England - The Autopsy

[Win2Win]

What a tournament :cuck .... Struggled the first game, utter drivel the 2nd, scraped through the third.... just about clawing our way out of the Group stage .... and straight into the hands of the Hun who were all setup for a massacre of Paschendale proportions :brrr

So what went wrong with some of the best players in the world? Was it the players, the manager, the fact they couldn't ::hump their wives (their own Terry :rolleyes:).

Maybe it's the fact that some of the players look better than they are in Club football as they are surrounded by professional players from other countries, although that isn't really the case .... is it? :doh

The players just never seemed to be really interested apart from one match, and we only just won that one by 1-0 :splapme

So it's the players who need to take most of the blame as it is actually their job to score ... that may surprise some folk who think it's all the managers job but under the rules of football, unless he's a player/manager and is in the first 11, he can't score for them :ooo

Talking of the manager though, yet another has failed us. £6M a year ... and for what? A part-time job? Easy money if you can get it, but even a comatose patient wouldn't have managed the players any worse :omg:

It was like watching the Sven/McClown period all again, same players, same players out of position (why oh why do they do that? :ermmm). Same useless tactics, and slow to change when things are not going right. In fact he reminded me of Benitez, so I nearly launched the TV into orbit ::swear .... renegotiated his contract before the distaste.

So now I come to the goal that never was ..... I hope Slap Bladder (I can never spell the FIFA's chief muppet) realized that a multi-Billion $$$ industry, watched by 100's Millions of people needs to be a little less error prone. We already have goal line technology, the TV companies supplied it so we all could see within seconds it was a goal, and it appears on;y one person in the whole of the professional football game is against using technology.... you guessed it.... Self Blubber :doh

And it wasn't just that game, two in one day. Mexico v Argentina turned into a farce when a goal that was offside TWICE, was given as a goal, and shown to every Tom, Dick & Lesbian in the ground. So the crowd, managers, players, even the officials knew it wasn't a goal, but it still stood. :doh .... and yet the replay was over within 15 seconds ... the hassle with the officials took 2-3 minutes to sort out.

The argument that technology would slow a game is a dead duck. You simply use it for goal/penalty decisions. In fact every time a goal is scored, they check was it offside, did a foul take place, did it cross the line? All that can be done in 10-15 seconds. It takes longer to kick-off.

So after those two debacles you could clearly see it completely changed both games, and along with the embarrassment of the French getting in something needs to be done before the next tournament starts in 2 years.

... and finally... how the :censored: do we change those at the top of FIFA? It reminds me of the 'all boys together' of the old Jockey Club we got rid of last century.

[johnwilly]

I am not a great fan of football unless I can make a profit. As I am in valencia at this moment for the F1 where Webber went by qantos. We came out of the circuit, found a taxi and went to a bar where we watched the second half. There with a beer and a meal which was a damn sight more digestible than watching England play. Now everyone is going to blame the manager - but why - a good team don't have to be managed and this england team couldn't even manage a p... up in a brewery. They would even have to have the drinks poured into a glass for them cos they would probably miss and pour it over the floor. So no it is not the managers fault that his players decided they didn't want to play any more - Terry proved that with his outburst.they have no pride but only how much can they make.
I have seen better players in the lower leagues, who if chosen to play for ther country would go out with a fight and not a whimper as was seen yesterday

[mathare]

Don't forget this was supposed to be the last chance for the Golden Generation to finally win something. This is the same bunch of players that made the quarter-finals in World Cup 2002, Euro 2004 and World Cup 2006, failed to qualify for Euro 2008 and went out in the second round of World Cup 2010. Some Golden Generation :rolleyes:

[johnwilly]

Yes Mathare but we have also heard of fool's gold

[johnwilly]

Golden Gereration - More like the Fools gold Generation

[Laf]

As long as Blatter is in charge I don't think we'll see the use of technology to make decisions. He'll probably just push ahead with his 4th and 5th officials on the goal lines. While that would probably have been enough to award Lampard's goal yesterday, it's not enough for offsides and will never eliminate the bad decisions.

As for change at the top? The next FIFA presidential elections take place next year and I believe Blatter is running again but will likely face opposition. The Asian Football Confederation have already announced they intend to challenge him. Let's hope so!

[TooTall]

I think we need to start again out of that 23 man squad only Joe Hart Ashley Cole James Milner and Donkey ::swear i mean Rooney should be picked again lets give the young ones a chance. Oh i heard Redknapp on the radio saying he wouldnt say no to England if the job was offered

[mathare]

Oh i heard Redknapp on the radio saying he wouldnt say no to England if the job was offeredHarry or Jamie? :doh

[TheOldhamWhisper]

The average tenure for an England manager is around 2 years - so we get a manager on a 4 year contract and then just before a major tournament they 'negotiate' a new 4 year contract...WHY?

OK, from the manager's point of view this is about as win-win as you can get...he gets a pay rise AND the guarantee of a massive payout if the team fails!

Now, I may not be fully qualified in making decisions that effect the FA and in particular the England setup but it really isn't that difficult to see where the first mistake is being made...OK, in case someone from the FA is reading this and hasn't grasped the concept yet...

1. STOP GIVING THEM NEW CONTRACTS!!!! (at least until AFTER the major tournament!) - what are they going to do, leave? If they do, we probably had the wrong person in the first place!

2. In EVERY contract, put in a clause that states "incompetence could be considered to be gross misconduct which is a dismissable offence" - AND USE IT!!

3. £6m a year and £12m 'payoff clause'? How about £1m a year and OTE (based on performance) of £6m a year - at least then we would be getting some return on our investment

[barrelmaniac]

The money in football is just ridiculous, My personal beliefs is that money only buys the best upto a point, and paying people upwards of £1 million a year will make no difference to performance (possibly much lower amounts would not make a whole lot of difference) It would be interesting to see how much other national squad managers are getting paid around the world and how it relates to performance.

[mathare]

Let's not forget the Premier League was set up in the early 90s to improve the chances of the national team winning a major tournament. Nearly twenty years later I think we can say the experiment has failed.

[Win2Win]

Manager gets £1M a year, 2 Yr contract, and a bonus of £1M if they get us to the finals.

[John]

Harry or Jamie? :doh

...or Louise? :D

Absolutely shocking performance, most of all because not one of our defenders was brave enough to go in for a tackle. Sometimes we were outnumbering the Germans (our defence vs. their attack) and still they managed to find a way through. We were utterly useless.

Had it gone to 2-2 like it should have done, well who knows. What I don't understand is why we only wake up and do something when we're 1 or 2 goals down. We never take the first initiative.

[bigcumba]

So what went wrong with some of the best players in the world?

There's your answer right there.. they just simply aren't. Stop believeing the hype surrounding all things to do with English football and start accepting the reality that most English players are mediocre at best.. the Premiership is good, but still not on a par with the best of the Euro and South American leagues.. and most of the best players in the Prem are foreign anyway which gives a bias on how good it is..

[lowe1]

I still believe





















































:laugh:laugh:laugh:laugh:laugh:laugh:laugh:laugh :laugh:laugh:laugh:laugh:laugh:laugh:laugh:laugh

[mathare]

I kinda agree with you here BigC but there is no doubt that some of the England squad can be up there with the best in the world - on their day. Would the likes of Gerrard and Rooney walk into the Brazil squad - no, but on their day they are great players who should be doing better on the world stage.

The problem we have is that beyond a couple of stars the squad is very weak. Yes, we had injuries etc but which country doesn't? Terry's not that good and whoever you put alongside him was going to struggle against a decent team because of the weaknesses we have in that position. Johnson is a poor right-back. We went into the tournament not knowing who our number one goalkeeper was. We still don't have a left-sided midfielder and whoever we play on the right seems to want to cut inside all the time. Beckham showed how it was done - whip a cross if if you can't beat your man on the outside. Up front we have Rooney (who was well out of sorts) and then Crouch (the ball pings off him a lot) or Heskey who's an absolute donkey and hasn't scored for ages. Or Defoe, who is nothing but pace, really.

When Heskey or Crouch play we lump the ball up to them but don't have the runners or support strikers playing off them. And when they aren't playing we lump it up to Defoe who is about 4 foot tall! We did that before when we had Owen playing too. Someone needs to teach the English to pass and move not rely on the long hoofball.

[yerotsluap]

One of the main problems was that for 6 months Capello said the squad would be based on form and fitness.

Then come the day the squad is named and the likes of Barry (clearly not fit), Heskey (barely played in the last couple of months of season) Carragher (probably at his worst since he "retired" from international football) Joe Cole (barely more than 20 minutes a game all season) Wright-Phillips (kept out of City team by Johnson since January).

Yet the form players like Adam Johnson, Darren Bent, Scott Parker, Michael Dawson are left out of the squad.

Then we have Ledley King. In one of Capello's early squads he called up King, Harry Redknapp then had a go saying that because he wasn't able to train he couldn't possibly be an international player. Capello seemed to accept that and didn't try to call him up again. Then a couple of months ago Redknapp started saying that King should go to the world cup and suddenly he's in the squad for the world cup. Now surprise surprise 45 minutes into the world cup King has to go off injured. Surely if he can't train properly between games because of the state of his knees he's then going to be more susceptible to other injuries.

[John]

I honestly thought Beckham should have been on the wing yesterday. Seriously. Get rid of the shirt and grey waistcoat and put him back in an England shirt. He was a fantastic winger and a great midfielder; worked hard and got stuck into the game. He could score from free kicks too. Is it just me or is Lampard a bit of a one trick pony for England? He's got a bit of pace and a good shot on him, but can he do much else?

I'm still overwhelmingly baffled, if there is such a phrase, about the defence yesterday not going in for tackles. That's got to be up there in the top three jobs of a defender, surely. Tackle. We stood off virtually every German attack. We outnumbered them on countless occasions and still they found a way to thread the ball through. Now, John Terry doesn't do that for Chelsea so why do it for England? Yes it's Germany, yes there is the history and rivalry between us and them, but that psychological analysis shouldn't affect us getting stuck in and it's probably a part of the reason. Take that out though and still we made no effort to close them down whatsoever. They ran at us, and we ran by them and let them through.


This is the same bunch of players that made the quarter-finals in World Cup 2002, Euro 2004 and World Cup 2006, failed to qualify for Euro 2008 and went out in the second round of World Cup 2010.

This is the other thing I wanted to talk about. I mean, you'd have thought that something would have been done about the squad selection for this World Cup. We've made very little impact with our current squad, which hasn't been dissimilar for the past 10 years. What I can't get my head around is: Why are the same players continuously chosen? It's even more baffling given the fact that we've had a plethora of different managers in the past 10 years. Surely someone, somewhere, would have changed something. Capello didn't look at the squad McLaren and Sven used, obviously. Too scared to change things drastically? Take Dawson, and for goodness sake take Agbonlahor and Bent. It makes no sense to take Heskey when Agbonlahor is first choice at Villa. I don't buy the fact that Heskey gets to go to the World Cup because he plays well with Rooney either. He's absolutely atrocious. If the team is playing well and you have two class strikers, to a large degree it doesn't matter if the two forwards don't quite connect. You've probably got at least 6 or 7 others behind you who are connecting. Look at Man United; would you say Berbatov and Rooney connect well? Not really. But look at the whole team – everyone connects. A better example is Drogba and Anelka at Chelsea. They haven't connected that well this season which is why they rarely played together but the guys behind link up well.

I really, really hope this is a wake up call for England and they really think about what's happened. We've played some marginally better football under Capello prior to the World Cup but for some reason we just go to absolute pot when it matters most.

The slightly lesser ranked (but still pretty good) teams like Mexico, Ghana, Chile, USA seem to be able to communicate well and play some nice football. When you look at these kind of teams it makes us look horrendous, and we're ranked higher.

[TheOldhamWhisper]

I honestly thought Beckham should have been on the wing yesterday. Seriously. Get rid of the shirt and grey waistcoat and put him back in an England shirt.

and if he hadn't been injured, I dare say he would have been :wink

[mathare]

I really, really hope this is a wake up call for England and they really think about what's happened.Who are they though? Will the players change at all? No. They'll continue to pick up money and plaudits for their club football and then tell the press they don't understand why the national side is so poor when it counts. Will the FA make the massive changes that are clearly necessary? Ha!

The hammering and humiliation we suffered against Germany is just what we needed. The FA, players, manager, the whole England setup and the fans all needed us to get battered and capitulate like they did. Maybe now we can hold a proper inquest and start making some real changes to how things are done. And the fans can stop pretending we're a decent footballing side who should be beating any side they face at least 2-0, unless it's Brazil in which case a 1-0 win will suffice. England supporters have a huge chip on their shoulders. It's not confidence that means the fans think we can win every game we play. It's delusion and arrogance coupled with a refusal to recognise the dross that is served up by the England players for what it really is.

[bigcumba]

Brilliant last post Mat, couldn't have put it better!

[bryn]

There is now a helpline for Capello and his followers 0800 41 41 41

[Win2Win]

Brilliant last post Mat, couldn't have put it better!
Only English folk allowed to comment :rolleyes:

PS... Scotland couldn't lend us a few players could they? :cuck