[Solved] World Cup

We were utterly humiliated today. I've never seen such a woeful performance. It may have made a difference if we'd got to 2-2 but ultimately the Germans outclassed us.

Back to the drawing board. According to the Sun, Capello won't resign.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/sport/football/worldcup2010/3031845/Fabio-Capello-has-ruled-out-resigning-as-England-boss.html

I have never been so embarrassed by an England performances. Capello has to take full responsibility for this. The FA needs to pay off his contract and get rid.

We also need to cap the salaries of players (over-paid rubbish), Limit foreign players in the league as they are stopping English talent coming through and make Premier league clubs play a minimum number of English players in their first 11 .

you know it makes sense.

Did you honestly expect anything different from this England side ? They have been useless all the way through the tournament. One barely acceptable performance against Slovenia. We have struggled to qualify in a group, that on paper, we should have walked through without working up a sweat. None of our big players turned up and when we were looking for goals we bring Heskey on - we have had defenders with a better goals to games ratio than him.

In interviews before the match the England team said they would do their best to make sure the match didn't go to penalties - well they really succeeded there then 😆

Babel mate,

Let's look at this with calm clear heads.

Salaries have nothing to do with performances at national level, a lot of other teams who are doing well have players playing in Europe on massive salaries - Brazil, Argentina and Spain to name but a few.

Capello - I'm not really sure who is to blame for what happened. Capello has been a very successful manager at all teams that he has worked with in the past and to be fair England were hardly world beaters before he arrived. Maybe we should rather look at the squad he had available to him and question if our expectations are too high.

Limit foreign players in the league - We were hardly great before the influx of foreign players. Maybe this is more of a quality thing - if we produced better quality English players then it wouldn't be easier to bring in foreign players.

I think at the end of the day we did not have a strong enough first 11 and our replacement players were not very good quality.

Gooner :ugeek:

I stand by the fact that we have a decent bunch of players. Those players and that manager got us into the competition. Then for whatever reason, went into meltdown.

The Goal: I think we 'could' have beaten Germany yesterday and had the goal been allowed, maybe it would have been just enough to raise our spirits and confidence and dampen the Germans. However, it wasn't allowed and we weren't 'great' enough to get over it and score three more in it's place.

The Discord: There was something afoot in the England camp, that spilled over a couple of times in interviews. For whatever reason, the players were unsettled. There were times when they just seemed to be huffing their way around the pitch against Algeria "Oh he got the ball again, it's so unfair". These guys were not happy and settled and together. It would be interesting to know why.

The Manager: I think he is guilty of making some strange decisions and being stubborn. He has proved himself to be a good manager in the past. BUT his job is to rally the troops and get them playing as a team and in that task he failed. That said, he is under contract to stay with England and I don't hold with sacking managers every five minutes.

The Future:
I think Capello was the wrong choice in the first place. I would like to see an English or at least a British manager. Not for any jingoistic reasons, but just someone who understands the culture, the jokes, the camaraderie, the subtleties, the pressures, the press, the expectations ...and ideally someone who is passionate about the same flag.

Time for the Golden Generation to take a bow. I would like to see an England team for the future selected over the next two years. God knows who! Hart in goal. Walcott / Adam Johnson. Rooney. Anyone else??? I think they should know that they are the first 11 and play together and when they are injured or their form drops, someone else gets a chance to break in to the team.

I think we should keep Capello until the Euros and see how we perform there. If we have another tournament like this, then maybe it'll be time to give someone like Harry Redknapp a chance. You can't keep changing the manager every time the PLAYERS don't do well. My main worry is where are the new young players coming through to replace the 'Golden Generation'?

Chris

Not sure this lot were the golden generation to be honest.

Ok so the next generation are going to have to come from the current under 21's, under 19's and survivors of this current squad. Say we select no one who is currently 28 or older for the next championship.

Possible survivors from this squad are Joe Hart (23), Glen Johnson (25), Michael Dawson (26),Aaron Lennon (23), James Milner (24), Wayne Rooney (24), Jermain Defoe (27) If you would want them.

Of course then there is also Ben Foster(27), Theo Walcott(21), Darren Bent (26), Adam Johnson (22), Gabriel Agbonlahor (23), Tom Huddlestone (23), Ashley Young (24), Joleon Lescott(27), Jack Wilshere (18), Nigel Reo-Coker(26), Micah Richards (22), Jack Rodwell (19), Henri Lansbury (19), Kieran Gibbs (20), James Vaughan (21), Freddie Sears (21)

So I guess my question is pick the next generation - 22 players, any formation other than 442, player must be younger than 28 (as of now) and doesn't have to be in the list above - tell us who to play in what position and why.

I will have a go as well. 😉

Gooner

Oooh! Seriously difficult! Not sure I can do a full squad, but here's a few ideas:

Goal:
Hart & Foster
Away from Man U, I wonder of Foster might shine a bit more. Be interesting to see this year.

Defence:
Kieran Gibbs, Tom Cleverley
I took my boy to see England/Portugal under 21s at Wembley last year and Gibbs was easily the best man on the pitch. Also seriously impressed with Cleverley, who was simply everywhere.

Midfield:
Adam Johnson, Theo Walcott on the right
Wilshere, Sears, Rodwell, Huddelstone generally scattered around midfield ...see what happens
Milner - prepared to give him another chance ...on the left ???

Forward:
Rooney ...got one more WC in him and maybe a couple of Euros

This is really tough!!! It's so much easier naming the super stars 🙂

When you list the players like that Gooner, the future doesn't look too bad but the question is how many of those you've mentioned are going to continue to improve for their clubs and subsequently be good enough to go and win a Euro or WC? Micah Richards, Walcott and Reo-Coker are players that have been around for a while and maybe their careers have stalled a bit. Also Hart and Johnson; with all the players that will inevitably come in at City, how many games are they going to get? The team should be built around Rooney like it is at United, with two wide players supporting him in a 4-3-3. One to watch for next season; Chris Smalling at Man U.

Chris

Really pleased to see Capello read my post and decided to mention some of the players that I had suggested as the next gen 😉 Bit disappointed that he didn't attempt to name a full 22 squad though.

Come on Fabio, stop skulking around as a visitor, sign up to the site and play the game. 😀

Gooner

So begins the post mortems...

Fabio was a hero up until 6 weeks ago and now he is the villain, lets face it we have massively under performed or could it be that we are not as good as we think!Unless the FA can find a serious contender then lets not change him especially as Roy Hodgson and Harry Redknapp may not be interested.

The concern with Fabio was that he didnt seem to listen and was determined to play his way - it clearly failed and he now needs to accept some of the blame. We cannot expect club players to play out of positiion and re-produce the same form they show week in week out.

Lets face it the qualifying group was an easy one and we should have sailed through.

We need to focus on our under 17 and under 21 teams and get these players playing together regularly, we also need to ensure out international players are counselled in terms of dealing with pressure and expectation.

The Brazilians have been very quiet yet as usual have left the talking to the pitch.

Remember we all said the same things in 2006 - Beckham resigned as captain, Gerard was
awful (transfer speculation), Rooney cracked up and Lampard was anonymous.

We need to start now to build a team for 2012/2014