For a country that lives and breathes football, has thousands of registered players and huge financial resources, we are uniquely clueless when it comes to putting out a team and have been for a very long time. I realise this is miserable but to me it feels entirely justifiable to call it out, and to wonder why we are so weak. It's not the odd game, it's decades of under achievement, and it's a whole culture really.
Nope, what an odd statement, anyway the point is we don't really get behind the team when it's not playing well, we're fair weather.
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Thats a good point although really we've been on that path since 1966 when we rather pompously thought we were the ultimate in world football, and I guess trying to dismiss the achievement of the Hungarians after getting humiliated in 1953.
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Loads coming through,from abroad.
Opinions are very overrated mate
Only if you don’t have any.
It’s the penalty shoot outs that has cost us big time.
But we've got a manager with no previous achievements, and no soul.Thing is,we might just have to accept that we are the Newcastle or Sunderland of world football. We have done lots of the things that we used to say the lack of held us back.
We've now got a high quality and much more technical style of football in our domestic game influenced by the leading global football thinkers.
Our players mix with the elite of world football, eat well and don't immerse themselves in a beery lads culture.
We've got youth development facilities that are the envy of the world via the academy structure and St George's Park is the equivalent to what the french had.
We have linked the age group systems and created a network of coaching inspired by a modern and overarching philosophy.
We don't play 442.
We've tried coaches who are suave, well spoken, analytical and calm as opposed to tub thumping up and at'em types.
All of this stuff and more is now well established but essentially, the results are more of less the same as before we did it.
Maybe the Everton of world football is a better tag...
We're going to win this
But we've got a manager with no previous achievements, and no soul.
Would he get a Premier League club job? I doubt it. Would be a risk.
I think what we have tried to do is copy stuff that other countries do. Especially with regard to coaching. We are mimicking, without really understanding. You watch other countries passing the ball and there is confidence. They know why they are passing it around, how to engineer possibilities, when to change the direction and the pace, and how to move off the ball. When English players play for City or Chelsea they understand the plan, and fit into it. When they play for England, they are confused and aimless, and just pass it around. Less confidently and less purposefully. We beat a lot of teams simply cos our players are better, but well coached, and highly focused teams can deal with us. We are not difficult to nullify. I feel like we have a decent set of players now, but the coaching is dull and second rate, an attempt to copy the German system without having the skill to carry it off, perhaps. We lack football intelligence, and get outsmarted.
You see in our preseason last summer that Critch was working very hard in training and the players had learnt a system, quickly. They continued to learn, they became flexible, we could rotate, we were smarter than the opposition. Southgate isn't doing that. I don't know how much time he gets with the squad but there seems to be no learning happening. Why did he play makeshift sides in the two warm up games? Complete mystery to me. Teams need to work on systems.
Excellent post. We are getting there and have a lot of talented and technically gifted player coming thru and all that's positive and it shows in how our EPL teams play and our English players fitting in seamlessly to that style.. The problem is making that next step and that's where I wonder if we can make it. There always seems to be at least two or three better teams than us. If Southgate thru caution to the wind and just went for it with the attacking talent we have then we'd find out a bit more but I reckon we'd still come up a bit short. And that's why he's so cautious. i'd guess he thinks making us hard to beat by being organised defensively is the best way to beat the best teams.Thing is,we might just have to accept that we are the Newcastle or Sunderland of world football. We have done lots of the things that we used to say the lack of held us back.
We've now got a high quality and much more technical style of football in our domestic game influenced by the leading global football thinkers.
Our players mix with the elite of world football, eat well and don't immerse themselves in a beery lads culture.
We've got youth development facilities that are the envy of the world via the academy structure and St George's Park is the equivalent to what the french had.
We have linked the age group systems and created a network of coaching inspired by a modern and overarching philosophy.
We don't play 442.
We've tried coaches who are suave, well spoken, analytical and calm as opposed to tub thumping up and at'em types.
All of this stuff and more is now well established but essentially, the results are more of less the same as before we did it.
Maybe the Everton of world football is a better tag...
We're going to win this
I hear you, but it's a difficult comparison. Everton have constraints. England have constraints. They are different. What are England's constraints? Sort of our national characteristics. Conservative, honest, hard working, mostly unimaginative, wary of foreigners, non participant, corner shop, class riddled, island mentality.I don't disagree. I just wonder if we're Everton. It doesn't matter who their manager is, how they play or who they sign. They finish between 5th and 10th.
The point isn't that we're dead good. It's that whether we appoint Southgate or Hodgson or Capello or Keegan or whoever, the result is roughly the same.
Hodgson cannot be accused of not drilling a system. Also, his influence is still felt on the Sweden team who adopted the approach he took with Malmo and others as an imprint for the national game. Sweden do better at playing like Roy Hodgson without Roy Hodgson and with inferior players than we do at playing like Roy Hodgson with Roy Hodgson and with better players. (Ibrahimovic aside)
Capello was seemingly a coup. That didn't work. In fact, it was really shit.
Keegan was a mad attacking brakes off careering wildly slaloming forward merchant. That failed.
We're Everton man. Face it...
Good point, especially other peoples.
Oh, a million percent.
We played Nobby Stiles because Ramsay knew his best creative player was Bobby Charlton and you needed players to get him the ball. Plus Stiles was an integral part of a top club team. Similar to Henderson (you might say) only we don’t have an equivalent to Sir Bobby...
I agree with that, teams who build around one or two star players rarely actually win anything, you have a system and pick the players for it, if that includes the flair players then happy days.
Good points them...
I think that's probably right. You can set up to their strengths though. Sticking Grealish on the left wing for his 20 minutes and - before he was hooked - Foden on the right wing wasn't great thinking though. What's that phrase the rentapundits all parrot these days? "Between the lines". We might as well give ourselves a chance.
....and it's why I'm a staunch supporter and defender of the EPL.
Cos it denies English players the opportunity to play forcing them abroad and denies English coaches the opportunity to coach and despite all that investment still produces a mediocre England team?
Unfortunately they didn't suffer an embarrassing defeat against a woeful England team.
Grealish doesn't play cos he wears his socks down. I think that's the bottom line.
Given the international success of the Cheeky Blinders, you’d think the FA would be desperate to market Grealish as a footballing Tommy Shelby. They’re missing a trick if you ask me.
He could wear a shirt with It's Jack Fookin' Grealish emblazoned across the back
Yawn. You can prattle on as much as you like with that big chip on your shoulder. I'll just stick to watching and enjoying ALL football. Something I've done for over 60 years.You can take the boy out of Tottenham.....
I think the EPL is a large part of the problem. Swimming in money - yes. Hoovering up all the best young talent - yes to that too. Doing anything very effective with either ? Not on your Nelly.
Plumbs makes a good point when he says the average armchair Sky fan who financially supports this circus is a large part of the problem. But people who actively go out to defend the indefensible are far worse.
The EPL is split in two at the moment. Six clubs who want to shit on the rest of us, and fourteen who are probably fuming about that, but don't want to rock the gravy boat too much. Yet the CEO on the EPL says there is no case for independent regulation. The sooner the rest of us start seeing the six club rump and the EPL top brass as the enemy, the sooner we might get somewhere.
Other people’s are often totally wrong I find
Not with the Alice band.
Look on here and social media at the start of the season and there were plenty who were hoping their 'told you so' was right!
Well spoken analytical and calm coaches are so last week. We need someone to get them riled up so we can get more than a draw against Scotland. The team has no passion and are lazy. Apparently.Thing is,we might just have to accept that we are the Newcastle or Sunderland of world football. We have done lots of the things that we used to say the lack of held us back.
We've now got a high quality and much more technical style of football in our domestic game influenced by the leading global football thinkers.
Our players mix with the elite of world football, eat well and don't immerse themselves in a beery lads culture.
We've got youth development facilities that are the envy of the world via the academy structure and St George's Park is the equivalent to what the french had.
We have linked the age group systems and created a network of coaching inspired by a modern and overarching philosophy.
We don't play 442.
We've tried coaches who are suave, well spoken, analytical and calm as opposed to tub thumping up and at'em types.
All of this stuff and more is now well established but essentially, the results are more of less the same as before we did it.
Maybe the Everton of world football is a better tag...
We're going to win this
