England v Paraguay (spoilers)

[Felonius_Monk]

[Stoneburg]

I thought it was two completely different halfs. First half England played well and created some decent chances, passed the ball nicely etc. Good possesion and should have created more. Second half was pure italian style defense. Sven-Göran obviously wanted to play safe. Most english people don't seem to appreciate it but Sven-Göran has a quite amazingly effective defensive tactic, but it is extremely different from the way english fans are used to.

Usually England plays with high pressure, now they play with extremely low pressure, tightening up the midfield and shutting down the middle, driving the attackers out on the wings were Terry and Ferdinand can easily handle the crosses, and the midfielders/defenders marking extremely well and picking up any attempts at through balls, waiting for mistakes from the opponents. The break-aways were horrible though and they need to get better at that.

Just heard Lampard was picked as man of the match. I think that's a joke. Other than two good shots he didn't perform anywhere near his potential. Gerrard was very good in defense and had some nice passes, Beckham had a good first half but his crosses were not up to his usual standard. Cole was the most creative of the midfielders. I thought Lampard was the *worst* midfielder in England today.

In defense, Terry is great, Rio and Gary do a good job, but it's apparent that Cole isn't in form yet. He made two bad defensive mistakes and didn't participate enough in the offense.

Up front Owen had a sub par performance. Crouch was very good but the ref (who was absolutely awful) seemed to hate him. The referee was the worst kind of attention-whore, he shouldn't be in the world cup.

All in all I thought England was disappointing (though it is hard to say after seeing the Sweden game and knowing *real* disappointment). The midfield isn't providing enough for the attackers. With the quality in that part of the team they should be able to create more of their possession. At the moment I think they're looking for the final ball too quickly, and not moving enough off the ball or working together completely. Maybe Gerrard/Lampard just isn't a good combination. I'd prefer to see Cole as the attacking central midfielder instead of Lampard.

[Felonius_Monk]

[NorthView]

[Stoneburg]

Honestly, I don't see how you can dis Sven-Göran so much. You've had a succession of retards as coaches and should be happy you finally have someone competent. After Alf Ramsey he also has the best record of an England coach ever.

I don't think you win Serie A and the Portugeese league and get hired by Real Madrid if you don't know what you're doing. England fans have always had a reality-detached view of their team, you've always had a second class football team but seem to think that you're up there with Brazil but in reality you're not even top ten. Don't get me wrong, I love english football and after Sweden, England is my favorite team, but you're not that good. Now for the first time you actually have a good team, but that's in relative terms, you're still nowhere near the big teams but with a bit of luck you might challenge them.

If I am going to categorise the teams I've seen so far this Cup into 3 groups it would be like this:

Contenders
Argentina
Ivory Coast

Decent
Ecuador
Germany
England
Sweden
Paraguay

Hopeless
Costa Rica
Trinidad
Poland

[NorthView]

[Stoneburg]

[NorthView]

Hmmm, nasty. Do I detect a bit of World Cup anxiety there? I do hope you get over it quickly.

More importantly, would you defend Eriksson so vigorously if he wasn't a fellow Swede?

Either way, your analysis is shot to hell by a deeper look at the context. Sure, England have only lost 3 competitive games under Eriksson, but his results are skewed by the fact that he's been blessed with a far better pool of players than any other England manager since 1970, and still his team gets knocked out each time they meet decent opposition.

So as not to be accused of pro-English bias, let's look at the rough resale value of each member of the current England XI : Rooney £30M+, Gerrard £30M, Ferdinand £30M, Lampard £20M, Beckham £20M?, Owen £15M?, J Cole £15M, Terry £15M, A Cole £15M and so on. Brazil aside, England probably has the most highly valued players of any international team, and we have a right to expect a place in the semi-finals at the very least.

All we get from Eriksson is excuses, while he's continued to be obscenely overpaid. At the last WC and Euro 2004, he was able to hide his lack of managerial ability and blame some very disappointing performances and results on injuries and fitness problems with key players. In fact, at WC 2002 England failed to score a single second half goal in the whole tournament. After Saturday's second half debacle, the weather was apparently to blame - nothing to do with his legendaerily soporific half time team talk and nonsensical tactical substitutions, of course. About the half time team talk during England's defeat to a 10 man Brazil in WC 2002, one anonymous England player was quoted as saying "we wanted Churchill and got John Major."

The guy's tactically and temperamentally unsuited to being England manager, IMO. Taking a striker off and hanging on for dear life may be de rigeur in Serie A Mr Stoneburg, but it won't do in an unpredictable international tournament where one slip can put you on the next plane home. What's more, Eriksson's brand of phlegmatic conservatism is totally at odds with the passion and desire of the English who demand aggressive, attacking football of the sort seen in the Premiership.

Personally I don't care too much what nationality the England manager is, as long as he can get the best performances out of the group of players he has to work with. I wish we'd got Scolari or Huddink to agree to succeed Eriksson, but alas we've got McLaren who I doubt will be any improvement, so I agree with your long term prognosis.

[Felonius_Monk]

[Felonius_Monk]

I had to laugh when (apparently) Martin O'Neill really wanted the england job and didn't get it. Out of ALL the possible guys they interviews, McLaren would've been my nut last choice. You've got Curbishley, who is articulate and a typical english manager, has taken a team from obscurity to mid-table in england on a shoestring, O'Neill, a guy who took a team from obscurity to EUROPE on a shoestring and turned Celtic round (OK, on a big budget...) and has succeeeded in every job he's ever taken, another very articulate and passionate speaker and apparently very tactically astute and likeable. Allardyce, a manager who's taken a team of past-it European pros, free signings, loans, and home-grown talent to a top 5 finish (then a top 10 finish) in the league, who's also very passionate, thoughtful and extremely modern in his managerial techniques and the way he's put together the structure and infrastructure of the club and its training techniques.

But we got McLaren, who has spent about 50 million over the years at Middlesbrough, built a mediocre team and kept them solidly in upper-midtable. He's done OK but nothing special, hasn't won anything and his only real success in management has come as second in command at Man United. He seems tactically fairly naive and hasn't done anything to suggest that he's going to take a very talented group of players further than a borderline top ten finish in the league, either by tactical acuity, man-management (a la Wenger) or astute transfer dealing (a la Allardyce, Benitez etc). I don't think he's going to do too badly but it was time for a change, and I'd have been happy with any of the other 3 guys. Can't believe that a guy like O'Neill, who seems to be top of EVERY club's wishlist in the UK, was overlooked for a guy who was never going to be able to move on from Middlesbrough to another club, unless he took a step down. Bah.

[NorthView]

[Felonius_Monk]

[Felonius_Monk]

[NorthView]

Rooney will be 32 by then, and Wembley still won't be complete. It may go to Scandinavia.

[Stoneburg]