C'mon Iceland!!!

Teetonetal

lloyd said:

Fretwired;1129001" said:

TTony said:



joeyowen said:

I always want home nations to do well, but going further than them the all is sweeter still!

Cymruuuuuu





They have a *team*.

As did the Irish.

England have 11 incompetent mercenaries.

Pathetic.  





Rubbish.



England has a decent squad. England's problem was picking a manager who at best could handle a mid table premier league team like West Brom. Hodgson should never have been given the job. Look at the England rugby team. Utter shite until a decent manager turns up, puts a new regime in place and creates a winning team.

England weren't utter shite before Jones came in to be fair, they had played some great stuff under him.

They have improved a lot though so it's a fair point.

England were utter shite under Martin Johnson. Under Lancaster they nearly got there, before falling apart at the WC, and I think that had a lot to do with Sam Burgess being dropped in, for what ever reason. Jones has moved them upwards again.

Hodgson as been inept from start to finish. We were awful in 2012. awful at the wc in 2014 and awful here.

They need to get a manager in, who has won things, speaks good english, that won't be bullied into picking people on reputation. But who?

crunchman

digitalscream said:

crunchman said:

I think the rugby analogy is fair.  England have had the players but a succession of inept coaches meant they under performed.  Need to find a footballing Eddie Jones.

The thing is, the rugby team have had a lot of success as well as a lot of failure. I've been watching the woes of the England football team through the eyes of my football-mad family since the mid 80s, and I've never known them to have any success at all.

The only highlight I can remember is Gascoigne's mental two-touch goal against Scotland at Euro 96.

30 years of failure can't only be down to inept coaches.

As I detailed above, Hoddle, Eriksson and Capello were inept, and on yesterday's evidence Hodgson is as well, although he avoided some of the boneheaded wrong selections in his squad that some of the others managed.  That does cover most of the major tournaments of the last 20 years.

Venables wasn't inept on the pitch.  He was an inept (and possibly dishonest) businessman in other areas which is why he was sacked.

You are also forgetting 1990 where we went out on penalties to the eventual winners in the semi-final.

Even with the coaching errors we had a few occasions where we weren't far off going a lot further.  In Euro 2004 we went out on penalties to a Portugal side that went on to reach the final.  If Rooney (when he was young and could run) hadn't gone off injured with a broken meta-tarsal (I think after 20 minutes of the match) then who knows what might have happened.  In the 2002 WC we were in the lead against a 10 man Brazil and probably should have beaten them - and they went on to win the tournament.

Once you reach the quarter/semi-final stage of a major tournament a lot of the teams are quite evenly matched (see the number of matches that got to extra time penalty shootouts) it is often about who gets a bit of luck.

lloyd

I dunno about woes of the English team, it's knock out football and you need a bit of luck.

'96 was a good team, out on pens in the Semi's to eventual winners Germany

'98 again, good team out in the Quarters to Argentina on pens-should have been through but for a wrongly disallowed Sol Campbell goal.

On balance I think England have underperformed slightly overall but I've said before you've never had a stand out top 3 team in the last 25 years so the expectation of winning trophies is misguided, England should reach the QF's of every tournament, SF's a bonus and FInals/Winning would be way over achieving IMO.

England's major failing as most people see it is that they pick players and squeeze them into positions they're unfamiliar with, you should pick a formation then put players in that can play in the positions.

Years ago it was always the left wing position that was problematic-no English player playing in the Premier League on the left so you ended up picking all kinds of players and getting them to do a job out there. Stupid. You should have gone down the leagues and picked a winger from a Championship team, other countries have done it-think Argentina were picking a Newcastle centre back when they were in the Championship?

UnclePsychosis

Eriksson wasn't inept. Given the players at his disposal he did exactly about as well as you'd expect---He got to three quarter-finals and then lost to better teams. 

English players just aren't all that great and haven't been for a long time. There's a reason why very, very few (if any) English players have played at the likes of Bayern / Barcelona / Real Madrid /  Milan / Dortmund / Juventus etc. for the last 20 or 30 years and its not just financial. There's barely even any English players at Man City or Chelsea for goodness sake---the players just aren't good enough for teams looking to be the best in Europe or the World.

stickyfiddle

UnclePsychosis said:

Eriksson wasn't inept. Given the players at his disposal he did exactly about as well as you'd expect---He got to three quarter-finals and then lost to better teams. 

English players just aren't all that great and haven't been for a long time. There's a reason why very, very few (if any) English players have played at the likes of Bayern / Barcelona / Real Madrid /  Milan / Dortmund / Juventus etc. for the last 20 or 30 years and its not just financial.

Lots of this. We've had very few truly world class players in the last 15-20 years. At best you'd say Beckham, Owen (when not injured), Ferdinand, Gerrard and Scholes. Anyone else? I don't think it's any surprise that 4 of those played under Alex Fergusson.

lloyd

UnclePsychosis said:

Eriksson wasn't inept. Given the players at his disposal he did exactly about as well as you'd expect---He got to three quarter-finals and then lost to better teams. 

English players just aren't all that great and haven't been for a long time. There's a reason why very, very few (if any) English players have played at the likes of Bayern / Barcelona / Real Madrid /  Milan / Dortmund / Juventus etc. for the last 20 or 30 years and its not just financial.

They don't like the culture shift-Ian Rush (although Welsh) was questioned on how he enjoyed life in Italy playing for Juventus "it was like living in a foreign country".

ewal

guitari;1129439" said:

ewal said:

The way the pundits are going on now in the aftermath, you'd think England had just been beaten by Albion Rover's! Iceland beat Holland home and away, and the Czech Republic during qualification for goodness sake!



They really are a pretty decent team!





Never thought I'd see the Rovers mentioned on here!

I'm a Jags fan, but definitely got a soft spot for Rovers!

Bogwhoppit

England were Bjorked.

Bogwhoppit

stickyfiddle said:

We've had very few truly world class players in the last 15-20 years. At best you'd say Beckham, Owen (when not injured), Ferdinand, Gerrard and Scholes. Anyone else? .

Nobby Stiles, Stanley Mattews, Dirk Ramsbottom and the only other one I can think of is Charlie Cleckheaton

lloyd

stickyfiddle said:

UnclePsychosis said:

Eriksson wasn't inept. Given the players at his disposal he did exactly about as well as you'd expect---He got to three quarter-finals and then lost to better teams. 

English players just aren't all that great and haven't been for a long time. There's a reason why very, very few (if any) English players have played at the likes of Bayern / Barcelona / Real Madrid /  Milan / Dortmund / Juventus etc. for the last 20 or 30 years and its not just financial.

Lots of this. We've had very few truly world class players in the last 15-20 years. At best you'd say Beckham, Owen (when not injured), Ferdinand, Gerrard and Scholes. Anyone else? I don't think it's any surprise that 4 of those played under Alex Fergusson.

5 of them if you include Owen.

I'd throw Shearer into that list.

holnrew

stickyfiddle said:

UnclePsychosis said:

Eriksson wasn't inept. Given the players at his disposal he did exactly about as well as you'd expect---He got to three quarter-finals and then lost to better teams. 

English players just aren't all that great and haven't been for a long time. There's a reason why very, very few (if any) English players have played at the likes of Bayern / Barcelona / Real Madrid /  Milan / Dortmund / Juventus etc. for the last 20 or 30 years and its not just financial.

Lots of this. We've had very few truly world class players in the last 15-20 years. At best you'd say Beckham, Owen (when not injured), Ferdinand, Gerrard and Scholes. Anyone else? I don't think it's any surprise that 4 of those played under Alex Fergusson.

Shearer at his peak. He got the golden boot in 96

crunchman

UnclePsychosis said:

Eriksson wasn't inept. Given the players at his disposal he did exactly about as well as you'd expect---He got to three quarter-finals and then lost to better teams. 

Disagree.  Seaman was an inept selection in 2002.

The striker situation in 2006 was the worst squad selection I've ever seen.

blueskunk

Feel sorry for footy fans. England r obviously still shit!!!

DLM

Fretwired;1129048" said:

I bet the German team manager could weld them into an effective unit and win games.

Nah, he's too depressed about the potential effects of Brexit on pickernick basket prices:

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-FwITPY4p6g8/UJdvqWDpE0I/AAAAAAAAXs0/CXCtt2kzelY/s1600/BEARS%2BAND%2BBEES%2B11.png

stickyfiddle

holnrew;1129744" said:

stickyfiddle said:



UnclePsychosis said:

Eriksson wasn't inept. Given the players at his disposal he did exactly about as well as you'd expect---He got to three quarter-finals and then lost to better teams. English players just aren't all that great and haven't been for a long time. There's a reason why very, very few (if any) English players have played at the likes of Bayern / Barcelona / Real Madrid /  Milan / Dortmund / Juventus etc. for the last 20 or 30 years and its not just financial.





Lots of this. We've had very few truly world class players in the last 15-20 years. At best you'd say Beckham, Owen (when not injured), Ferdinand, Gerrard and Scholes. Anyone else? I don't think it's any surprise that 4 of those played under Alex Fergusson.





Shearer at his peak. He got the golden boot in 96

I'll give you shearer, though he's pushing to the top of the 20 year window!

Neil

ewal said:

The way the pundits are going on now in the aftermath, you'd think England had just been beaten by Albion Rover's! Iceland beat Holland home and away, and the Czech Republic during qualification for goodness sake!

They really are a pretty decent team!

Exactly right. Iceland are a very good team however small their country.

They are the reason the Netherlands aren't at these finals.

It wouldn't surprise me to see them turn over France.