Saturday, June 19, 2010

Football team, what football team?

I must say I admired the energy and athleticism of the Algerian team, especially in the midfield. England's performance was extremely woeful.

The game was lost in midfield. We have too many individuals and not enough team players in this area so we find it difficult to control and monopolise the hub of the game. Gerrard and Lampard may play superbly for their clubs but when brought to together in the national team they just duplicate each other. They huff and puff a lot but neither creates a lot for the attack or the team. One or both need to be dropped.

We do not need flying wingers who's first reaction on receiving the ball is to immediately cut inside every time. What's the point? They just choke up the midfield and the opposing fullback has a rest day.

Fast, raiding fullbacks? Again, what's the point if they are poor defensively, especially on both sides of the field. Leave the raids up the wing to our flying wingers. This does put stress on our central defenders who also look like they should use their bus passes to catch up with any normal paced attackers. Terry just does not adapt to the 'World' game, being so slow every tackle he makes concedes a foul. Goalkeepers, the less said the better. "Calamity" One and Two. Only Joe Hart comes out of this unscathed, yes I appreciate he hasn't been selected yet. I'm not going to bother with the striking duo.

Moving on to the manager/coach - Capello. What happened to his principles, they seem to fall by the wayside day by day. "If you can't prove your fitness you don't go to South Africa." What a load of rubbish that's turned out to be. Ferdinand, King, Barry, A. Cole.

Players who can't make their club's first team? Wright-Phillips chosen ahead of A Johnson who keeps him out of the Man City team. Choosing Heskey ahead of Agbonlahor who keeps him out of Villa's first team. Selecting Carrick who is second choice to reserve Darron Gibson and 'old man' Paul Scholes.

Moving on to the ball. Apparently our team have not practiced with the newly designed ball 'because the consignment went missing.' (Did anybody from the FA check eBay?) Seriously, why did they not order another batch? (They discovered they hadn't received their balls in January).

So it seems the problems are technical and adminstrative management.

Let's hope the lads can do the stuff against Slovenia notwithstanding the management and us armchair critics!

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