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

england the natural home of roaming attacking midfielders iirc

what could possibly go wrong there

the trick is turning them into roaming space-filling diffusions of mercury - when an englishman roams, it tends to be with rhinocerine charges

yeah le tiss of the 18 caps was a fucking lumpfoot of the highest order it's troo it's troo

you and your kin all know that he is a whopping great silken-toed anomaly

first dropped points and it would be off with the luxury player's head, and barry would be grafted back in. cos he grafts, the boy. making basic shit look difficult = grafting in england international midfieldery parlance.

le tiss, gazza (ok, utilised correctly for a change, but then remember that when this was the case ye were actually pretty fukn good), scholes, ????

who's gonna line up for that 'stick him on the left, e's a good ployer e'll work it out' role?

you make a good point, but barry is not an attacking mf so you have strayed off-topic like a gerrard punt

prob add j cole, maybe lampard to the end of that list actually. criminally undervalued in successive england teams that needed more honest effort and a little less ball control.

also, jason wilcox obv

haha am now wondering whether paul merson could have been all that

yeah it's true i'm all sermon and no instruction manual tonight.

tho tbh this is all stemming from your contention that j henderson should be a floating attacking midfielder, so tbh it's all net mfer

merse, absolutely.

that is what j henderson was v chelsea, albeit with positional discipline when not in possession

yeah but what i'm sayin is when have england ever shown beagán píosa grá for such a role, regardless of the availability of suitable candidates

hence 'when an englishman roams, it tends' - i speak of a tendency and one that jack wilshere and his merrie men will hopefully challenge. if arsenal's youth setup turns england good i will stop mocking a hoy hoy forever, maybe

none of the players i have listed have tended towards rhinocerine- they just weren't picked because of their meandering grazing patterns.

well, you said they were exceptions!

we're going in circles like an aaron lennon sortie

nope, i said that gazza was the exception in that he was tolerated in such a role- and england prospered.

course lennon goes in circles, he's only got one foot

beagán píosa grá

wtf is this, you're in an England topic ya bas. not that i'm english.

scholes should be on about 120 caps of being played in the wrong position by now.

one must search wherever one can for le juste mot imo

i've prob ordered that wrong innit, lol 20 hours sleep since saturday

pretty sure it's le mot juste. though i know this mostly from sideshow bob.

i'm a broken man myself, mostly because i just came from a party with much baffling nudity and headstands.

god it's never ILTMI when you want it to be.

no, i'm pretty sure that's tmi

i've prob ordered that wrong innit, lol 20 hours sleep since saturday

― Goths in Home & Away in my lifetime (darraghmac), Friday, 19 November 2010 02:48 (16 minutes ago)

why are u posting here at 3am then

chicken egg

FA have been and remain such stupid cunts about this
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/9357918.stm

just make it an every two years thing in June (ideally including Ireland and France or any willing sixth guest), stop overcompliating this

A six-team thing could be more fun than the old format - the growth in money/celebrity makes it feel much less like a clash of equals or almost-equals like it once was.

USA USA USA USA USA

(as an invitee, of course)

Jon Miquel Toral Harper, the attacking midfielder who will join Arsenal this summer due to a loophole from Barcelona is half English.

An attacking playmaker from Barcelona is half English.

He only left Barc-e-fucking-lona because he wanted to go back to England. Barca wanted him to stay and supposedly be fast-tracked into Barca B.

If England let this guy slide and become a Spanish international, then this national team deserves to lose everything.

(I have no idea whether he is any good or not.)

Little Johnny Harper, you mean?

Jonathan Michael Tony 'arper, yes.

EBJMTH actually.

http://www.cleansheetsallround.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/Jon-Miquel-Toral-Harper-Arsenal.jpg

Like Robert Johnson, only one photo of the kid appears to exist. He hasn't even got his eyes open in it.

It's Johann Cruyff!!

probably safest to call up every Spanish teenager with English eligibility for the Wales game just in case.

i know, right?

this 'capello handled the terry captaincy thing badly' *thing* is a load of bollocks isn't it? first thing that was reported was that he was meeting with the fa to discuss the possibility of reinstating terry wasn't it? he didn't actually say to the press 'JT's skipper, bad luck rio' did he?

Ideally I'd say he's made an arse of it by making it an issue at all - just give it to the guy with most caps and neutralise the issue. But it clearly does matter to England in a way it doesn't for other countries (why is that, exactly?) so that wouldn't've worked either. He's probably done as best he can - Terry pretty clearly has the strongest personality/most stamina here so is the right choice I guess. If there was a mistake it was ditching him in the first place, but then what choice was there at the time?

I wish it didn't matter though, it's only one more thing to go wrong/give primadonnas an excuse to do something other than their jobs.

last sentence otm

The media has blown this up in order to undermind Capello, it's so obvious. Simmering resentment between Rio and EBJT might be a problem at international level but I'd be surprised if they play that many more games together. I can see Rio retiring from international football before long to concentrate on avoiding injuries/prolonging his domestic game.

Agree with Ismael. Don't understand why it's such a thing. Just give it to the guy most sure of his place and who doesn't mind having to front up to the press every game. So really Rooney (who I doubt wants it) Ashley Cole, or (my choice) Joe Hart. On that Sky sports journalist show the other day they were all horrified at the idea of a goalie being captain - too far away from the other players, can't communicate with the forwards etc etc. Just bollocks. Spain seem to muddle through with Casillas just about.

god knows what the press are gonna moan about when their mate 'arry gets the job.

apart from the players obviously. i'm sure they'll still be providing the lols.

Just give it to the guy most sure of his place and who doesn't mind having to front up to the press every game

Haha thing is that's probably Terry.

What about a rolling captaincy where everybody gets a turn except Terry?