Comments on: Five Things We Know About England

By: Ahmed Bilal

Ahmed Bilal — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 18:26:34 +0000

Brian – took it off the front page to give other articles more room – you can always follow ALL the articles here: http://soccerlens.com/tracker/.

AM – the argument is to play the best team – Rio and Brown are better at playing together in a team than Rio and Terry. The other caveat was to choose from the given squad. Obviously with Micah Richards and King / Woodgate in the squad we probably won’t be thinking of Brown.

It has nothing to do with United – if you had a English center-back playing for Chelsea (apart from Terry) I’d pick him instead of Rio and give him and Terry a shot.

As things stand though, Ashley Cole is much better in gelling with his teammates than our top two center-backs.

By: AM

AM — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 17:35:22 +0000

Ahmed, I know from your previous blogs you are a Man Utd fan…but seriously, Brown a starter for England? Come on mate, I know he ain’t a bad player but he is nowhere near as good to play at Right back or Centre Back for England.

By: BD Condell

BD Condell — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 12:02:53 +0000

Ahmed, totally off subject, but where has Gerry Mc Donnells article gone? I thought this was one of the artciles of the year. Definitely to be encouraged.

By: Brian W

Brian W — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 22:44:30 +0000

yeah, let’s bench Joe Cole again and waste his talent. Ral smart there Bilal.

Gerrard SHOULD be the defensive midfielder. He’s best when he plays back more and can pick out people with his pasing and make the occassional explosive run, like Essien. Play Lampard ahead of him, and it would work – but every manager is too scared to do that, it seems.

By: Rossonero Fuego

Rossonero Fuego — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 20:03:00 +0000

capello will fix it the english are too retarded to realize u cant beat everyone 3-2 2-1 he’ll introduce discipline the formation a xmas tree will allow to control tempo 4-2-3-1 is fine english have enough attacking midfielders hargreaves is grt and barry might be hurt or should be no excuses i dont care to much talent on this team

By: Just1n

Just1n — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 19:02:55 +0000

In other words…they are shit.

By: Red Ranter

Red Ranter — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 16:30:09 +0000

re: last comment, I meant shove Cole to the right.

By: Red Ranter

Red Ranter — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 16:29:27 +0000

I am surprised why no one even mentions Ashley Young. He is naturally left sided, has good delivery and plenty of pace to burn.

Shove Cole — a natural right footer — on to the left and pitch Young on to the left.

Just my two cents… not that I care for it anyway.

By: Andrei

Andrei — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 16:13:20 +0000

Does everybody remember when and perhaps why Scholes retired from international football? It was when Sven-Fuckhead Eriksson played him on the left wing; I have a feeling that the same is going to happen with Stevie G and then everybody is going to spend the rest of their lives trying to get him back in a red shirt.

Players need to be played in position or not played at all; putting things out of perspective, if the best 11 English players were all central midfielders, then, by God, they will all play. That is the problem.

On top of that, the players have no chemistry. Somebody mentioned somewhere that Barry in midfield, Young on the left and Agbonlahor in attack would work best. They might not have the total raw talent of say: Gerrard, Cole and Rooney, but the fact that they are used to each others’ game could be crucial and would lead to some nice passes.

If I was head of the FA, I would offer subsidies to clubs who try and get together a bunch of English players and play them together on a regular basis.

By: Victor Li

Victor Li — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 14:55:06 +0000

England’s problems are very similar to the U.S. Basketball team’s problems prior to Beijing. They had too many highly-paid superstars who didn’t know how to play together and weren’t used to deferring to each other. Good basketball teams, like good football teams, have superstars, supporting starts, and role players. Too many superstars result in problems like Gerrard and Lampard being unable to work together, or Terry and Ferdinand being unable (or unwilling) to let the other take the lead in the center of the defense.

You would think that these guys would know how to handle the pressure, but playing for England is always treated more seriously than playing for a club (at least in the eyes of the media). Maybe they need people like Carragher or Scholes, people who don’t care as much about playing for country than for club.