Tell me, who else, under the burden of an impending court appearance could have remained as focused and as committed to England's cause as John Terry last night? His "clearance" against the Ukraine said everything about the guy's never say die attitude and his overall performance last night made mugs of those who claim he is over rated.
I will risk being accused of sacrilege here but I am going to say it anyway, Terry's defensive performance for England last night was the best I have seen since Bobby Moore so very nearly kept Pele and company at bay. And like Terry, Moore was playing under a legal shadow on that memorable day in Mexico.
Ultimately, Hodgson got it wrong last night: England were too rigid and too defensive, which enabled Italy to take control of the game; but his selection of Terry at the expense of Rio Ferdinand has been vindicated with a capital V.
Yes Terry is a loathsome man, but that's what makes him so bloody good as a centre half. He was head and shoulders our best player last night and I would be amazed if he is not wearing the number 5 shirt in the Best 11 selected at the end of the tournament.
Now he returns to England for the little matter of a court case which, in many ways he has already won. Anton engineered the furore because of the rivalry between Rio and JT and the idea was not that Brother Ferdinand would miss out on his last shot at international glory whilst Terry received the plaudits as England's outstanding player of the tournament!
15 comments:
With two of England's white players scoring their spot kicks, and two of England's black players missing, I wonder what was going through John Terry's mind?
HF, understand the point you are trying to make but please do not mention Terry in the same breath as Bobby; he's not even fit to lace Moore's boots. Yes, he played well last night but then the defence was always going to get the lion share of the activity due to the way Hodgson had to set them up, but he shouldn't have been there in the first place with the charge of racism against another player to be heard in court. Before we go down the route of innocent until proven guilty, The England brand is either furthered or diminished by the stance The FA takes on such matters that can do it real harm. JMan43
Given he has missed a spot kick himself, I suspect he wasn't too judgemental Stani. Mind you, he probably thinks all Ashleys are useless...
J Man it hurts to make the comparison and it is no comparison at all. Terry was, however, brilliant last night and has really impressed me all tournament.
I can't disagree, he has been one of our strongest performers, just think he lost the right to be there back at the game with QPR and that Moore tackle on Jairzinho is by far the greatest tackle I have ever seen. Anyway we have already given JT more airtime than he deserves, so who you gonna upset next then HF; more Leeds stuff or, LOL? JMan43
Anony-mouse says,
An article lauding Terry was too predictable even for you HF. I have to admit that you mentioning scum like Terry in the same breath as the greatest defender this country has ever produced is a pretty full on effort at provocation. Desperate, desperate stuff HF.
JMan43- He'll probably upset Leeds next, cos that's where he gets his hits from. Or else he'll write something else about Parker. Or Terry again. He can't write about Allardyce at the moment but he will again when the tide turns against Sam as it inevitably will when results go against us. And that's why it's time for me to bail out now as this is all too predictable to bother about any more.
HF- The endless boring non-stories about Leeds have done it for me. None of us have any love for Leeds but their fans are proper fans and don't deserve the constant rubbish you throw at them. I'm fed up with the provocation - I hope no innocent West Ham fan pays the price for your stupidity whilst you're sat safely at home typing out more of the same old. same old.
Thanks for having us. It was fun whilst it lasted.
It's rather sad to think that anybody would be stupid enough to resort to violence over comments on a blog isn't it? But if there are morons in this world, that's hardly the fault of a blogger. I can assure you, having been to enough games home and away, that the insults aired in person are far worse than I would ever carry on here. It doesn't need a blogger to engender ill will between Leeds and West Ham fans.
As for comparing Moore and Terry, I don't. I say it was the best performance by a defender since Moore's heroics against Brazil and I am certainly not the only one singing Terry's praises. Are you saying he wasn't top drawer against Italy? If so, you need to take off the blinkers!
With regard to Allardyce, we will see. If he resorts to anti football, I will criticise, irrespective of results. You see, I am old school and not a win at all cost merchant. Give me fourth from bottom playing football over thirteenth playing lump it and hope!
If you are moving on, good luck. If not, keep chipping.
PS Anony-mouse, you're earlier criticism went to SPAM for some reason. I posted it when I found it.
Anony-mouse says,
I didn't say you'd compared Terry with Mooro but you did mention them in the same breath. No West Ham fans going to like that- not me anyway. And the blinkers are off HF- i said in one of your posts last night that he was immense. He's still a no-mark man though and you just posted this to be provocative. Didn't you :)
HF- it's your blog so you're free to post what you want. It's just I'm a little tired of the same old stuff on the same old subjects. I've got nothing I can add to subjects such as Terry, Parker etc any more. So I'd only be boring myself and others if I continued on here.
I want to say sorry for questioning your support in the past. It's a weird kind of support sometimes :) but I was wrong to throw that at you. I'm also sorry that at times I got overly grouchy, but we both know that you baited that hook for mugs like me to bite so it's your fault too old fella :)
Anyway good luck HF- I wouldn't have stayed here so long if I hadn't enjoyed our rows so much. Take care and remember to put that tenner in a cancer collecting jar if you haven't already. Oh, and try to be keep positive- in amongst all the WUM stuff there is sometimes a thoughtful piece that made me think and come back here. Take care. COYI!
Dave.
LOL Anony-mouse, we all support in our own way.
Keep in mind that it is the close season and there's not a lot of news about. You don't like the Leeds posts, but if you read the comments left, some Leeds fans appreciate them and whilst there appears to be a lot of aggressive responses, the negative comments are from a very small minority based on the number who read the Leeds threads. Is it all about traffic? To be honest, traffic doesn't matter. The blog carries no advertising. Why did I stop carrying the QPR threads? Because belatedly QPR went onto a Prem format on News Now so very few of my threads made it onto their Boards - and as a result I was writing for a heavily reduced audience. When 1,000 plus read each thread, there was a point. When only a handful of QPR fans, who added this site to their favourites, made up the audience, there seemed little point. I enjoyed the banter and many Hoops fans did too. And the same now applies to Leeds. And like it or not, Leeds are a big story at the moment, as were QPR when Fernandes took over. It was the Fernandes / Warnock / Anton / Dyer / Gabbidon link (plus Barton) that provoked the GENUINE QPR interest, and Leeds have always held a fascination going back to that great Revie team. Add Warnock to that equation and how can you not be interested?
Still, I've enjoyed our exchanges. If you move on, all the best; if you decide to take a holiday until the real business starts again then I will welcome you back. Not sure how thinks will work next season anyway as I am moving to Bucharest for a couple of years so God knows what access I will have to games!
Anony-mouse says,
Bucharest? Good luck with that HF- hope it works out. You'll get all the games on the internet so you shouldn't have a problem. Whilst you're there look up Dumitrescu and our other Harvey Nicks loving Romanian whose name I can't spell and give them a good old fashioned knee to the knackers from me and the rest of their many West Ham 'fans'.
Try not to be tempted to make the short journey to Transylvannia- you may find Doctor Evil is laying in wait for you :)
Laters HF.
LOL Transylvania is part of the draw. Brasov is gorgeous. It will be different that's for sure. Not sure I want to live in Cameron's Britain to be honest. If Bucharest doesn't work out, next step will be the Far East. Big world out there!
Forget Terry, how good was the former West Ham man Diamanti.
I was gutted when Grant got rid of him (I was gutted when we got rid of Zola).
Diamanti would complain every now and then, and he was occasionally lazy in defense, but then there were a few other players that were guilty of that (former captain and lazy fuck Upson). The difference was that Diamanti delivered a QUALITY ball into the box, hit the back on the net with a few free kicks and suckered more than one penalty in the box.
Anony-mouse says,
Victor Meldrew types like us should stay in blighty HF :) I hear what you're saying about that bell end Cameron, but give it three years and he'll be nothing more than a neo-liberal foot note in our history.
Hope it works out for you.
LOL I'm seeing it as a way of keeping both feet out of the grave. Maybe I can become a vampire and live for ever. Very amusing out there to see the "Bank of Transylvania" everywhere. Doesn't that sum up the banks since the crash, the Undead draining us all dry of our blood!
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