Of course it's very easy to point towards a goalkeeper that conceded 66 goals last season..Robert Green, who had his 'Scott Carson' moment, which will go down as one of those famous English failures on the biggest stage of all. But of course it is only half the story..
After the obvious deflation that all of us England fans will feel post match, it is quite clear to me why we didn't win this game...and its born of an age old problem. This problem seemed to be invisible to the pundits of ITV, who covered the match in the UK. Allegedly we didn't win this game because of a goalkeeping error. Well even those with zero football knowledge would have been able to deduce that. However the real problem of why we couldn't drive on and take the points is one that all English men and women have discussed in pubs and homes up and down the country since the year dot!
Once again for me the huge egos of Lampard and Gerrard have effected a performance and result for England..and as you know I don't mean in a good way! Of course, Gerrard took his goal beautifully. Credit to him for that. But as a central pair they refused to work in tandem, asserting no control on possession of the ball for any period of time, allowing the USA to have way too much opportunity going forward, and ultimately allowing a huge failure to happen on the night.
Of the two, I think Lampard was the most to blame. He looked lacklustre at best. His link play was so poor that in the last period of the game Wayne Rooney was playing in the positions you would expect Lamps to pick up on. Gerrard had moments of inspiration bar his goal, including some good tackles and crosses..but this is a team game! You would think that these two much lauded world class midfielders have never even met each other! Their communication issues are born of the two huge club egos that they both carry...both icons for their teams..who can not put this aside when they wear the 3 Lions on their shirts.
This is such a poisonous element for the whole side as it effects the heartbeats of England...none more of that than of Wayne Rooney's. The boy struggled all night, neither playing as a striker or linking successfully with the central midfield two. The thing to realise is that OUR PLAYERS DO NOT LACK TECHNIQUE! They show their class every week for their clubs. But today once again we saw today how England ruin themselves with a cocktail of bad decisions and ego mania.
As an addition there were other issues on the night. One being the performance of Shaun Wright Phillips, who proved that maybe his room in the team hotel should have been that of his City teammate Johnsons, or even Theo Walcotts. Ledley King's injury was a huge blow as Jamie Carragher looked like a player with zero pace.... and when Emile Heskey is your best player in the team for simply bullying the opposition, linking play to a good standard, getting caught offside way too much and drilling the teams best chance of the night into the mid drift of Tim Howard...well you know you've got problems.
Algeria will offer England all sorts of different problems next Friday...but the truth is that we have little chance of success in this tournament when players cant put their egotism aside and just get down to basics and play good, simple football. If we persist to lump balls up to Heskey, bypassing our only world class striker and leaving great talent like Joe Cole on the side, then it could be a very early end to the World Cup for our nation.
the only point i disagree with you on is that lampard is any good at all.
ReplyDeletehe scores goals which i will grant you but often they come from deflections of just the scraps that come from play for a team like chelsea.
his passing and tackling are usually dreadful.
Loved it!!! Well no mention of how Milner shoulda walked in the first half and Carragher in the second think you should take of the ingerlund blinkers, oh and the obvoius lets kick it long and as far away from Rooney well he shoulda declared for Ireland under the grandfather rule. Humiliating exit in the first knockout round awaits the world will watch and giggle, go on ingerlund give the world a good laugh. Maybe 2066 will be your year
ReplyDeleteEngland failed to win not for the goalkeeping error, but for poor finishing, awful final ball and bad decision making in the final third of the pitch.
ReplyDeleteAll wingers were poor, as well as the rent boy Frank. Cannot fucking believe that SWP is in the squad at all! None of them can deliver a decent cross or a telling pass.
It must be such a hard life, having an intellectual capacity that makes buying a bus ticket an arduous task.
ReplyDeleteWhat an absolute pile of garbage, none more so than the age old argument that poor Roo's lackluster performance was the fault of others. The kid simply cannot play effectively with anyone up front as a partner, not even Hesk the desk who gets played because he's the only player with some semblance of form as a partner for Rooney. Neither can Rooney play effectively up front on his own against quality opposition because of his small stature and lack of physical strength when pitted against tall central defenders. The reults, as we saw today, are that Rooney becomes anonymous and frustrated, running further and further afield in his attempts to 'get involved' - and people see this as symbolic of his heart!
ReplyDeleteI have never seen a player with so many deficiencies so lauded and so oft forgiven for his poor shot making ability, lack of vision, and lousy technique. He pops up for five minutes in a game, scores an easy goal occasionally laid on for him by the work of others, and everyone overlooks the other 85 minutes of squandering possession, giving the ball away in defense, missing opportunities to pass the ball to better placed team mates, not to mention the many balls blasted over goal when hitting the net was the easier option. Rooney is the most over-rated player of modern football, and I say that as a United fan of forty years standing.
spot on boy
ReplyDeleteYou must tell me the shop you bought those blinkers because they are working brilliantly.
ReplyDeleteYour man doesn't play well and somehow its all the fault of 2 hated rivals. Fantastic incisive analysis.
At least you have the decency and self awareness to point out in your article that that would be the opinion deduced by "someone with zero football knowledge".
Don't do yourself down too much, you have designed a pretty website.
It is clear that Lampard and Gerrard would prefer not to play in midfield together but they dont have the ego of Rooney who selects who he plays with, otherwise we would be playing with a centre forward who can score goals not someone picked because he makes Wayne look good. Why no Bent, no Defoe? They are not great but they can score if given a few opportunities (you know those things that were created yesterday like 2 missed one-on-ones) Why not? Because Wayne cant play with them. Who has the ego?
only a utd fan could post such bollocks, as for the guy who posted at 23;34 you would love lampard to play for utd, if he'd have played for you last season you would have won the league.
ReplyDelete^^^
ReplyDeleteapparent football newbie talking.. a gerrard fanboy at most.
reason England lost is because of having no other striker apart from rooney.Heskey is crap.
ReplyDeleteAnd stop scapegoating Frank Lampard.England had better possession than USA,england strikers couldn't able to convert what they were provided.It is as simple as that.
i imagine that capello wants barry & lampard in the middle with gerrard on the left as soon as barry is fit.
ReplyDeleteit solves the gerrard problem by letting him do his roy of the rovers running around trying to play every position at once style but leaving a solid base of two tactically astute players (with quality) in the middle...& the real howlers (other than green) last night were both left wingers...awful...so gerrard playing there solves that too. yay.
england actually weren't bad...the usa are not a bad side themselves...very fit & organised...& england were clearly the better team. with better keeping & more clinical finishing that would have been a comfortable win. other positives include the performances of terry, johnson & lennon...& heskey showed exactly why capello has him in the squad.
shame everyone in the country becomes a hysterical nancyboy whenever england don't win by ten.