try telling that to Bernie Taupin...

might need to turn 5 Live off shortly now England are the best team in the world again

Coady and Mings at CB could do no worse than this bunch of clowns imo

Gold and Black specs aside i don't think this is *wrong*

also Southgate is pretty fucking clueless as a tactician i think

Southgate is pretty good when it comes to working with the limitations of a squad but it's the refusal to use a number 10 when Grealish, Maddison and probably Foden are all performing for their clubs that's galling.

i don't even know where he's got the double defensive mid obsession from, obvious answer might be Middlesbrough but it's genuinely weird, he seems smarter than that, i do think it's mostly a commitment to the Usual Suspects

Playing two holding midfielders together was very fashionable a decade or so ago. Holland nearly kicked their way to a World Cup with De Jong and Van Bommel sitting in front of the back four, Spain had Xabi Alonso sitting next to Busquets at the base of midfield, Germany had Khedira and Schweinsteiger both playing in deep defensive roles, all at a time when England were still trying to play Gerrard and Lampard together. There's nothing wrong with two holding midfielders as a tactical approach.

The difference is that these were all elite midfielders - not Jordan Henderson and Declan Rice. Henderson is an excellent team player, generally his boundless reserves of energy and discipline and willingness to play exactly the role that's asked for him, and he has plenty of big game experience at the highest level (and this does matter, whatever anyone says), but he is not at the same level as any of the above. Never been convinced by Rice.

I don't think I can remember seeing two holding midfielders played with a back five though, which suggests that Southgate has no real confidence in his CBs (and why shouldn't he? He's right not to). But most importantly all those 2010 teams had a double holding midfield to allow more to happen further forward. Spain had the small matter of Xavi and Iniesta, and those four in midfield could circulate possession endlessly as a defensive and attacking strategy, the best midfield there has ever been at doing so - while this is probably the worst England midfield I can remember.

The other teams had two holding midfielders providing the solidity that enabled hugely talented but flaky creative players to really do their thing unencumbered in front of them - Germany had Mezut Ozil, Holland had Wesley Schneider. That's the player Southgate's England don't have (they don't have a decent box-to-box runner either but that's a different issue). That's the gap waiting to be filled by a Grealish or a Maddison I reckon, or even a Foden or at least theoretically Dele. Grealish has only really played at EPL and Championship level but he's also just managed to make himself look like Maradona up against a Premier League and Champions League-winning defence, and he's never going to displace Sterling, Rashford or Sancho in wide areas.

love the original copy pasted points in this thread. esp the darragh 6 - wilshere,walcott,young etc none of whom turned out to be anywhere near as good as gerrard, lampard, or even barry.

they never let thudd run the midfield

The idea of Huddlestone trying to operate in England's midfield in the high pressing era is hilarious.

13-goal Agbonlahor was certainly a suggestion

The first four years or so of this decade were probably the worst crop of English players there's been, regardless of how unbalanced the current squad is, surely everyone has to agree that as an attacking force it's immeasurably better that when pretty much everything was dependent on whether or not Rooney could be arsed to turn up.

may just be a generational fluke but english academies have been producing decent numbers of potentially excellent attacking players + full backs but I haven't seen corresponding depth in CBs or DMs. It could be that clubs are more likely to take chances on inexperienced forwards rather than defenders but i dunno.

lol could have copy pasted myself from 6 years ago

Still think Eng have v good talent in the front end of the pitch. They have no elite defenders and not much coming down the pipeline, but you could maybe patch together a borderline competent defence if they had some protection in front of them. They have zero even anywhere near elite central midfielders. NONE. And none of the young tyros coming through play there. The best might be Ox-Chamb. and I'm not sure he's ever going to play central and if he does it will be as frwd CM not deep lying.

― pandemic, Friday, June 20, 2014 9:13 AM (six years ago) bookmarkflaglink

except not sure any midfield could mitigate england's defence now.

he robbed Shilton of god knows how many caps but still a trooper, RIP Ray Clemence

good news everybody

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2022/aug/01/time-to-retire-three-lions-anthem-after-euro-2022-win-says-david-baddiel

“I’m very happy to think the song would, in a way, be put to bed.” Fans, however, may feel differently the next time England loses, he said

had to spoil it, didn't he?

wish somebody loved me as unconditionally as Southgate loves Maguire

looking fwd to Maguire starting in the world cup on the back of a couple of league cup appearances for utd between now and then

Wow they actually showed that lad running on the pitch, lovely bit of nostalgia

harry maguire doing harry maguire things

... followed by Nick Pope doing Nick Pope things.

sancho, whats happened there

yeah at Dortmund I wouldn't have hesitated to day he was like only a fraction less impressive than bellingham. and yet he's been nothing at utd and bellingham is basically running madrid. then again I thought havertz was p special in bundesliga and he's p meh now. next player I'll probably end up wrong about if he comes to england - florian wirtz at leverkusen.

I don't watch enough (i.e. basically any) German football to evaluate the difference between the Dortmund Sancho and the current version but it does seem like the signs were always there to an extent. Seems to have had attitude/application problems at every club he's been at, stories about being late for training, turning up unfit to pre-season, etc. There have been some whispers of personal issues but can't shed much light on that either.

based solely on his time at Utd, he looks like a technically accomplished player who's physically incapable of coping with the pace and power of the league. Classy on the ball in a vague sort of way but doesn't have the acceleration to go past players, totally unable to hold the ball under pressure, and shit-scared of any kind of challenge.

There have been worse players for Utd (been a lot of them in the last few years strangely enough) but I honestly don't think there have been any as...pointless as him. Cannot think of single match over the past two seasons where he's looked good from start to finish. Can barely think of a 10-minute period in a match to be honest.

Best for him and the club that he's moved on as quickly as possible now

oh and back to england , how kalvin philips makes squad after squad is beyond me.

xp he definitely had the acceleration in bundesliga and the power. he was frightening.

I will have to bow to your knowledge on that

there's definitely something amiss with him anyway. The whole thing with him being sent to train in the Netherlands for three months on his own in the middle of last season was very weird

the pace/strength required to beat epl players 1v1 does- disappointingly- seem to be a thing and sancho is maybe a high profile victim of it

are there m/any successful 'dribblers' of note left in the league with ASM gone?

sterling shifts it ninety degrees quickly with the outstep, as does kulusevski, for instance, and (for want of a better example) antonio controls the ball adequately while lifting centre halves like sinks ahead of him. bernardo silva drily touches the ball just to where you dont get it, again and again.

foden? does foden dribble?

whither steve guppy lads, essentially

Tbh my knowledge aint worth much. Full disclosure the 3 players I've never been more sure about being absolute world beaters coming from the Bundesliga in recent years are haaland ( everyone knew before he even got to Germany so he doesn't really count) Bellingham ( everyone knew post world cup so probably doesn't count) and ...........naby keita!! never have I been more sure about a player ,based on his first season at Leipzig where he was basically Bellingham++. How wrong I was.

Salah can dribble. I mean he's no Ben arfa mind.

you could have told me havertz wouldnt have been a atar in any top ten epl team and id have called you a nonce and a liar and i might even have claimed u dint kno ball if i were having a very bad day

but then maybe berbatov himself wouldnt stand out in 2023 premier league?

it all started with malouda imo

salah yes ofc

no steve guppy all the same

G Nev was talking player comparisons the other week wrt declan rice. He mentioned michael essien who I hadn't thought about in years but my god what a player to have in your midfield.

speaking of, sandro retired at 34 today

shone brightly but not too long but he was transformative for us when a screening muncher was a real novelty for us

Mitoma and Martinelli to be added to Salah on that list. Arguably Son at Spurs too.

Berba would be a star at any time. His technique would still be better than 90% of the league.

i thought son would be offered but- possibly like mitoma, of whom ive not seen enough tbh- his control of the ball isnt actually very good unless its in the very specific subcategory of dribbling that bisects defensive positions at pace

and if i have to tap the capote/ben arfa sign i will

martinelli beats a man and i like him but idk have i seen him dribble beyond fellas more than ive seen him wait out their tackle/move and beat them with reaction

i have, it will be noted, a rather specific criteria i use personally for what counts as "dribbling"

All decent points but you said “successful” dribblers and all are “successful” at beating defenders through dribbling and will do so in every game. I don’t think there is any great aesthete

I accidentally posted mid sentence. I don’t think there is any world class Garrinchas in the league at the moment, but quite a few are still very young (Marti/Saka are 21, Mudryk is 21, Mitoma is 26 but seems like he is just blooming, Antony is 23 and Garnacho is 19 etc) and as they grow, we could get out of this lull of dribbling expertise

pls god

Isak has this in his, erm, locker but has been non-existent whenever I have seen Newcastle this season

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6gWAYu_RG0

no steve guppy all the same

He was at Celtic for two years, he was no Paddy McCourt.

not by the time he was at celtic, no

but mccourt is a good example of actual dribbling, beat you at walking pace kind of thing

Antony definitely has a bit of the Ryan Giggs about him :/

so does Paddy McCourt

Unfortunately yes.

Looks like Mainoo is about to be appointed England's saviour as well as Man Utd's

No pressure lad