Vaughan says it's all going to plan...

"The building blocks towards winning the Ashes starts right now."

A stupid person might think the "building blocks" should've started at 0-3 in Melbourne, 2006...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/cricket/england/7273490.stm

Surely English fans can take some positives from the interview...

Yeah - Vaughan is able to talk bullshit without his knee exploding.

Happy days.

I think i'll just wait for the comments after this series has ended...

Come on, it's pretty obvious England are going to win this one easy. NZ don't have any batsmen.

I'll just throw out a pre-emptive "That was so f*cking pitiful. Screw this - we're over as a cricketing nation."

"We have to look to develop a team now that can beat New Zealand here, beat New Zealand at home and beat South Africa and progress towards those Ashes.

"That is a long way off but the stabilisation of the team should be starting now if we're really going to have a chance of winning the Ashes.

"There's a pressure as a unit to try and get ourselves back to consistent cricket and we've got to be realistic and realise that if we don't start doing it now then questions will be asked.

"This is a great opportunity to play good cricket, hopefully win some games and get some series wins under our belt."

Vaughan believes that England's troubles can partly be attributed to the team constantly changing, due to a mixture of injuries and loss of form.

But with only Andrew Flintoff on the injured list, he said: "We do need to get to that settled side, which we had a few years ago but we haven't had for a while.

"The sooner we get to becoming a settled side everyone will be happier. Results are very important because with good results you do become a settled side."

Most of that is fair enough though...

Less of the talking, more of the talking on the field please.

Dello in "excited, nonsensical tirade against a perfectly fair Vaughan interview" shock.

What exactly is wrong with the interview, Jay?

As far as I can tell, the heading is "England under pressure, says Vaughan", not "everything's going to plan". In actuality, he doesn't even say anything approaching "everything's going to plan". He says that England need to start winning and develop a platform for the Ashes and that the constant injuries and changes of personnel haven't helped in terms of stability and team-building.

What do you want him to say? The opposite? England need to stop winning, de-stabilise the team, get more injuries and not work towards the goal of winning the Ashes.

Tired soundbites.

Excuses.

Blah.

What do you want him to do? Force the rest of the team to play well? Force Harmison to bowl a perfect line and length and force Hoggard not to get injured and force Panesar to develop a doosra and force the batsman to score runs and force a wicketkeeper to bat like Gilchrist and keep like Read and force the world to sing and force Cook not to crab and then get out and force Bell not to score pretty 60s and force KP to get over his mini-slump and force young English cricketers to sing and force Israel and Palestine to accept a two state solution and force Bin Laden to give up his jihad for a quieter life on a mushroom farm and force the Daily Mail to shut down and realise their despicable demagogy is an embarrassment and force people not to crash cars and force away poverty and famine and despair and genocide and force America to shut down Guantanamo bay and force David Chase to make more seasons of the Sopranos?

There's no force that I know of that can make people play well. HTF is it Vaughan's fault?

I'm just waiting for a Vawn batting average of 15 (or lower) this series.
I'm feeling it in me water .... Watch me rock 'n' roll then .... positives or no farking positives!
BTW .... How much does a knee-cap cost these days?

Oh dear. Hoping and waiting for an English batsman to fail just so that you can fuel your own sad personal vendetta. How tragic.

Michael Vaughan and Franky Lampard posters, who'da thunk it?

JKLever in "totally misses the point and instead posts some homosexual innuendo" shock.

Lara Lara Laughs wrote:What do you want him to do? Force the rest of the team to play well? Force Harmison to bowl a perfect line and length and force Hoggard not to get injured and force Panesar to develop a doosra and force the batsman to score runs and force a wicketkeeper to bat like Gilchrist and keep like Read and force the world to sing and force Cook not to crab and then get out and force Bell not to score pretty 60s and force KP to get over his mini-slump and force young English cricketers to sing and force Israel and Palestine to accept a two state solution and force Bin Laden to give up his jihad for a quieter life on a mushroom farm and force the Daily Mail to shut down and realise their despicable demagogy is an embarrassment and force people not to crash cars and force away poverty and famine and despair and genocide and force America to shut down Guantanamo bay and force David Chase to make more seasons of the Sopranos?

There's no force that I know of that can make people play well. HTF is it Vaughan's fault?

He seemed to manage it in 05 OK

Lara Lara Laughs wrote:Oh dear. Hoping and waiting for an English batsman to fail just so that you can fuel your own sad personal vendetta. How tragic.

Oh FFS
Laura ... mine is not a sad personal vendetta - so cease making it sound like a bad opera.

I have watched and listened and noted all the esteemed England captain's remarks and actions ever since he was sidelined with his knee
op pre Ashes 2007 ... and rest assured, the guy is nothing but a self opinionated media junkie whose sole ambition right now is to cling desperately onto the captaincy/power regardless of consequence. Note his reluctance at being ousted as ODI skipper ...

His open criticisms of Flintoff and Strauss (amongst others) - coupled to the high praise of his bed-fellow Piles was nothing but hypocritical -
and yet, he has been allowed to get away with it.
Why??? Quite rightly, on the back of Ashes 2005.

Since then however, his ineptitude at sensible on-field captaincy (v India) has been grossly lacking, and despite his crisp Alastair Campbell-esque soundbites, he looks to be lacking the confidence he strutted 3 years back.

He talks confidently of playing into the 2011 Ashes ...... laudible, but for the sake of English cricket, I bloody hope he doesn't !

Merlin wrote:

Lara Lara Laughs wrote:Oh dear. Hoping and waiting for an English batsman to fail just so that you can fuel your own sad personal vendetta. How tragic.

Oh FFS
Laura ... mine is not a sad personal vendetta - so cease making it sound like a bad opera.

I have watched and listened and noted all the esteemed England captain's remarks and actions ever since he was sidelined with his knee
op pre Ashes 2007 ... and rest assured, the guy is nothing but a self opinionated media junkie whose sole ambition right now is to cling desperately onto the captaincy/power regardless of consequence. Note his reluctance at being ousted as ODI skipper ...

His open criticisms of Flintoff and Strauss (amongst others) - coupled to the high praise of his bed-fellow Piles was nothing but hypocritical -
and yet, he has been allowed to get away with it.
Why??? Quite rightly, on the back of Ashes 2005.

Since then however, his ineptitude at sensible on-field captaincy (v India) has been grossly lacking, and despite his crisp Alastair Campbell-esque soundbites, he looks to be lacking the confidence he strutted 3 years back.

He talks confidently of playing into the 2011 Ashes ...... laudible, but for the sake of English cricket, I bloody hope he doesn't !

Yes, you pointed out all of his "remarks and actions" since the Ashes and everytime you did, I, or somebody else pointed out how you'd either twisted what he'd said or simply fabricated something to suit your own anti-Vaughan agenda.

[whinge, cry, blubber] Vaughan hates Shah. He won't pick him. [/whinge, cry, blubber]

How do you know he hates him? You've just made that up. There are other selectors too. Vaughan doesn't control English cricket.

Merlin: Let's move on.

[whinge, cry, blubber] Vaughan said the pedalo incident adversely affected team morale. [/whinge, cry, blubber]

So what? It did. If Fred doesn't want to get criticised then he should act like a professional sportsmen and not act like a drunken oaf during an important World Cup.

Merlin: Let's move on.

[whinge, cry, blubber] Vaughan keeps talking about positives. He needs to get tough with them. [/whinge, cry, blubber]

Erm, he very clearly says that we're not good enough in the very interview you're crying about and then points out things like Alistair Cook scoring centuries against everyone he's played as a positive and a good sign for the future. There's nothing wrong with that.

Merlin: Let's move on.


Get some of the interviews that he did that were so media-whorish and self-aggrandizing. Find them and post them and then we'll discuss them. No doubt you'll claim that the above is not true. If you really think so, get the interviews.

And it wasn't only that. You were saying that Vaughan wasn't a good enough batsman for a long time. You flounced about the forum loudly proclaiming that England should move on and forget about Vaughan when he was injured for a long period. You said that his knee wouldn't hold and that he wasn't good enough anyway. You were proven wrong on both counts. Once he came back into the team and did well.

If I called it anything but a personal vendetta it'd be a lie.

Lara Lara Laughs wrote:

JKLever in "totally misses the point and instead posts some homosexual innuendo" shock.

It's only homo-erotic if you want it to be Lara...

Don't make him bring out his deflection stats...

<<If Fred doesn't want to get criticised then he should act like a professional sportsmen and not act like a drunken oaf during an important World Cup.>>

lol...flintoff and strauss are the two talented players you guys have at your disposal...of course freddie is an oaf..but he has talent...i think at the WC he was still in post traumatic stress syndrome from the ashes tour where his bravery was not matched with commitment from his team

I think they should buy a new toaster ....

Dello wrote:Don't make him bring out his deflection stats...

horace wrote:<<If Fred doesn't want to get criticised then he should act like a professional sportsmen and not act like a drunken oaf during an important World Cup.>>

lol...flintoff and strauss are the two talented players you guys have at your disposal...of course freddie is an oaf..but he has talent...i think at the WC he was still in post traumatic stress syndrome from the ashes tour where his bravery was not matched with commitment from his team

Why do you use "<" marks to denote quotations rather than the handily named "quote" button? It makes you look like a simpleton and a luddite..

thank you for that erudite advice

Horrie has more than the looks ...