Pretty much as we expected then? You can "If we only" this, or "We very nearly" that, but England's very negative and inexplicable way of playing football was outed by the very team we didn't want to expose it. Right from the start of the World Cup the players struggled to adapt to an inept system suited and familiar only to the increasingly annoying and wierd Uncle-esque Manager.
3 goals in 4 games isn't good enough, especially as only one of them was scored by a striker. Too many players weren't fit and when you include those injured beforehand then there were an awful lot of wasted plane tickets - the FA should have saved the money to pay Fabio's compensation.
Nobody looked motivated and we certainly don't have any more than 2, 3 at the very most who would get in any other International Top 10 side. England are very likely to drop out of the World's Top 10 at the end of the month and I can see no way of getting back in. International Football is all about development and Englands' Under 21's got through round after round of last summer's tournament without any real trouble. How many of those were in this WC squad? How many of these names do you actually see play for their League teams?
Scott Loach, Martin Cranie, Craig Gardner, Lee Cattermole, Nedum Onuoha, Michael Mancienne, James Milner, Mark Noble (c),Adam Johnson, Fabrice Muamba, Jack Rodwell, Theo Walcott, Micah Richards, Kieran Gibbs, Joe Lewis, Andrew Taylor, Richard Stearman, James Tomkins, Andrew Driver, Danny Rose.
Now the Germans; Manuel Neuer, Andreas Beck, Sebastian Beonisch, Benedikt Howedes, Jerome Boateng, Sami Khedira (c), Mesut Ozil, Marcel Schmelzer, Sandro Wagner, Fabian Johnson, Daniel Schwaab, Mats Hummels, Dennis Aogo, Gonzalo Castro,
Florian Fromlowitz, Tobias Sippel, Patrick Ebert, Marko Marin, Dennis Grote, Daniel Adlung, Anis Ben-Hatira, Cinedu Ede.
The only players in both sqauds are Joe Harte, who was suspended for that U21 Final, and James Milner. Germany have no less than 6 players. That says everything.
The next England Manager needs to stop picking players on reputation and make a stance. Out with the old and in with the new. How many of this WC squad will be in the next European Championships Squad? (presuming we qualify). The answer will be too many! Teams in the English Premier League need to start buying, coaching, developing and playing English youngsters. As an organisation the EPL need to force rules through that dictate to member clubs an amount of English players there needs to be in every matchday squad. 5 out of 18 matchday players for instance is less than a third, and most if not every Premiership club could already accomodate this. We aren't the Welsh, Scottish or Irish Premier Leagues, those players need to be kept out of the equation. Why would we help them out? Would they do the same to us?
The bars inside Wembley all need to be re-named "The Roots and Branch's", instead of the Legends names they are currently adorned with. England doesn't need looking at, the English game and the EPL does. It doesn't matter who plays for England as long as we win. Thats what the big bosses don't understand, they are scared of picking back-firing players and changing tactics. If that was a League team on Sunday, they would be fined for fielding an under-strength side. I didn't hear the fans boo the players off on Sunday - no doubt they deserved it and even more so than against Algeria. Things have gone wrong and won't be fixed for the Euro's and probably not for the next World Cup. We could even be talking about a generation. Things need to change now, or as far as the England Team are concerned nothing will change for the future.
Paraguay, Ghana and Argentina all proceed with little problem, and have me checking my family tree to find a possible link to dual nationality.
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