Too many foreigners in the 'Premier League' !!
If it football was like cricket/rugby league/union they would have taken measures years ago, which they have.
national team before any individual club.
BUT the Premier League is fantastic, best players in the world etc....STUFF England FC !

I conker

It's nothing to do with the amount of foreigners. It's the coaching and player development pure and simple.

If anything it's the foreign players that mask these players weaknesses at club level and allow them to build up such a reputation.

A large problem is how the majority of kids play the game. When I was in Spain on holiday I saw loads of kids playing games which involved quick, short passing and keeping the ball. In the UK all they seem to do is play red-arse or wally.

All of our players have attributes that make them effective in the confines of the rough and tumble, kick and rush Premier League but they all have glaring weaknesses and limitations as footballers, both technically and tactically.

Parker looks good at club level doing the donkey work for a talent like Modric. Barry sits and does the basic stuff alongside a rolls royce of a player like Yaya Toure. Milner does the grafting that allows the likes of Silva and Aguero to shine. Even somebody like Gerrard has had his back covered consistently at club level. When he had his best season at Liverpool he was playing off the striker with freedom to get forward, while he was covered by two intelligent and disciplined FOREIGN players behind him in Alonso and Mascherano. They gave him the platform to perform and cover up his horrendous lack of positional and tactical awareness on the pitch.

None of the players we produce are complete or well rounded. The wingers we produce are athletes with no skill or guile, the defenders are fundamentally good defenders but find themselves completely found out at international level when composure on the ball and distribution from the back is the order of the day. Terry's best club form came alongside Carvalho when he was at his very best, Lescott has Vincent Kompany alongside him who is arguably the best all round defender in Europe at the moment.

You could go on all day long, all of them are good club performers but have glaring weaknesses which get shown up when they are put together into a team and asked to play a different style of football. It's excruciating and nothing will change until we tear it up and start again at a coaching level. No more focussing on physical strength and power, no more selecting players on size and athleticism, more coaching into the absolute basics from the young age - that's passing, ball retention, control, feeling comfotable with the fooking round thing at your feet! No more playing in straight lines either, players need to be playing in flexible formations from a young age so they can play all over the pitch. Their natural position will come to them at a later age.

It's frustrating but it is clear as day. The players simply aren't good enough and won't be until something fundamentally changes at grass roots level.

Fantastic post for me

agreed...

Another thing. If a player at youth level tries to play with confidence, skill, using tricks to get past players etc the opposition manager will tell his players to kick fook out of him. We have this attitude that flair and confidence with the ball is somehow unsportsmanlike. If the opposition players don't put a stop to it then his own coach will probably drill it out of him anyway.

We just don't produce flair players at all. Even far smaller nations than us that don't have the depth or quality seem to have the odd player in their ranks that are a bit different or have a bit of skill. Look at the former Yugoslav countries for example, tiny in population comparison and don't have depth but they all produce some players with skill, dribbling ability and the cockiness and audacity to try things. I hate the fact we never, ever have players like this. Our players are so bloody dull, at least if we're going to get knocked out every tournament it'd be nice to do it with some style.

Yet we only lost over the lottery of penalties

We got absolute splattered all over the pitch for most of the game.

Penalities isn't a lottery either. It's the failure of poor mentality and poor technique, two things our players have. Our record in them simply speaks for itself.

splattered it maybe, we still only lost on penalties despite all our faults, isnt that surely a good sign that we can go on to do a bit better in 2014 in brazil when the younguns come back from injuries?

We were very lucky to get to penalties. The same problems that effect every England side at every tournament were there, awful ball retention and tactics. I'm not sure about young players, Wilshere is the best thing we have by a mile. Fingers crossed he comes back from his injury problems.

I just can't accept the penalty lottery argument though. Penalties are a test of composure and the purity of the ball striking technique - the perfect penalty is unsavable regardless of what the keeper does. All the players are nervous and generally it's the players who have the cleanest technique to rely on that will overcompensate the nerves. Shit player who is also nervous is more likely to miss generally, cos they'll just put their foot through it.

If you've got mentally confident players who are also sound footballers you are onto a winner, hence why Germany always seem to stroll through shoot-outs. The lottery element is way overplayed.

far better teams in the history of football have lost on penalties, italy themselves lost 4 years ago on penalties at the semi final stage to spain, even though they won the world cup with them 2 years before against france.

it's a total lottery n it always will be, you can be the most composed man in the world with the biggest amount of confidence, strike the ball perfectly... yet if the keeper guesses right gets down n saves it your a loser now matter how you've hit the thing.

it's all relative anyway, i cant argue with your assessment of most other things from the previous posts.

I cant help but think our midfield would have looked so much stronger had wilshire been fit, but who knows, he just seems the only player capable of putting his foot on the ball like pirlo n xavi do.

How come the Germans always win then and we always lose? Yes there is an element of lottery depending on the keeper going either way but I think there's a massive element of skill involved too. As well as being mentally prepared you can also have your opponent researched beforehand like Lehmann did against Argentina. There are so many more factors involved than pure luck.

A complete lottery wouldn't have us losing every single one we are involved in (except Spain in 96).

Wilshere is a class act but he might never come back the same player after his injury. It is a right kick to the balls that the one player we do produce who is tailormade for international football has been crippled like this.

When one team sits back with two banks of four their only chance of winning the game, apart from penners, is to score on the break.
The other team patiently passes them to death in an effort to win the game.
The sitting back team will never have any periods of weavy passing patterns because they rely on a decent swift outball to create a chance, or the hope of capitalising on a mistake.


Personally I find this so called technically gifted football a tad boring. It only becomes exciting when people like Messi turn the possession into goals.
Pirlo made millions of passes last night, allegedly controlled the game but how many of his passes were defence splitting. Passing sideways across the park is easy, especially when the other team is only interested in the ball when it threatens their third of the pitch.
Pirlo et al wouldn't weave their pretty patterns if they were man marked by the likes of Nobby Stiles, although these prima donnas squeal like a stuffed pig as soon as they are tackled.
Excitement and entertainment is what I want, watching the ball go back and forth across the midfield is tantamount to watching paint dry.
Just the way I see it like.

Its amazing with this total football and 50 passes per attack how often the ball goes sidesways and back and ends up with the centre back or goalkeeper playing the long ball rather than the talented and world beating midfielder. There have been very few players in the tournament who when they get to a one on one with a full back actually have the skill to get past them and whip the ball in. Apart from the Germans the tournament has been quite ordinary.

After the first half an hour I thought we were doing well and we had chances to take the lead - we were the better team. Then we slowly wilted and shrank back into our shell - whether this was fatigue or we just couldn't keep the ball long enough I'm not sure, but overall we were second best on the night. I agree with what Derwent says about Pirlo - most of the time there was no-one near him and he had free reign to pick his passes unchallenged. I'm pretty sure the Germans won't give him such as easy ride.

I agree with a lot of what you say Derwent but do you have to be technically gifted to pass a ball vaguely in the direction of a team mate instead of four or five yards the wrong side? I don't think England were playing particularly defensively; I think they were forced into it by their own ineptitude at keeping the ball more then about 10 seconds and eventually had to resign themselves to it, especially in the last period of extra time.

Being able to pass and keep the football is the absolute basic fundamentals of the game and we fail at it time and time again. I wish we could have boring players like Pirlo or Xavi, who allow us to keep the ball and win tournaments.

I don't think Italy or Pirlo were boring at all yesterday either. I thought that from around 15 minutes onwards they were excellent. It wasn't passing for the sake of it because they created numerous chances only to fluff them. How many times were they in behind our defence that many said performed well? Spain however have been exruciating this tournament because they've taken it too far the other way, maxiimsing possession over attacking football and winning 1-0. Compare that to Barcelona who have forwards who make runs, Alves to offer natural width and Messi to dribble and take players out of the game.

Gerrard and Parker were both horrendous. Parker is extremely limited on the ball and while Gerrard has the ability of a world class footballer his discipline and awareness on the pitch is rank awful. Can't argue with him too much since his assists got us out of the group stages but he's a massive enigma for me, his style of play wins and loses you games in equal measure - moreso the latter at international level.

Being able to pass a ball is an essential part of football but you don't have to make hundreds of passes to prove the point.
Last night we put Carroll on and then failed miserably to even attempt to take the full backs on and get some decent crosses in for the lad to threaten the goal.
That's a basic ploy that English footballers have been doing for over a century and last night we forgot about it.
It's no use wishing we had this player or that player. We have got what we have got until somebody decides to change our total approach to the game.
What we do have are wingers capable of whipping crosses in, which defenders hate, and a centre forward capable of getting on the end of them.
Those are our current strengths, so it would make sense to me to exploit them.
For all the possession Italy had, we could have scored and pinched the win, just like Greece did to Russia. There's too much emphasis on worrying about the opposition..............let them worry about us.

the big difference for me last night was gerard and parker being knackered and unable to make the runs to create chances.
gerard has probably been one of the most decisive passers of the ball in the tournament but last night was one game too many for him and we didnt have anyone in reserve to do what he can.
at least we had the resiliance to be able to fall back, stop them scoring and take the game to a penalty competition.
compare that to france who basically just gave in when the spanish wouldnt let them have the ball.

This thread is a joke along with the title of it. Some people love the failure and seem to enjoy us losing. Fuck me were English support the fuckimg team. We employed a defensively minded manager so its not shock horror how we shaped up. Fact us we remained unbeaten. Surely that's a positive. Our back 4 were awesome. Our attack didn't perform I grant you that but yet again we had the best chance to score, unfortunately landing at the feet of Glen Johnson. We played a very solid way in the entire tourney and were extremely hard to break down. We lost on pens which is so harsh. I'm proud of our efforts in the tourney and we were 2 pens away from the semis. Playing with foreigners is a boost week in week out as it brings our players on. Already looking forward to brazil and there's no reasons not to. We have good young players coming through. We are pools fans so ain't use to success, certainly not glory fans so slagging us off at a pens exit in the quarters seems wrong. A hell of alot said we wouldn't get out the group but we won it. Like I said plenty of positives.

I think this match showed how much we missed Wiltshire and he should be the player in years to come doing the Pirlo role.

I am happy at how the team performed in the whole competition and we now are a hard team to beat. All this stuff about not creating enough isnt backed up byt the goals in the group stage only Spain scored more than us.

We did well considering the limitations of the players.

The players are still limited though and that is the crux of the problem. Nobody wants to be negative, but for a nation with football as comfortably our national sport our record in these competitions is awful. Is getting the quarter finals and exiting on penalties really good enough? For this group of players maybe it is, but as an overall target it is not - which is what my points are based on mainly. I don't fault this group of players effort, application or ultimate end result because I think it is their par but simply they are not good enough.

I don't think our strengths are good enough to worry the opposition though, whether we play to them or not. We failed to get crosses into the box because our supposed strength (the wide players) were poor ranging to awful all tournament. Their delivery was abysmal when they did get the chance, of the 29 attempted crosses by the starting two only 3 hit a target in the whole competition. I don't rate any of our wingers particularly highly so to call them a strength is particularly depressing.

Walcott doesn't play as a traditional winger at club level, Milner has always had awful end product from that position (his only good spell came as a central midfielder for Villa), Downing hasn't set up a goal all season. The only one that has a good record at club level as a winger is Young but even he spends many games cutting inside rather than whipping crosses in. So is our ability to put crosses into the box for a striker really a strength?

God, you're depressing.
What did you think of our shirts?????

Home one is good but that blue one is terrible!

Not good enough??? At what penalties??? Nobody beat us so how are we not good enough?? Like I said we were 2 pens from the semis. Is that good enough?? Fine margins. We were wrote off before a ball was kicked at the tourney and thankfully we proved alot of people wrong. Losing on pens is hardly a disgrace

And the pies?????

money.money.money thats what football at the higher level is about.

So you think we played well yesterday? Come on. They dominated the game, had 36 attempts at goal, hit the woodwork 3 times and missed plenty of chances. This after being told beforehand that it was a weak Italy side!

Look I'm not doubting the effort and application here, I expected us to get out of the group and lose in the quarters because that's what I think is the par for this group of players. It was a decent effort. What I'm saying is that long term things have to change if we ever want to compete for the titles, which is what a country that invented the game and plays it in our droves should be doing! 2 semi finals since 66 is not good enough, only 1 semi appearance outside of England in our entire history...

The fine margins of competition football don't account for half a century of underachievement.

It's called dreaming MJ, I've been doing it every August since 1952.

Bang on, traditionally, we average the last eight of any competition we're in, so they matched that last night. Up against a country that's won the world cup four times we did OK but it shouldn't come as a surprise that we didn't win, regardless of how we lost.

You don't, but surely you must admit that if you've decided not to spray it around, it doesn't do any harm if the few passes you do get find their man.

so we defended very well, were clinical with the chances we did create but were poor in keeping hold of the ball and shite again at pennas
and unbeaten in 4 games.

But in the group stage we were the second highest goal scorers with 5 only Spain scored more. So that says to me that we convert a lot of chances we create.

Yet it took penalties to beat us

Absolutely.........where have I said otherwise????
You highlighted what I said...............it was.........................Being able to pass a ball is an essential part of football...................
I've never said don't spray it around so don't suggest that I have decided that.
I've never condoned sloppy passing either. so why are you twisting it to suggest I have?????
It's not my fault France are also shite !!!!!!!!!!!!

If Pools get eight points from our first four games next season I for one will be over the moon.
Will anyone be unhappy with that?????

Er.... no.

Good.

England aren't "crap", they're merely average.

They've progressed beyond the group stage ok but been knocked out by a better team in the quarter final.

In order to be better than average you invariably need at least one truly world class player in either the midfield or forward areas who can make a difference. To complement this world class player you need a team of good solid players who are of proper international class. OK, there will be exceptions to this (e.g. when Greece won the Euros) but by and large look at all of the top class international sides and you'll see it to be true.

In my lifetime we've only looked like we could actually win 2 major tournaments, 1990 World Cup and Euro 96, and this was because we had the required world class player in Paul Gascoigne and there were sufficient other decent players around him to give us a chance. Once you have this combination you are in with a shout depending on tactics, luck and the quality of the opposition.

We don't have anybody like Gazza now. Rooney wouldn't have even got into the 1990 team and maybe not even the 1996 team- despite the media hype about his ability he isn't world class he is merely one of the solid international class players I refer to above.

We can continue to be well organised with decent players and we will probably continue to qualify more often than not, get out of the group more often than not, and fail in the knockout rounds more often than not.

Being an England supporter I really hope that we can find our next world class player and be genuine contenders again in the next two or three tournaments, but I couldn't tell you who that will be and where he'll come from as I've not seen anybody who I can think would fit the bill. Any suggestions?

Nope, not familiar enough with the Premiership third and fourth teams to know of any.

Do you people honestly Think we defended Well

only shocking finishing prevented embarrasing defeats to ukraine and italy. Italy Could easy have won By 5 goals

I think people like wilshire, Rodwell, jones have great potential, but world class, I'm
Not so sure.

Wilshires probably the pick of the bunch as his style of play is so not English and would suit the international game more

I agree with Mr R.
If England were crap last night, as some would have us believe, how come Italy with all their possession, all their chances, a magician in midfield etc etc couldn't beat us in general play or in extra time ????????????
I'll tell you why. Italy and, to a certain extent Spain, are short on World class strikers ( which brings in Mr R's point on World class players). Spain finished the group stage as top scorers but four of their goals were against Ireland.
The two top clubs in Spain are prolific in the goals department but their top goalscorers are not Spanish.
For all their possession and so called technical ability they are struggling in front of goal.
In terms of finishing Italy were crap last night. Their performance in front of goal was woeful.
Either Roy Hodgson decided not to press Pirlo or the man assigned to the task didn't follow instructions because the number of people who are baffled that Pirlo was allowed the freedom of the park in midfield far outweighs those who aren't.
Who else in the Italian side stood out????

to be honest we were awful in italia 90 but because we got to the semis people forget. We were very lucky to get out of the group. The Egypt win wasn't a good performance at all. Belgium battered us beat we sneaked it in tje 120th min. Cameroon were extremely close to beating us also. Compare that to this tourney and there's no real difference. Euro 96 we had a great tourney.Sol campbells goal should have stood in the defeat v Argentina and who knows what would have happened in 98 same for lampards in the last world cup.Spain did Nowt for 44 years so there's no
reason why we cant do the same. A penalties defeat is all that beat us again. Yea we failed but by the smallest margin possible. People look at our failures but in reality is generally always penalties or a dodgy decision by the officials. We hardly ever have any luck. The Ukraine bloke was offside so that was justice and not luck. We certainly arnt crap. We qualified easily, won our group and lost on pens, hardly shite is it

FIFY