England Under 21's

[mikejh45]

Watched 2 out of the 3 games and if I'm brutally honest, our future is pretty bleak. There were a couple of standout players in Jones especially, with Smalling as his partner and Bertrand as well. Our forwards looked bereft of ideas and looked to shoot every time they got near the penalty box, only Welbeck looked to have a calm head on his shoulders and looked to play the ball around to better positioned players. As BP1960 said in another post.....£20 million for Henderson.....he'll form a perfect partnership with Aquilani.

[Hometownclub]

Watched 2 out of the 3 games and if I'm brutally honest, our future is pretty bleak. There were a couple of standout players in Jones especially, with Smalling as his partner and Bertrand as well. Our forwards looked bereft of ideas and looked to shoot every time they got near the penalty box, only Welbeck looked to have a calm head on his shoulders and looked to play the ball around to better positioned players. As BP1960 said in another post.....£20 million for Henderson.....he'll form a perfect partnership with Aquilani.

I agree.

 

I don't know whether its just me but we seem technically inferior as individual players to everyone we play, in terms of controlling and passing the ball.

 

We didn't deserve to progress in the competition from the performances I saw.

 

If you don't take your strongest team to competitions then you can't have any complaints when you get knocked out.

[Zorrro]

If anyone was shocked, they're mental. Because the coaching methods in this country at all levels have concentrated so much on the physical aspects of football, we're now light years behind the world's elite. This will continue for the foreseeable future unless things change from the ground up and soon.

 

Don't kid yourselves - we're a second-rate footballing nation.

[mikejh45]

Heard some journo on Talksport saying you can't blame Wiltshire, Carroll and Walcott for not playing and it's up to the other players to step up to the mark. What unbelievable bollox......we are talking of 3 players who play regular first team football for their respective top flight clubs having to be replaced by bit part players. Could you imagine the furore if we went into the next major championships without Rooney, Gerrard and say Terry.....the management would be crucified. How can you develop team spirit with club managers like Wenger and to a much lesser extent Dalglish and Ferguson deciding national participation of their players?

[razza699]

I still maintain that set of players last night should have beaten both the Swiss and Czech. A mixture of piss poor managment and lack of fitness has cost us yet again

[mikejh45]

I still maintain that set of players last night should have beaten both the Swiss and Czech. A mixture of piss poor managment and lack of fitness has cost us yet again

 

Naah......poor coaching & technique. By the time we get to this level, it's too late. We are incapable of holding on to the ball. As one pundit said, the Czechs defended a 0-0 for over 75 mins., we couldn't hold a 1-0 lead for 15 mins.

 

Anyway, the Swiss must have played a blinder against us 'cos I missed that one.

 

The problem as I see it is the whole coaching system from the very top right down to the lowest junior leagues.....skill is foresaken for size and fitness. Sad, very sad.

[leeslover]

It's not like we have ever been any good though is it? The odd good game every other tournament seems to be enough to kid ourselves for the next 8 years, we've not really been any good ever.

[opinions4u]

Just putting this "disaster" in to context a little.

 

1) Where were the French, the Italians and the Germans? They didn't even qualify. Our kids are basically the 5th or 6th best side out 50+ European nations.

 

2) If Welbeck had scored v Ukraine when clean through (or Sturridge's shot sneaked in instead of hitting the bar), we'd have only needed a draw last night - which I'm pretty sure we'd have got.

 

3) At 1-1 v the Czechs the lino gave an offside against us when there was no flick on - Welbeck was flattened but no penalty due to a non-existant offside. Had the correct decisions been made we'd have had an injury time penalty to tuck away in order to make the semi finals.

 

Do I think we need to change things? Yes. Pearce was tactically clueless for 2 and a half games - Man City fans would suggest he had already proved this weakness in the Premiership. Playing Mancionne (typo?) as a holding midfielder against a Ukraine side who we had more than enough ability to tear apart was a joke and a very talented Sturridge was never really used to his strengths.

 

To listen to talkSPORT you'd think that the world has ended and Enland's football team will never win another match. Improvements can be made. But it really isn't the massive disaster some are suggesting.

[mikejh45]

Just putting this "disaster" in to context a little.

 

1) Where were the French, the Italians and the Germans? They didn't even qualify. Our kids are basically the 5th or 6th best side out 50+ European nations. But in 5 years time, when we play one of those sides in a competitive match, it's unlikely to be an England win.

 

2) If Welbeck had scored v Ukraine when clean through (or Sturridge's shot sneaked in instead of hitting the bar), we'd have only needed a draw last night - which I'm pretty sure we'd have got. Agree with the first bit, really don't think we could have hung on for a draw.

 

3) At 1-1 v the Czechs the lino gave an offside against us when there was no flick on - Welbeck was flattened but no penalty due to a non-existant offside. Had the correct decisions been made we'd have had an injury time penalty to tuck away in order to make the semi finals. Definately agree

 

Do I think we need to change things? Yes. Pearce was tactically clueless for 2 and a half games - Man City fans would suggest he had already proved this weakness in the Premiership. Playing Mancionne (typo?) as a holding midfielder against a Ukraine side who we had more than enough ability to tear apart was a joke and a very talented Sturridge was never really used to his strengths. Pearce is out of his depth as a manager, needs to be no more than a coach to a strong manager who has firm ideas.

To listen to talkSPORT you'd think that the world has ended and Enland's football team will never win another match. Improvements can be made. But it really isn't the massive disaster some are suggesting.

 

This is simply as case of "same old - same old" AGAIN. The system gets "tinkered" around with but essentially the song remains the same. We've been talking about tournament failures for nigh on 50 years. The British style of play is what gets coached into kids from an early age and until we get rid of that mentality, we are never going to get even close to winning a tournament.

Edited June 20, 2011 by mikejh45

[Zorrro]

I like the cut of Mike's jib.

[mikejh45]

I like the cut of Mike's jib.

 

Bluddy hell....a compliment.....I'm usually the topic-killer!!!

[razza699]

Naah......poor coaching & technique. By the time we get to this level, it's too late. We are incapable of holding on to the ball. As one pundit said, the Czechs defended a 0-0 for over 75 mins., we couldn't hold a 1-0 lead for 15 mins.

 

Anyway, the Swiss must have played a blinder against us 'cos I missed that one.

 

The problem as I see it is the whole coaching system from the very top right down to the lowest junior leagues.....skill is foresaken for size and fitness. Sad, very sad.

shows how much attention I paid

[opinions4u]

We've been talking about tournament failures for nigh on 50 years

I don't think we've ever really learned from it.

 

But it's something like only 8 nations that have ever won a World Cup. There's another couple of hundred that haven't.

 

Sometimes our expectations are, perhaps, a tad unrealistic. Just because we're England doesn't mean we should automatically be the best.

 

You will often hear things like "In Holland they don't play 11-a-side until they're 14" or "Why can't we keep the ball as well as the Spanish?". Now both sides made the last World Cup final, but the Spanish weren't in a dis-similar position to England just 4 years ago. I'm in awe of what I've seen from Spain and Barcelona in the last couple of years. The Dutch performance in that final was horrible to the extreme. By all means nick good coaching and development ideas from elsewhere, but don't just assume that because they're different to what we do now they must also be better.

 

The right mix of bulldog spirit, tactical nouse and luck could win England a major trophy. Equally, it might not happen. Perhaps the ball that Lineker didn't manage to put away v Argentina after Maradonna cheated; the stuffy deflection off Paul Parker that got the Germans a goal against us; Gascoigne's studs being an inch too short in Euro 96 extra time; the Argentinian handball in the box during extra time in the game Beckham was sent off in; Seaman staying on his line v Brazil; Lampard's shot that was 3 miles over the line (ok, I doubt we'd have won that game, but an equaliser could have changed the mood).

 

We haven't got it right. But to suggest that we're a disaster is also not accurate.

 

I like the cut of Mike's jib.

He makes a number of valid points.

Edited June 20, 2011 by opinions4u

[mikejh45]

I don't think we've ever really learned from it.

 

But it's something like only 8 nations that have ever won a World Cup. There's another couple of hundred that haven't.

 

Sometimes our expectations are, perhaps, a tad unrealistic. Just because we're England doesn't mean we should automatically be the best.

 

The right mix of bulldog spirit, tactical nouse and luck could win England a major trophy. We haven't got it right. But to suggest that we're a disaster is also not accurate.

 

 

I agree with the above......Talksport along with our media (not forgetting the Mystic Megs who manage to get comparisons in numbers to 1966....ie we qualified with the same number of points and goals for and against, including sendings off, bookings, cats kicked etc. therefore this is our year), always unrealistically talk up our chances based on English players looking better than what they really are because they play alongside Johnny Foreigners. A classic example is Frank Lamphead.....he was surrounded in his best years by the likes of Essian and Drogba at their peak, Zola, Ballack etc. who gave him the opportunities to do a "Roger Palmer" and ghost into the penalty box, but was found wanting when he didn't have the same level of success for England and therefore open for criticism.

[leeslover]

The only players from recent years who would have a hope of making it into a world 22 are Scholes, Rooney and Cole, and I'm not sure if any of those three would have made it into Spain's first 11 at the last WC. We kid ourselves over games like Holland in 96, it was the only really good game we played that tournament. We aren't dreadful but we aren't all that great either.