BoxRec

Where di you watch it last night mate? Littentree?

No, at Mark's, the Tree was closed, then some skinhead was walking about outside looking a bit rough so I went home :)

stujones wrote:
Clive Woodward - most over hyped Coach of all time.

Stupidest quote of all time (though, as usual, not unsurprising coming from a Welshman).

He did it his way - f**k everyone else - and won England the world cup.

Man... that is "over-hyped"....

What about Southampton?

.... and now he's Mr Olympics and hasn't met half of the athletes...

He left England's rugby team with a bunch of old farts who can't score tries and creak in the scrum. But fair play to them for getting to the final again, despite being piss poor.

PS At least we Welsh have flair, just not as much as Fiji :)

Foggy wrote:I'm sorry Mclaren has to go, the world cup qualification groups are drawn this Sunday i think, we need something new, we simply can't afford not to qualify for 2010.

"IF" Mclaren does go then i hope the FA grow some bollocks & appoint someone other than a "YES" man.

The whole English game needs an overhaul, starting with the FA.

You Welsh have flair, the flair for having a rugby crisis every 9 months and appointing a new coach

After paying out again to go and watch that last night, here are my observations.

We have no depth in our National team.

How many games have Defoe, Bridge and Bent started this season for their club teams. Carson has been at Liverpool for four years but has been loaned out for most of that period. Even Crouch isn't a regular on the club scene.

Big debate on who should be in goal. Obvious choice is Ben Foster, but who else have we? He should never have thrown in Carson last night on the back of 90 minutes in Vienna, one mistake and the lads confidence was shot to pieces, it's a cruel world being a 'keeper.

We still don't have anyone who can quick with his left foot, Cole never goes past a man on the outside when wide on the left. Downing has had a few chances and has never set the place on fire.

But even if we bring in the "Special One" will he do any better as he hasn't got the squad to play with?

Bottom line - we're sh1te.

McClaren had to go but the players just aren't good enough. I've thought for a long time that we overrate our players based on reputation and the fact that we are very familiar with them. When it comes down to performance in a England shirt they do nothing to justify their reputations.

We are world class to ourselves only. If you look at the likes of Italy, France, Argentin, Germany, Brazil etc do you think they would swap many of their players for ours? I doubt it. And if you look at our record in tournaments it is p1ss poor compared to those nations. We have 1 final appearance and 2 semis. Every one of those teams has better than that in the last 20 years alone.

Who will be next in the firing line then? Don't see why Martin O'Neil would want to take it after being overlooked last time. Would love to see Mourinho. One good thing is that we aren't hearing this bollocks about having to have an English manager any more....

DavidPayne wrote:You Welsh have flair, the flair for having a rugby crisis every 9 months and appointing a new coach

We have 2m people to choose from, you have over 50m and you still can't string two passes together.

I've reached the point where I actually want Gerrard, Lampard, Terry, Ferdinand, Robinson, COle et al to fail because it would wipe the smug look of their face.

They are not world-class because they succeed in champions leagues. They're the engine to a finely tuned vehicle. Atheletes. Beckham is the only world-class - technically - player we have. Rooney is a naturally gifted player so he could, theoretically, get the WC tag.

Beyond that they're all much of a muchness. Suntanned, premadonnas, pampered and over-paid with no connection to the men who pay their wages.

McClaren is the nerd who got to hand out the bibs.

It need some heavyweight personality to cajoul something out of them and a few more of the sacred cows to be bollacked and dropped.

England need units, a meaningful formation and some willingness to play at a temp that suits us naturally OR learn how to keep the ball like the Italians, Germans and Eastern Europeans can.

The way Lampard gives the ball away is scandalous.

How about Harry Redknapp?

Ther's been talk of Jose, but at the end of the day Payne is right, few of them are world class.

As a wise man once said: "you can't polish a turd"

Doesnt Jose want the portrugal job, allegedly?

Actually, why not allegedly. We could play a whole host of no hopers, and amass a great ranking then only play world class teams once every four years.

Steve McClaren was only the WBO England Manager anyway.

Scolari was the WBC and Hiddink was the WBA, O'Neil was the IBF and Robson the WBC Champion Emeritius.

I'd love to see Jose or O'Neil get it just to make the press conferences interesting.

Though it would, in the case of the former, mean Lampard, Cole, Cole, and Terry are locks for the team, groan.

Would we have lost if Carragher was playing? Maybe? Stuart Pearce...ahhh the good old days.

If Greece can be Euro Champions then Engalnd can be too (not this time though).

They need to concentrate on being hard to beat. They should play with intelligence and skill. there's too much tub thumping about passion and pride and bulldog spirit. No amount of badge kissing and puffing your chest out will make up for the shortcomings of the players.

Even so, Engalnd should have qualified from the group. Hopefully Capello/Scolari/Mourinho will get the job and create a side.

Loftgroov wrote:

stujones wrote:
Clive Woodward - most over hyped Coach of all time.

Stupidest quote of all time (though, as usual, not unsurprising coming from a Welshman).

He did it his way - f**k everyone else - and won England the world cup.

Man... that is "over-hyped"....

Ummm he had the best players at his disposal. Had Brian Ashton, fecked it, even Gareth Jenkins - had been England coach at 2003 - they would have won the world cup.

How many GS did they win under Clive? No, thats nothing about 2005 or anything - but with that team they should have been shoe-ins for GS every year from about 1999-2003. How well did he do for them when his golden generation started to get old and retire.... Less said about the 2005 Lions tour the better. How well did he do before the golden generation reached their peak (1999 RWC).

England won the world cup via a last minute drop goal in Extra time - not even against New Zealand. An absolute pish England team, it could be argued, were 5 centimetres away from repeating the feat - and yes, Brian Ashton could still be facing the chop.

Anything less than a world cup win for England in 2003 was an under achievement - they had the best 15 players.

Have you seen any documentaries concerning the 2003 world cup - the players thank one man and one man alone for their achievements.... Martin Johnston.

There is no way England should not have qualified from that group - I think Scotland and possibly even Northern Ireland would have qualified from this group - Russia are pretty poor.

HOWEVER, I maybe think the criticism of McClaren has been a fraction on the harsh side. He tried to do things his way (No Beckham, Campbell, James etc) - he was trying to really rid himself of the Sven's puppet tag that he had. When he realised it wasn't working out and made changes - it was already pushing too late.

He swallowed his pride recalled Beckham, Campbell, James, and Emile Heskey and in the games in the Summer - it looked like a corner had been turned. Who would have thought that Emile would have a near man of the match display. In many way, I think the 3-0 win over Russia was as good as the 1-5 vs Germany - cause the 1-5 really did flatter England - a bit of fortune here and there - the 3-0 could have been 4 or 5-0 and been deserved.

The hammer blow was the defeat to Russia - that was without some key players (Becks etc) and really for 85 minutes of that match you were playing decent, and were much the better side... just frightfully unlucky.

Cannot really defend the Croatia performance - you were shit. However, I think that has been the 1 bad display since the return of Becks and the more open minded McLaren that we are seeing now.

Anyone hear the Talk sport song about Steve McClaren sung in Rihanna - Umbrella tune

That bloke and Man City is doing a decent job.

I'm joking.

What about Ebbsfleet's Manager?

Captain Hook wrote:What about Southampton?

.... and now he's Mr Olympics and hasn't met half of the athletes...

He left England's rugby team with a bunch of old farts who can't score tries and creak in the scrum. But fair play to them for getting to the final again, despite being piss poor.

PS At least we Welsh have flair, just not as much as Fiji :)

Mate - I'm am a Southampton fan! Woodward did nothing wrong, it's just the football fraternity didn't like him being there from day 1. Probably because he has a reputation for being successful - and lets face it - that doesn't sit well in English football.

England could play with "Welsh flair" if they decided it would be a good idea to just throw the ball around (come what may) and end up losing to south-sea island part-timers....

The Welsh don't play exciting rugby so much as stupid rugby...but that's just my opinion.

Also....Twickenham in August..... England got NINE...NINE tries, and Wales only one.

"PS At least we Welsh have flair" ...come again?

stujones wrote:There is no way England should not have qualified from that group - I think Scotland and possibly even Northern Ireland would have qualified from this group - Russia are pretty poor.

Your comments seem to lurch from the daft to the outright obsurd. Northern Ireland would have qualified?

Is this a conclusion you and your fellow England-hating racist mates reached at the pub last night or something?

Loftgroov wrote:

stujones wrote:There is no way England should not have qualified from that group - I think Scotland and possibly even Northern Ireland would have qualified from this group - Russia are pretty poor.

Your comments seem to lurch from the daft to the outright obsurd. Northern Ireland would have qualified?

Is this a conclusion you and your fellow England-hating racist mates reached at the pub last night or something?

I do have to concur with Lofty here that there is a rather unpleasant anti-English undertone appearing on this forum.

Celtic b*stards.

Maybe now people will finally realise the damage that has been done to the English game by the foreign players who grace the Premier League. It may possibly be the world's best league but the fact that many of the England team are not getting regular games for their clubs shows how bad things have become.

Other top European league clubs have plenty of their own countrymen in their sides and they also have players in clubs across the continent. Most English players don't have the ambition to go abroad and prove themselves but why should they, a very average English Prem player can get paid £millions£ a year whilst sitting on the subs bench.

The fans of top Prem teams will moan about England but will moan even more if they have to give up their foreign contingent of players under new FIFA rules. You can't have it both ways. Players like Lampard appear to be better than they are because they are helped along by superior foreign footballers every week. English players, after all these years, are still incapable of actually holding onto the ball.

Good game though. Watching England is usually like watching paint dry.

It's as much to do with the youth coaching. We have 10 year olds in this country playing on full size pitches, which means hoofing the ball up the pitch then thundering after it, and this leads to the players who make it being either big lumps or players who can run tirelessly.

We need to focus more on ball skills and less on competitive play on massive pitches.

Had Lawrie Sanchez stayed in Northen Ireland I think they would have qualified out of their group - which I think was harder than Englands... As for Scotland's group, then say no more. England's group was arguebly the easiest of the entire competition - we had Germany and Czech, Scotland had France, Italy and Ukraine (all better than Russia by someway), Northern Ireland had Spain, Sweden and Denmark - all better than Russia.

We (Wales) have got a very bright future, heard the under 21 result this week!, but we are shite at the moment.

Croatia are good, very good infact - good darkhorses to win it next year. Russia are pish though. They will finish bottom of any group they are in the finals. England hammered Russia for 175 minutes - just that five minutes.

I won't lie and say I am dissapointed, but I do feel you have been unlucky.

Terry D wrote:

jamesmcdonnell wrote:It's as much to do with the youth coaching. We have 10 year olds in this country playing on full size pitches, which means hoofing the ball up the pitch then thundering after it, and this leads to the players who make it being either big lumps or players who can run tirelessly.

We need to focus more on ball skills and less on competitive play on massive pitches.

Spot on, they cannot dribble. An attacking dribble can draw 3 players in. Look at Ronaldo, Rooney and Tevez.

We have state of the art stuff but these little f*ckers on a beach in Brazil would hammer our kids.

On a small pitch they'd probably hammer our first team.