Friday, July 9, 2010
England, Perennial Underachievers or Just Not Good Enough?
And so another World Cup has passed England by and the rest of us are left to trawl through the rubble of England's excursion to South Africa and indeed Capello's reign in charge of the three lions. England qualified comfortably, so what? They topped a poor group where the only threat came from an inconsistent and in some cases ageing Croatian side. England showed good form in their qualification campaign, nine victories out of ten and once again, some of the players but more so some of the poorer journalists within the English media started to fancy their chances. I don't know how mant headlines that startedwith TERRY: "WE CAN WIN WORLD CUP". Even during the tournament, when John Terry gave his cringeworthy press conference, he came out and said, I'm here to win this tournament" Ambition is fair enough, but downright naivety is another thing. The reality is, England have no basis for such optimism heading into major tournaments. Let's take their record over the last twenty years. Italia '90 - Semi-Finals, good but let's not forget that on their way to that semi-final they defeated Belgium and Cameroon who can hardly be considered as two of football's superpowers. USA '94 - Didn't qualify. France '98 - Last 16. Korea/Japan - Quarter Finals. Germany '06 - Quarter Finals. South Africa '10 - Last 16. England have no World Cup pedigree, therefore how they can delude themselves into classing themselves as one of the favourites boggles me? Take the German's for example, in the last three World Cup's they have reached two semi-finals and one final. That's World Cup pedigree. England lacked creativity at this World Cup, more fundamental still, they lacked someone to get on the ball and initiate attacks. When I saw Lampard and Gerrard starting in the centre of midfield against USA, I couldn't believe my eyes. You could make an argument for Gerrard but not for Lampard for one simple reason. Frank Lampard has not played as a central midfielder in the last seven years, he plays in a free role off a striker and is very good at that. Both Lampard and Gerrard have no interest in starting attacks, their natural instinct is to finish attacks. Take the Spanish for example, you have Alonso, Xavi, Iniesta and Fabregas all wanting to get on the ball and start attacks, Gerrard and Lampard were hiding. Unless England address this problem, they will never compete on the International arena. I suggest Capello recognised this and made a last ditch effort to try and get Paul Scholes to travel with the squad. Scholes declined but I feel Michael Carrick could have dug England out of a hole. As a poor a season as he has, Carrick could have been the man to get on the ball in midfield giving either Ashley Cole, Glen Johnson and John Terry an option. How many times throughout England's games did we Ashley Cole on the ball looking for an option before hoofing long in the end, he was looking for an option and neither Frank Lampard nor an unfit Gareth Barry could provide it. I don't know where England go from here... They have an upcoming fixture against Hungary and if they under perform the pressure on the manager will be immense, at the moment there is no signs to suggest that they are going to pull a performance out of the bag, if they aren't at it in the first twenty minutes, the fans will be on their back and the pressure will mount. How long Capello can stick it out? Only time will tell...
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
The Birmingham boys and girl are finally mowving south. David Sullivan and David Gold have finally completed their protracted takeover of West Ham United. Speculataion mounts as to the future of current hammers boss Gianfranco Zola, some saying that he will be fired and others stating that the owners are to empower Zola with a bit of a war chest to try and improve the squad. Something between eight and twelve million pounds is the alleged figure. This West Ham side is in bad need of a striker, the loss of Carlton Cole has been a huge loss. They are also a bit short in midfield and desperately need to keep hold of their key players, namely, Robert Green and Scott Parker.
Transfer gossip is out of control at the moment, ridiculous link after ridiculous link...Some on the other hand are not so ridiculous, Rudd Van Nistelrooy on his way to Spurs? Flamini to Man City? Kenwyne Jones to Liverpool? Ben Foster to Spurs? We'll have to wait and see, no doubt we'll have the usual Sky Sports News drama on the 31st of January with that theme tune ringing in our ears all day and God knows we'll all be sick of the sight of Bryan Swanson!!!!
United V City tonight in the semi-final first leg of the Carling Cup, team selection for United should be interesting, traditionally, United field a younger, less experienced team in the this competition. However, Fergie will not want to lose to City this evening. The Tevez factor is also an interesting facet to this match, United baulked at the 25Million pound asking price during the summer, money bags City coughed up the cash and Tevez is starting to return on that investment with eleven goals in his last ten games. Does Ferfie regret his decision not to sign Tevez? We should remember that he rarely gets these decisions wrong, (Jaap Stam aside) time will tell whether the sale of Tevez will turn out to be the right one for United.
With their financial problems worsening and talk of their star man Wayne Ronney being sold a win over their wealthy neighbours would be the appropriate tonic for this United team.
Transfer gossip is out of control at the moment, ridiculous link after ridiculous link...Some on the other hand are not so ridiculous, Rudd Van Nistelrooy on his way to Spurs? Flamini to Man City? Kenwyne Jones to Liverpool? Ben Foster to Spurs? We'll have to wait and see, no doubt we'll have the usual Sky Sports News drama on the 31st of January with that theme tune ringing in our ears all day and God knows we'll all be sick of the sight of Bryan Swanson!!!!
United V City tonight in the semi-final first leg of the Carling Cup, team selection for United should be interesting, traditionally, United field a younger, less experienced team in the this competition. However, Fergie will not want to lose to City this evening. The Tevez factor is also an interesting facet to this match, United baulked at the 25Million pound asking price during the summer, money bags City coughed up the cash and Tevez is starting to return on that investment with eleven goals in his last ten games. Does Ferfie regret his decision not to sign Tevez? We should remember that he rarely gets these decisions wrong, (Jaap Stam aside) time will tell whether the sale of Tevez will turn out to be the right one for United.
With their financial problems worsening and talk of their star man Wayne Ronney being sold a win over their wealthy neighbours would be the appropriate tonic for this United team.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Great news to see Sol Campbell back at Arsenal, Paul Merson was bang on the soccer special last night. who are we to question Arsene Wenger? He has been watching Sol Campbell for over two months in training and obviously saw enough potential in him to sign him.
Lets face it Campbell isn't going to play every game, he will have a role to play in the F.A. Cup and is a more than adequate replacement to call upon if either Gallas or Vermaelen get injured. The bottle of this Arsenal side has been questioned on more than one occasion, Campbell has never backed away from a physical challenge and that experience will lend itself very nicely to Arsenal's younger players. Well done Monsiuer Wenger, inspired signing...
In other news, I think every Liverpool supporter will want the ransfer of Maxi Rodriguez from Atletico Madrid to Anfield to go through as soon as possible. It is a good signing for Liverpool, 1.5 million is a snip for a player of his experience. He is a leader, he has captained Atletico Madrid for a few seasons now and is exactly the type of player that Liverpool need, a matchwinner besides Gerrard and Torres. He is a proven match winner, Argentina V Mexico at the World Cup in Germany in 2006. The question is whether or not he will hit the ground running? Another question is will Benitez apply his strange selection policies as has been done with Alberto Aquilani? Maxi needs to start games and be given the opportunity to influence games. Time will tell...
Lets face it Campbell isn't going to play every game, he will have a role to play in the F.A. Cup and is a more than adequate replacement to call upon if either Gallas or Vermaelen get injured. The bottle of this Arsenal side has been questioned on more than one occasion, Campbell has never backed away from a physical challenge and that experience will lend itself very nicely to Arsenal's younger players. Well done Monsiuer Wenger, inspired signing...
In other news, I think every Liverpool supporter will want the ransfer of Maxi Rodriguez from Atletico Madrid to Anfield to go through as soon as possible. It is a good signing for Liverpool, 1.5 million is a snip for a player of his experience. He is a leader, he has captained Atletico Madrid for a few seasons now and is exactly the type of player that Liverpool need, a matchwinner besides Gerrard and Torres. He is a proven match winner, Argentina V Mexico at the World Cup in Germany in 2006. The question is whether or not he will hit the ground running? Another question is will Benitez apply his strange selection policies as has been done with Alberto Aquilani? Maxi needs to start games and be given the opportunity to influence games. Time will tell...
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