Happy with the draw but not happy with the set up. It's the same old, same old for England. Still playing shit on a stick football. It's frustrating when you believe the players are there as well. Lambert aside, they're being picked on name and nothing else, not by quality or form which is how it should be.

I would like to see something like:


We then have players like Walcott, Delph, Sterling, Redmond, The Ox, Lingard, Chalobah, Berahino, Westwood, Ince and Powell to come in. Could replace Welbeck with The Ox and keep swapping Zaha and The Ox around. They can also track back to make a 4-5-1.

It annoys me when people say we shouldn't be starting these young players if they haven't achieved anything with their clubs. They shouldn't have to achieve anything if they are good enough. I believe they are, besides, with players like McEachran for example, Chelsea are better than England, so why should he be expected to achieve something with them before getting into an inferior team? Club football is king.

I think the current squad is mediocre but I don't think we produce mediocre players. We could be an exciting young footballing side if only these players were given the chance and a manager had some bottle. These are all good, skilled footballers who can play. Imagine Pep in charge of that team. The bolded players could arguably start, Delph has real tenacity and skill, excellent range of passing, he is looking like a fine footballer now. The Ox can play anywhere in the midfield. I rate McEachran very highly, he is extremely talented. For every Josh McEachran there is a Neymar or a Thiago in another country but as far as young players coming through that we can be excited about, he is one of them.


Josh McEachran - English Xavi - YouTube

I don't think Cleverley is good enough and Rooney has had his chance, he's a mentally weak bottler. I've no objection to Carrick starting, he could possibly captain the team & you do need some experience and a cool head, who better than Carrick to provide it? But the focus here is on youth and the next generation.

Wilshere is not a pussy and has a youthful fearlessness about him like Rooney did at the same age, he has a touch of the mentalist about him. He can obviously play a bit too & will probably be the heart of the team for the next 7 or 8 years provided he avoids serious injury so he walks into the team.

Lampard, Gerrard and Rooney have had their time. It's time for them to move on.

Gerrard, Lampard and Carrick are FAR superior to the midfielders you named. I really like Barkley though.

Walcott is a certain starter, as is Rooney. The left is between Welbeck, Chambo and Zaha.

And Wilshere is a pussy. Soft as sh*t.

At their peaks they were but that is not the point. The midfield is a mess, Gerrard running about like a dick and doing nothing in particular as usual. Lampard and Gerrard have played 61 times in the centre of midfield for England. Why has no cunt worked out that they can't play together? We constantly pick teams of individuals.

The system isn't working, as soon as we meet a half decent side we get dealt with because they are better footballing sides. This shouldn't be about picking individuals, if England are going to achieve anything, someone has to completely start from scratch with a new plan that is a bit more than just lumping it up the pitch and playing experienced players, which is exactly what England have been doing for years. It doesn't work, they failed, so get rid. We should be putting together the next team instead of plodding on with Lampard, Gerrard and Milner. The priority should be the long term like what Germany did after the 5-1 in 2001, not merely winning the next game.

I saw a Ferguson interview yesterday which summed up what is wrong with management generally and it applies to the England team:

You can use Lambert at Villa as a good example of building a team of young players and getting them to play as a unit, not just bringing players in for the sake of it like what McLeish did before him. Look where that got us.

Have you seen McEachran play btw?

Rooney has been abysmal in every tournament he's played in apart from Euro 2004. He's a bottle job. No one should ever get to the amount of caps he has when he consistently fails when it matters and in a team that has never won anything. Half the problem is the team never gets freshened up, just trotting out the same shite out year in year out.

I haven't seen anything from Wilshere to suggest he's a pussy, I do see him get stuck in quite a bit though.

Also Hart had two more blunders last night that he was lucky to get away with. I'd drop him too.

Wilshere isn't really a pussy, but he seems to be on the floor all the time. Though with his attitude he's going to get kicked all the time so he better get used to it.

Something Positive For 2014 World Cup
 

Among all the chaos & corruption, something like this brings, this organisation The Spirit Of Football (google search it), has loads of positive things to contribute towards the festivities of the 2014 World Cup. There are some really interesting & uplifting things going on here, it's really worth checking out!

Also, I think (though wouldn't quote me on this!) there is also a theme tune in the pipeline by UK band New Model Army, who also have a new album out soon too called 'Between Dog And Wolf'.

No, he really is. I remember his hissy fits during and after the Newcastle/Arsenal 4-4 match. He doesn't seem to have grown up a lot either. He does have a lot of talent , but he has looked poor since his last lay off.

As for the debate on selection, never any point discussing it because no manager has the stones to drop any of our players who just don't perform. They get vilified if a talisman is dropped and they get slated if we turf out "the usuals" and play poorly-which we always do. I'm not sure why putting a few goals past shocking opposition ever stirs hope to be honest, people should be wise to it by now. We also don't have a right back worthy of the name-but two good left backs. Experimenting and putting one of them at right back can't be that hard can it? After all Cole did most of Johnson's back tracking in the last WC. I can't see why they didn't at least try it several years ago, too late to build anything on now anyway.

Heck even Baines on the left wing would be better than the usual. I always thought Milner was better in the middle as well, can't be any worse than the current set up.

Wiilshere has been class playing as the deepest CM for Arsenal but, in typical English fashion, he is being asked to play as an attacking midfielder for the National team because he is quite a good dribbler.

Makes no sense to me because he doesn't create or score goals, and he often completely destroys counter attacks.

Either play him deep alongside Gerrard, or just drop him and play Carrick - pushing Lampard further forward.

Yeah, agree with that. He's suffering because he's probably the only English midfielder who's been able to dribble a ball past someone since Gazza.

His dribbling works best from deep (when going past other midfielders) as opposed to on the edge of the box, as defenders naturally have more chance of tackling him.

Yeah, he definitely shouldn't be playing as an attacking midfielder. I wasn't really likening him to Gazza, just that he's the only player in a central position I've seen in an England shirt manage to beat three players while on the ball. Most don't even manage one in their career.

Oh yeah, I understood what you were saying. Just adding another comment.

Either way, he is being used properly at Arsenal so that's all I really care about. He and Chamberlain should be the long term CM partnership for England.

Who do you reckon for Trap's replacement, Loveisuicide? O'Neill be good? Or over-hyped? Surely not Keane! :eek:

Sounds like Rooney at the same age. Rooney has always been hard as nails to be fair to him.

I'd have liked Eoin Coyle, but of the candidates mentioned O'Neill is the best of a bad bunch.

BBC Sport - World Cup 2022: Uefa members back winter tournament in Qatar

UEFA have voted for a winter World Cup in Qatar, bent fuckers. If it has to be moved to winter it should be moved elsewhere and the other bidders should have a rerun (with the Aussies winning.)

If they can't hold it in summer then they won the bid under false pretences and I hope the other bidders sue the shit out of FIFA.

England vs Montenegro tonight. Kick-off 8pm at Wembley.

I really can't wait to find out if New Zealand's team is going to be sent to the world cup! November they play, only one more game and it's decided. I think we have a really good chance. We have mainly beaten Pacific Island teams.

We're winning 1-0 atm, should qualify as we're already guaranteed a play off place.

@Vanilla, New Zealand are miles ahead 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil? Preliminaries: Oceania - Groups and Standings: - FIFA.com

6 points clear, played every team twice. I'm sure they've already qualified? You sure the November game isn't a friendly? Must be in play offs or something that group looks far too easy to be the final qualifying group?

We're going to Brazil.

Well done boys. Cheers Woy.

England under Hodgson are bland. Part of me wanted us to lose tonight so we could get a new manager who gets us playing with a little flair. Guess that will have to wait until after we do badly in Brasil.

fuck you.

http://s23.postimg.org/gj85fff0r/wc_table.png

At least we beat Croatia, a feat you lot seem incapable of.

You sure about that?

The last 2 times we played them we slaughtered them both home and away, we beat them 4-1 away (Walcott hat-trick) and 5-1 at home (Rooney hat-trick).

You're thinking of the Euro 2008 qualifiers under McLaren, these ones were qualifiers for 2010 which we won.

I'm sure I read an article about it being confirmed in November.We were supposed to play Mexico but we cancelled it. I'm rather confused but we definitely haven't qualified yet!

Predictions for the World Cup anyone?
Winners: Germany
Runners Up: Spain
3rd: Brazil
4th: Argentina
Quarter final teams: England, Italy, Belgium, Columbia

These things are always hard to call imo. You've got the elite teams - Germany, Brazil, Argentina, Italy & Spain. The current German style of football i.e. pressing, speed, counter attacking is the best atm and they have to be hot favourites, they've got a ridiculous amount of quality and can match anyone. Brazil & Argentina just behind them but they're on their home continent. I don't think Spain will win it. In fact I will be astounded if they do, not because they're bad but because these things go in cycles and they will have been top dogs for 6 years by the time it kicks off. The tika-taka has been exposed a few times now also, & then Italy are very strong too and have done well in recent tournaments. All of these should be hoping to get to the final with the exception of maybe Italy who are the weakest of the 5.

Next tier: The Netherlands, Portugal*, Uruguay & Colombia. Outside bets imo, individual star players but not as strong collectively as those others above. Can't see Colombia getting to the final but with a bit of luck the other three might. *If they qualify.

Next tier: Sweden*, England, France & Belgium. I'd say these are the teams who aren't expecting to win but do have quality and others won't want to draw them. Would be very surprised if any of these got to the semis or the final. We should be expecting to get out of our group and then enjoy the rest of the tournament but nothing more. Same applies to the others imo. *If they qualify.

Then you've got decent/average teams like USA & Switzerland with the possibility of teams such as Mexico, Croatia, Ukraine etc in the playoffs. Just getting out of the group would be an achievement for these teams.

I guarantee the winner will be one of those elite 5 teams. Unless England troll our way to victory, scoring just three goals and winning two games in 90 minutes :cool:.

Top scorers in qualifying with 11 goals each: Luis Suárez (Uruguay), Robin van Persie (Netherlands) and... Deon McCaulay (Belize) :eek::cool:.

England are miles better than Netherlands, Portugal, Uruguay and Colombia.

Winners: Argentina
Runners Up: Spain
3rd: Brazil
4th: Germany
Quarter final teams: England, Italy, France and Belgium.

No we aren't :D. We will be out as soon as we face a good team, all of those teams would knock us out.

England have a better team than those I named. Very underrated group of players in reality. And the other nations are vastly overrated.

People have been saying this for years. Good on paper, great for their clubs etc.

Same old outcome. The last time we beat a top team in knockout competition was when? Spain in 1996, 17 years ago?

Lets not pretend Belgium and Portugal have performed wonderfully in recent years either. Not close to England in terms of talent pool right now.

Portugal - 2 semi's, a QF (2008 where we failed to qualify) and a last 16 in their last 4 tournaments. They have actually knocked us out in 2 of our last 4 tournaments. Spain could only beat them on pens at the Euros and Portugal beat them 4-0 the year before.

Belgium are a dark horse and I think people are overrating them slightly because they've got all these players coming through at once yet haven't done anything like you say (hence why I put them on about the same level as us), I would expect us to beat Belgium if we faced them but I wouldn't be surprised if we lost either.

I don't think Argentina have a good chance of winning. Sure there attack is great. Messi, Aguero etc. however look at there defence. It's nothing special and there midfield lacks creativity and a strong playmaker.
Also France are quite bad now and I think if they qualify they won't get the ought be groups imo. Other than that ur predictions could be correct.

Winners: Brazil
Runners Up: Germany
3rd: Italy
4th: Argentina
Quarters: England, Spain, Switzerland, USA

There we go to mix it up a wee bit.

These picks would look good with Spain 3rd instead of Italia. Germany will probably beat Brazil, but Brazil looks good going into it.

USA? HA! Good Luck with that.

Spain won the World Cup and two European Championships with Barça's defence though. Granted, they are Spain, but with Messi, Argentina have a great chance.

They are a decent side. If they get out of the groups the 2nd round game could be against someone like Ecuador.

Messi is Argentina's playmaker, so yeah, they are all good in that position.

Yeah I suppose Messi could play in goal as well. He's probably amazing at that too.