Re: Euro 2012 Thread

by LeFromage Mon 25 Jun 2012, 14:19

JKLever wrote:James Milner, Jordan Henderson, Joleon Lescott, Scott Parker...

Two of them are Premier League winners. One of them cost £25 million. And one is a recent "Footballer of the Year".

They're the creme de la creme of English football.

by Brass Monkey Mon 25 Jun 2012, 14:34

Dello wrote:
Oh come along. You just had to look slightly ahead of him to James Milner.

F*ck me, I'm astounded. I really am. Seriously. What happened, did Glen Johnson save your life or something? Ridiculous. Johnson has been like Bambi on ice since his footballing inception. One of the players we missed most is Kyle Walker - not because he's wicked, but because it meant Glen Johnson was going to play.

by Jontyh Mon 25 Jun 2012, 14:40

Defensively we weren't bad, in fairness to Joleon.
Just clueless everywhere else.

by Lara Lara Laughs Mon 25 Jun 2012, 14:42

Nothing I said about Young has changed. Who would you have played on the left instead instead? Downing? Or all those other brilliant left sided players we've got? Getouttatown.

Most of them were dreck. Doesn't help when your team can only keep the ball for 9 seconds a time. It's easy to point to individuals but the overall style of play is the issue.

by Lara Lara Laughs Mon 25 Jun 2012, 14:47

I also didn't think Johnson was bad. Certainly not worth pulling on your testicles about. Solid performance. Had a few shaky moments in the first few games but he's not really an issue. Certainly Walker or Richards would have been better options but one was injured and the other mysteriously not picked.

by Henry Mon 25 Jun 2012, 14:48

At least the Netherlands and France have the excuse that all of their players and coaches hate each other and have massive egos.

Depressingly, it seems that England are simply sh*t.

by LeFromage Mon 25 Jun 2012, 15:06

Brass Monkey wrote:
Dello wrote:
Oh come along. You just had to look slightly ahead of him to James Milner.

F*ck me, I'm astounded. I really am. Seriously. What happened, did Glen Johnson save your life or something? Ridiculous. Johnson has been like Bambi on ice since his footballing inception. One of the players we missed most is Kyle Walker - not because he's wicked, but because it meant Glen Johnson was going to play.

Johnson's a better defender than Kyle Walker.

by LeFromage Mon 25 Jun 2012, 15:08

Lara Lara Laughs wrote:I also didn't think Johnson was bad. Certainly not worth pulling on your testicles about. Solid performance. Had a few shaky moments in the first few games but he's not really an issue. Certainly Walker or Richards would have been better options but one was injured and the other mysteriously not picked.

No mystery about Micah Richards' exclusion. Man City don't play him in the big matches for a reason.

Just a shame Hodgson didn't employ the same rationale when picking Milner.

by Henry Mon 25 Jun 2012, 15:09

England probably had their best team out there. They just aren't good enough.

by LeFromage Mon 25 Jun 2012, 15:19

Lara Lara Laughs wrote:Nothing I said about Young has changed. Who would you have played on the left instead instead? Downing? Or all those other brilliant left sided players we've got? Getouttatown.

A weakling. A chicken shit who never took his man on. Couldn't pass. Couldn't hold onto the ball. Couldn't do shit.

Theo Walcott's terrible on the ball usually. A properly erratic f*ck of a footballer. A goal, an assist, something like a 95% pass success rate, and he barely played. When Theo Walcott's making you look like a cabbage of a footballer, it's because you're a cabbage of a footballer.

Who would I have played on the left? Firstly, I wouldn't have played 4-4-2 because it's not 1985 anymore. Football has moved on. In most countries. England lost the possession war in every single game (and the warm ups) because they were overrun in the midfield.

No teams play just two players in the middle of the park anymore. It's ridiculous.

Therefore my left-sided attacker in a 4-2-3-1 could've been anyone. Welbeck has played out there for United. As has Rooney. Chamberlain and Walcott have teamed up as Arsenal's right and left sided forwards. I think Walcott would actually do better on the left, where he can come inside on his right foot, than he does on the right at present. Not sure why Aaron Lennon and even Adam Johnson weren't in the mix.

Ashley Young can f*ck off. His only skill is diving and he was too incompetent to even pull that off in this tournament.

by Brass Monkey Mon 25 Jun 2012, 15:23

Dello wrote:
Johnson's a better defender than Kyle Walker.

I agree. But given the system we were apparently playing, we'd have probably been better served with the likes of Walker taking a bit of pressure off the winger by being able to link up with him and not have him swamped by four Italians... one time he couldn't complete a four yard pass. Four yards! He couldn't even get it out from under his feet when he had space... it all contributed to the constant cock-slapping the Italians were giving us...

by Brass Monkey Mon 25 Jun 2012, 15:25

Dello wrote:
No mystery about Micah Richards' exclusion. Man City don't play him in the big matches for a reason.

Just a shame Hodgson didn't employ the same rationale when picking Milner.

No. Richards was sore because he wasn't picked in the squad.. so his dad told him to rule himself out of a reserve spot, which he did.

by LeFromage Mon 25 Jun 2012, 15:30

Brass Monkey wrote:
Dello wrote:
No mystery about Micah Richards' exclusion. Man City don't play him in the big matches for a reason.

Just a shame Hodgson didn't employ the same rationale when picking Milner.

No. Richards was sore because he wasn't picked in the squad.. so his dad told him to rule himself out of a reserve spot, which he did.

Confirming the suspicion within the game that he's Billy Big Bollocks in his mind, but Tommy Tiny Testes in reality.

Wasn't missed.

by Brass Monkey Mon 25 Jun 2012, 15:30

Jontyh wrote:Defensively we weren't bad, in fairness to Joleon.
Just clueless everywhere else.

We weren't bad? 9 shots on target, plus 36 off tells a different story. That and the fact they kept boffing the offside trap like it had worked all game. Italy could've had at least three if they'd bothered to stick any sort of class up front.

by LeFromage Mon 25 Jun 2012, 15:35

Brass Monkey wrote:
Dello wrote:
Johnson's a better defender than Kyle Walker.

I agree. But given the system we were apparently playing, we'd have probably been better served with the likes of Walker taking a bit of pressure off the winger by being able to link up with him and not have him swamped by four Italians...

You know what would really take the pressure off the winger? If he wasn't an absolute shitcake carthorse with the skills of a pebble and a turn of speed indistinguishable from walking through sand with two prosthetic legs. Into a headwind.

Johnson created a good chance for Rooney with a quality cross. And was adventurous enough to get into the box and earn himself a scoring opportunity. Which he fluffed.

As an attacking option, he offered more than "the best left back in the world" on the other side of the pitch, who overlapped once all tournament.

by Brass Monkey Mon 25 Jun 2012, 15:53

Dello wrote:
Brass Monkey wrote:
Dello wrote:
Johnson's a better defender than Kyle Walker.

I agree. But given the system we were apparently playing, we'd have probably been better served with the likes of Walker taking a bit of pressure off the winger by being able to link up with him and not have him swamped by four Italians...

You know what would really take the pressure off the winger? If he wasn't an absolute shitcake carthorse with the skills of a pebble and a turn of speed indistinguishable from walking through sand with two prosthetic legs. Into a headwind.

Johnson created a good chance for Rooney with a quality cross. And was adventurous enough to get into the box and earn himself a scoring opportunity. Which he fluffed.

As an attacking option, he offered more than "the best left back in the world" on the other side of the pitch, who overlapped once all tournament.

I agree - Milner's a burnt out husk. Shame it wasn't just him left stranded through a combination the forward play of child who hates playing football, overhit, or worse, underhit passes and midnight drunkard ball control - it was Walcott as well. His distribution was so shite that a lot of the moves broke down because of him - SteveG had to step in so much it was almost like he was playing right wing. It was a shocker.

I was as surprised as anyone (apart from probably himself) that he knocked over a good cross because season in, season out he stinks the place out with bag of shit crosses.

by Chivalry Augustus Mon 25 Jun 2012, 16:21

England should play two right-backs and two left-backs it if wants to defend and if it wants its wingers to support the full-backs. It may sound silly but I don't see it being as ineffective as playing Young and Milner. At least then we'd have Leighton Baines in the team who can a) take a free-kick and b) score a penalty.

by Brass Monkey Mon 25 Jun 2012, 16:24

Who's 'we', shitweasel? Where's all the Deutschland uber alles schtick? I don't know... you perform gash in a major tournament and all the riffraff come crawling back.

by Chivalry Augustus Mon 25 Jun 2012, 16:31

I'll always support England. Albeit less than I'll support Germany. I want to see England do well. I actually think they make it a lot harder than it is. As usual with England there's a lot of people getting paid a lot of money to dream up fancy ideas when football itself is fairly simple. England didn't pick their best squad, didn't play positive football, and went the way they deserved to. Greece won a Euros playing that way but it was before the all-powerful Barcelona and Spain juggernauts had reached their peak as footballing colossi. I seem to remember 2004 was a time for negative football. I started to fall out of love with the game because it was ugly. It must have been about that time that AC Milan and Juventus played for penalties in a CL Final from ball one. Them was dark days.

Football has changed. England haven't. There's something that happens between the ages of 16 and 19 in our footballers that means they're sh*tter than their European counterparts. We win at under-17s but struggle the higher we go. Why is that?

by Brass Monkey Mon 25 Jun 2012, 16:56

Chivalry Augustus wrote:
Football has changed. England haven't. There's something that happens between the ages of 16 and 19 in our footballers that means they're sh*tter than their European counterparts. We win at under-17s but struggle the higher we go. Why is that?

It's a difficult one. Why do we win at youngish age representative football? Because the other teams give less of a shit about it. I did some (low level) coaching with kids in France and Spain long times ago, you wouldn't believe the difference between those lot and our lot. We drive our kids so hard that the extra bit of determination pulls them through. It really opened my eyes as to the differences between those two countries and us in terms of technique. It was startling and disheartening.

I was speaking to the Spaniards and even moreso with the French about why their control is so much better than ours - both of them said a similar thing - most of their kids play with the smallest type of ball and they're playing more on the streets than the Brits. They think those formative years, doing that, makes so much difference. The Frencho said that many British coaches they've worked with are still in the 'GET IT OUT!!!!' school of not knocking it around, not passing back etc. They Spaino said that he reckons we play a lot more 11-a-side than they do. They don't even do the 'mini football' 8-a-side as much as we... they'll do 3s or 4s a side and make the pitches smaller. This all helps with control.

I personally think that the French are invariably the best at controlling the ball in the entire world... their first touch is usually impeccable. My answer would be to stop hiring meathead shitwads to coach our kids, don't act like xenophobic table-thumpers and let our kids enjoy the games rather than the win at all costs mantra.

by LeFromage Mon 25 Jun 2012, 17:05

Chivalry Augustus wrote:We win at under-17s but struggle the higher we go. Why is that?

Because no other country gives a shit about the competitive aspect of under 18s football. It's all about player development for them.

Edit: what Danny said, that I patently didn't read.

by Jontyh Mon 25 Jun 2012, 17:13

Brass Monkey wrote:
Jontyh wrote:Defensively we weren't bad, in fairness to Joleon.
Just clueless everywhere else.

We weren't bad? 9 shots on target, plus 36 off tells a different story. That and the fact they kept boffing the offside trap like it had worked all game. Italy could've had at least three if they'd bothered to stick any sort of class up front.

Not really. We were under the cosh in every single game, mainly a result of being ineffective in midfield.
Yet we didn't lose. Ok, that was owing to some abysmal finishing from the opposition, but if any part of our play deserves a little credit, it's the defence.

by Brass Monkey Mon 25 Jun 2012, 17:26

Dello wrote:
Edit: what Danny said, that I patently didn't read.

It's alright, I didn't even read it.

by Brass Monkey Mon 25 Jun 2012, 17:30

Jontyh wrote:
Not really. We were under the cosh in every single game, mainly a result of being ineffective in midfield.
Yet we didn't lose. Ok, that was owing to some abysmal finishing from the opposition, but if any part of our play deserves a little credit, it's the defence.

Maybe. I'm thinking the guts of Parker and Gerrard, basically playing as anchor men, went a long way to ensuring we were hard to beat. But yeah, they showed some resolve. And some terribly basic errors.

by Chivalry Augustus Mon 25 Jun 2012, 17:33

Dello wrote:
Chivalry Augustus wrote:We win at under-17s but struggle the higher we go. Why is that?

Because no other country gives a shit about the competitive aspect of under 18s football. It's all about player development for them.

Winning is of secondary importance, but they do care. Mathias Sammer cares about Germany's age groups winning persistently and regularly. He believes that winning trophies can and should be a habit as much as winning football matches should be. There is an idea in England that foreign teams don't care about winning at youth level. It's not true. It's just that wins are not their primary goal. They probably wouldn't be in England if they didn't lose so often. Winning in itself is a good habit and is a sign that things are, up to that point, going to plan.

Germany won the u21s against England three years ago and were very happy about it. Of the starting line-ups that night, 5* of the Germany u21s have graduated to be starting in the quarter final on Friday. Of the England starting line-up, only two of the players* even made the Euros squad. There's a clear problem there. Admittedly, they got tanked by the German juggernaut in that final*, but still. Where's the graduation?

* - edited for wrongness

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