I am an angry man. The stupid transfer rumours continue and everyone continues to be really surprised that England aren't that good as if it's a sudden thing. Mertesacker? Sack of sh*te more like, he's a donkey and I'd rather see Mikel Silvestre back at the club next season. The good news is that Cesc has hinted he may well be with us for another year or two, but that's hardly a surprise given Barca's c*ntliness is it?
England are not bad but they aren't great, our record over the last couple of decades is reasonable. Some people seem to think we were amazing in Italia 90 but that's just the trick of the retrospectoscope, we scraped through and rode our luck, Cameroon and Belgium were arguably far better than us. We were good in 1990 but we could have easily done the same this year with a different draw and a bit more luck, after all if Lampard's goal had been given who knows how Germany would have reacted, it is on these moment's that history is changed.
The media chat a lot of horse sh*te. The reason for England's mediocrity is not the foreign players in our league, it is the clogging style of football that hampers the development of good young technical players and that sees the likes of Ryan Shawcross prosper. English youth football is too result based and too macro, it needs to be based on skill and technique. The Premier League is exciting but there is not enough protection for technical talent, it leads to cloggers like Robbie Savage prospering at the expense of genuine talent.
Watch and take note of the recent world cup games. The best sides are far better technically than England, they have a different type of player that we so rarely produce on these shores. The possession of the football is the key and England are simply not good enough at this. We are too slow, too sluggish and too pedestrian by far. It is time we stopped blamed foreigners for our problems and started addressing the malaise in our game.
5 comments:
Spot on about the reasons for England's failure. Where were the foreign players in the English Leagues when they failed to qualify for the 74, 78 and 94 Finals. They only made the 82 finals in Spain after taking "a Hell of a beating" from Norway.
I take it you meant macho instead of macro?
Agree with your analysis - technical ball players should be encouraged altho' as we see in the PL this doesn't guarantee victory or Arsenal would run out champs every year. But next year maybe the one and then we will all be grateful to Arsene for sticking to his gun(ner)s.
One of England's big problems was that their one truly world class act (hold your breath) - Wayne Rooney - was well off the pace, probably paying for all those miraculous comebacks he kept performing at the season's death. Without him there was no plan B. Playing alongside top talent makes good players look better: take a bow Messrs Gerard, Lampard etc. When that talent isn't there or not performing then they will come up short.
hear, hear I agree but don't know if others will get it. The arsenal youth academy is bringing up young english guns with good tehnique so england may fare better down the road thanks to a French man's vision.
I meant macro.
Meaning kids play on full pitches far too early and it starts the hoofing domination.
Great piece 1979. I entirely agree.
For me, Capello is simply the latest in a string of managers who has failed to appreciate that you cannot just pick the 'best' xi players. You have to build a team.
The only enland player who comes out of this World Cup with any credibility is Theo, because he wasn't there.
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