Smirking_Saint

He has had a poor workd cup but obviously he is a tremendous player who I believe is off to Athletico Personally I think Benteke is better, but not by much, he just hasnt had a chance at a bigger club

You may well be right, but its still better then god save the queen. As is Land of hope and glory

Still should be jarusalem

Mullet thats a pretty spot on assessment in my view

Delph and Huddlestone arent good enough for England, Cork possibly should have played. Who exactly is better then johnson at Liverpool ? It certainly isnt Flanagan !! You can hate on Welbeck all you want, he is decent, technically not too bad, honest and hard working, had a great start to this season playing centrally. Whats the alternative exactly as Barkley and Lallana barely lit up the games they came on as sub did they ? Like it or not picking players on form alone would be a complete mistake Jamie so stop talking complete ****e

Exactly, the old rule of thumb is to spread an attack and get compact in defence, I am a massive advocate of that regardless how good you are on the ball as ball playing through the centre against organised opposition is a difficult and intricate way to play successfully and we are poor at it. Like it or not England arent good enough, as much as he gets stick, Gerrards still arguably are best CM, and he needs major help in there due to his age. We arent good enough in attack and woefull at the back. Uraguay sucked in the middle last night and barely at all did we look to get around and inside, similar to Italy really. But going back to Pearces post its spot on IMO, its a system adopted by the better club academies and certainly by the major nations. You get a team playing together as much as possible with similar systems so they adopt it, otherwise it looks like the cluster**** we have seen so often. Spain, germany even Chile dont do this by accident ! Its coached until its instinct. As a coach myself I can relate how hard this must be to coach at National level with littke time in reality to integrate systems into instinct which IMO is why I think you get players called up in groups (man utd, liverpool, saints etc) as they already are used to each other and play a similar way to how the coach wants them too. Basically what Im saying is because of this lack of time you need players playing regularly together utilising similar systems as often as possible from young levels up in order for them to play with organisation and realustically dropping out like flies of the youth tournaments is massively damaging, atleast as much as that of the PL influence on young englishmen

Thats the crux of the PL predicament, and no, I dont think there is much they can do until they start installing Quota systems, and if that happens I think itll be a UEFA directive and not the FA. From another side of the coin the FA dont really help themselves with footballer development, or, have not in the past. The introduction of the EPPP is a massive step forward and the NextGen series was a massive breath of fresh air (the latter not an FA initiative). But even from grassroots level we struggle, we simply do not have the level of able coaches that they have on the continent and most of that is the cost imposed by the course providers (of course governed by the FA)

Good listen except for his last sentance http://tlks.pt/YCopRx

Ive basically said this for years, all the time Jack glasslegs wilshere can refuse to play for the U21s and then walk into the senior side then we are sending out the wrong message, decide on our probable formation and play similar tactics at all age groups keeping the younger players playing games rather then sit on the bench

Thats a pretty good analysis, though as I said playing Gerrar is a gamble Id have taken though you would have needed to either use defensive minded FBs or employ 3 in the middle. How Hodgson missed that I dont know. It can work with two there by the way, but that would mean Henderson would have to be an exceptional midfielder covering around everywhere (think schneiderlin) and he simply isnt. As for the two goals blaming gerrard is a bit OTT, he had involvement, but it depends how far you go to look for blame. Essentially the first was a combination of Johnson failing to close down, cahill getting drawn in and I dont really know what jagielka was doing. The second was essentially poor positioning from Jagielka, whether he was overconfident that Gerrard would win it or what I dont know, he half followed Cavani and was lost.

I have in an England sense, its difficult as passing wise he is still Englands best midfielder, but playing him in just a bank of two and still allowing the FBs to bomb on was suicide. Others have said aswell as me, to accomodate him (which I would do too) would be to play him in a bank of three, we didnt.. The team was ultimately disjointed and midfield overrun

If you play that Id honestly swap Welbeck for Sturridge, DS scores the odd goal as he is so ****ing greedy but ultimately wastes so much, the quartet would be much more fluid without him

Pretty much how I saw it except for a few bits, I said the same to the lads re Gerrard, if Woy wanted to use Gerrard in the Pirlo role then he definately needed screening. Why we dont go 433 anyway is beyond me. Largely though England are poor, we dont have a top class CB, CM or striker

Well, out of the team only really Hart has any top level class to him, perhaps Cahill, I really like Cahill as a player. As good as Gerrard has been in the past his legs have gone and I feel we were relying on him far too much in that role, ok, he is a decent ball player but he isnt a ball winner, he hasnt the legs, and so that responsibility laid at Hendersons feet who equally struggled. The two CMs are far too far away from the front quartet meaning transition is difficult and basically they were very isolated. Rooney was pretty poor in the number ten role, sterling ran into trouble too often though thats partly due to isolation and the more I see of Sturridge at the highest level the more its painfully obvious that he isnt all that great. Jagielka was terrible, at fault for both goals, why was he so high up the pitch ? Regardless of gerrards 'flick' (he was caught out of position too but cavani is a handful) jag got drawn to the ball and basically got caught in no mans land, no reason for a CB to be that far up, especially occupied by a striker. Baines isnt a great LB, good going forward, poor defensively. *and breathe* TBH we all expected this didnt we ?

Id have replaced Baines with Shaw, Baines will struggle

Playing an entirely different system, more often then not J Rod ended as the furthest forward as Lambert dropped back so Jay Rod was our outlet, Welbeck wasnt

It wouldnt work with the current personel and I think we will play 433 with a holding midfielder dropping between the two CBs when the FBs bomb on.. Like we do now Imo

For a start he plays on the wing for them, secondly he rarely starts up top for them and didnt play every game, he played up top for them start of this season and played very well, he scored 8 goals in qualifying for england. If you honestly think he is crap your just bandwaggoning and wrong basically

Bang on really, unfortunate as his books are actually pretty good and he seens an intelligent poster

This really, studied electrical engineering at Aston, top uni for the course, good watering holes but yes.. End of the day its in Birmingham. I remember thinking the day could be as warm and sunny as it is today but as you pull into the city the gloom descends

Thats the one, basically I got all FM confused lol

Yar...... yar

Which says it all really

I think the answer would be... Not very well

433 Hart Johnson Jagielka Cahill Shaw Henderson gerrard lalana Sterling sturridge welbeck