Humiliating. Embarrassing. Awful. You almost wanted Italy to win the penalty shoot out. Almost. We were dire tonight. Heart break? Nope. If we had stolen it on penalties, it would have been embarrassing. Good luck to Italy and to Diamanti.
As for the England team...Terry was superb, Johnson, Cole (penalty apart) & Lescott were decent and the rest were awful. Rooney? Terrible. Young? Embarrassing. Parker? As Parker said, a headless chicken. Gerrard? Had it. Milner? He's Milner. Hart? Aint that special but at least he's not Green. Walcott? Never got in the game. Welbeck? Willing. Carroll? Great when the ball was in the air, useless with the ball on the ground. Henderson? Who is he?
We move on. Thank God! The English cricket team recovered from their Ashes moment so who knows?
Scott Parker should be banned from the final third of the pitch. Frustratingly awful.
ReplyDeleteLOL Stani, how awful was he? Those two drilled passes for goal kicks! My daughter would have done better. The other Parker called it right, at last somebody in the game calls out "Scotty"!
ReplyDeleteSome things never change! England was aweful. As you say, it would almost be embarassing if England won in penalties. What an irony that it was Diamanti that put the final nail on England's coffin.
ReplyDeleteI am with Italy from now on. They have impressed me with their positive football and the way they dominated the midfield. I hope they beat the Germans and possibly Spain in the final.
Kevin in manchester writes
ReplyDeletePar for the course really. quarters again and fall at the first true class we came up against. Something of an achievement to keep it scoreless and we were two inches down rooney's boot away from winning it with a minute of normal time to go. Also only second time we had topped our group so that''s progress of a kind i guess but really until we can learn to pass the ball I fear this bi-annual agony will continue. i think half the team were five years too old and the other half five years too young but for the rest i'm with chris waddle.
Anony-mouse says,
ReplyDeleteThey did as well as they could have done in this tournament with what they had available to them. As we saw though that was not enough. We no longer have players who treasure the ball and make it work for them like Pirlo did. Without those type of players you're always going to put yourself under pressure. Oh for a Gazza in his prime.
Much as I dislike the man, John Terry was immense. Lescott did well too, as did Glen Johnson. The rest just looked ineffective or knackered or both. That happens if you spend another game with just 35-40% of possession chasing players who are more comfortable on the ball and technically superior to you. I think that fatigue was the main problem for the likes of Gerrard, Parker and Wellbeck tonight.
Has any England player ever had a worse tournament than Ashley Young? The missed penalty was simply the icing on an already completed cake as he was truly awful from the very start of this competition.
Hey ho, never mind. We now have the Summer transfers and hopefully a conviction for John Terry to look forward to. Onwards and upwards. COYI!
I disagree Anony-mouse. We can play better than that but we need quality in all positions and Parker isn't quality. Look at those passes in the final third! That wasn't tiredness, that was shite, as I've always said. Yes Young was awful but what the fcuk happened with Rooney? He was clearly unfit.
ReplyDeleteI was having an argument with a liverpool fan earlier as i said we desperately need a world class playmaker like pirlo, xavi or sneijder an his reaction was we have got one in gerrard what we need is a world class striker. I was like gerrard is not a playmaker he is a midfield general obvs being a liverpool fan he thought i was stupid but this is the main problem wih england team. Look hos players like pirlo and xavi and iniesta link midfield to attack who are actual playmakers. Every world class team has one so therefore there strikers get chances and do well. England constantly abuse rooney who wasnt actually that bad but my question to those who do is.... how is a rooney type striker meant to score goals when he gets absolutely no service, he had one good cross in to him all game which the defender got to first so rooney then has to drop to his own box to get the bloody ball. I do though have a plan on how to get us to do well. Stop going for idiotic english managers or stupid foreighn managers from sweden and italy. GET A SPANISH MANAGER IN.
ReplyDeleteOn this occassion they exceeded my expectations.
ReplyDeleteHad they won on penalties they probably wouldnt have been described as lucky.
They did graft and do thjeir best but most Intelligent Enland fans - There are a few - realise that the best four teams are in the semis.
Well done Roy.
You came very close to convincing them they were good enough!
I just cannot understand it. You have a ball at your feet almost every day for your adult life, yet you still have not developed the touch to be able to caress it 15-20 yards into the path of a teammate? Have you ever been running and had someone deflect a ball into your stride and have it fly off? That is how Parker's normal passing is. Baffling.
ReplyDeleteI agree, Rooney looked like a 35 year old. No legs at all. He was rusty too. Failed to get his head on Gerrard's cross and mistimed his over-head, although was slightly rushed by Pirlo.
And why does Ashley Cole take penalties? Guy's not a shooter, it's obvious.
England will never win anything until the footballing culture changes. None of England's players seem to have any football brain what so ever or the technique required even if they did have one except Rooney who as you say HF clearly wasn't fit. Watch the game again and see how many loose passes, poor touches, hoofed balls and bad decisions to run with the ball instead of pass there were from England. As well look at the lack of options for the player on the ball. Nobody feels comfortable receiving the ball under even the slightest amount of pressure. This comes from the culture of schoolboy football which tells kids from the age of about 6 and up to just launch the ball as far as you can if you are under any pressure in your own half. What is the point of telling kids that at such a young age? It just leads to a nation of Andy Carroll and John Terry type players type players, Big lumps but brainless and poor technicly.
ReplyDeleteItaly aren't actually that good of a team either but any team will look amazing if you give their midfielders 20 yards of space. This was a poor tactical decision by hodgson. But he was kind of forced to sit deep because he knew tht with the 2 slowest centre halfs in the competition he couldn't afford to push up on them or we would have been caught time and again by balotelli's moderate pace. Then obviously when it went to penalties you just knew England weren't going to beat bloody Italy.
Fair play to Hodgson though he got England to the quarter finals which wasn't an easy thing to achieve with a footballing nation that is on it's knees. My only hope for England for the rest of this tournament is that every school boy football coach in the country watches Spain and becomes inspired.
We are the "Three Lions." So where were they today? Most of the players looked like pussy cats! The National team looks like they could use the mental iron of a certain Sam Allardyce at the helm, but not for at least another three to four years, at least.
ReplyDeleteNo blog about diamanti and how well he played? I bet gold and Sullivan loved the television mention of west ham!
ReplyDeleteUS HF
Anony-mouse says,
ReplyDeleteYou're focusing on Parker cos you have your obsessions and he's one of them. Overall he had a good tournament. Most can see that, but that you refuse to is no surprise to me.
00.07 is right. We don't have a playmaker. Gerrard certainly isn't one. Nor is Parker. It isn't his role or expertise to be threading balls in the final third, but there was no on else to try it, such was the paucity if creativity in our midfield.
There are two young Englishmen who may have the ability we require. One is Jack Wilshere. The other is Ravel Morrison. Whether his character, attitude and temperament allow him to establish himself in our club side let alone the national side is debateable and very much down to him. Let's hope so.
That said, Parker didnt commit a foul outside the box that led to a goal....as I predicted...therefore, as per our little wager a few months ago you owe me a beer HF! you see, its not all bad!
ReplyDeleteAllardyce for England!
ReplyDeleteEnglish football will never get anywhere as long as it's accepted that people like Sam Allardyce and his tactics are accepted as being ok and the whole who cares how we played as long as we win
ReplyDeleteRare successes for playing shit football do happen Chelski in the champions league for instance but class will always find it's way to the top
Where there has been improvement is the effort and commitment to the cause and that it should mean everything putting on that shirt. Hodgkin has instilled pride and a strong work ethic back in to the team in a very short period of time and for that he is to be congratulated. Unfortunately, effort and commitment without the relevant creativity will only get you so far, and in our case that is no further than the Quarters. I thought Parker was awful too and certainly not the way forward, but he was not the only one, Milner is not international class, neither is Young at the moment and I would have gone with Oxlaide-Chamberlain and blooded him more. Expected more from Hart, but he is a class goalkeeper. We sat too deep, didn't close down the spaces, so any team that has at least one creative player will look to funnel everything through that person, ie Pirlo, who pulled Italian strings without any pressure being put on him from our midfield. We need to give other teams something to worry about and Hodgson will need to adapt his style of play if we are to get beyond the Quarter final stage. Making us difficult to beat is a good start but now need to give us that sting in the tail and have some creative potency in midfield and attacking threat. JMan43
ReplyDeleteCan England play anything other than 4-4-2? The amount of time and space given to Pirlo in the centre of the field was almost criminal.
ReplyDeleteItaly were fitter and thus able to close our players down immediately anywhere on the pitch making our inferior ball play hurried and inaccurate. Perhaps it is tiredness at the end of a long season that always makes us appear listless when compared to the opposition, perhaps with the exception of France. After the sort of game Ashley Young had, it seemed strange allowing him in the penalty shoot out, not a lot of thought given there.
ReplyDeletePhil in Solihull:
ReplyDeleteHodgson's set-up was the first problem. It asked too much of Gerrard and Parker. Our midfield was crying out for a midfielder who can pass accurately/ retain possession. Someone like Carrick for instance, since Lampard was out. A central defender who can distribute the ball accurately (unlike Lescott) might also have helped: Rio Ferdinand perhaps? Roy's 442 was so disciplined defensively that we were unable to get the ball forward in numbers on the odd occasion that we did gain possession.
Rooney was pretty useless, though I'm getting used to this now. On the other hand, he might have looked better with better service and a few people within 40 yds of him to pass to.
Roy's substitutions also didn't help. Why take off Milner when Young is the one having the mare. Also, he was too quick to take off Welbeck, considering there was another 30 mins of normal time (plus 30 of ET) in which anyone could get injured. Very odd, especially as we could have used another sub in ET, perhaps someone quick up front against a tiring defence? Perhaps Defoe?
Finally why is every TV pundit so fulsome in praise of Hart. He might become an England keeper in time, but he isn't one yet. No-one criticised him for punching out a long-range shot straight to Balotelli, but they did praise him for stopping Balotelli's shot which was luckily straight back at him. Frankly Robinson, Foster or Green would have done better and might even have saved a penalty, rather than making faces at the penalty takers to no useful effect. Hart is just not in the same league as any number of earlier England keepers.