Way Too Easy To Blame Lampard For England’s Defeat
Right after the match, there’s very strong temptation to blast Lampard and Eriksson for England’s defeat.
What makes the defeat harder is not that England played poorly, but that many players had their games of the tournament tonight. Owen Hargreaves was simply superb, and so were Terry, Ferdinand and Robinson.
England still made the same old, same old glaring mistakes, with Beckham hardly seeing the ball on the right and Lampard…well, Lampard doing only what he has done throughout the tournament - miss chances. Between him and Crouch they have had to have taken at least 40 shots on goal in the tournament, and they ended up scoring only 1 goal between them.
The Chelsea midfielder has had an outstanding couple of seasons, his form rising in the 2003/2004 season and staying at its high levels for Chelsea till this World Cup began. You would ordinarily expect Lampard to score from the chances he’s had, like he’s done it so many times for Chelsea. But international football is a different game and England’s formation troubles, the pressures of performaing at such a high level for so long and some really shoddy tactics by Sven Goran Eriksson led to Lampard missing, missing, and then missing again.
I’ll try to get a video of the Rooney incident, as well as the celebrations at the end of the match - the Portugal players put on quite a show, although it was all tears for the England fans. Ferdinand, Terry, Beckham, Neville, Lampard, Gerrard - to a man you cannot fault England for effort.
But really, you can’t say the better team won here. Portugal were assured and composed in their penalty taking, but both Lampard and Gerrard had already had bad games, and Carragher is not England’s regular penalty-taker. Lennon would have been a much better choice.
And with the chances Lampard and Crouch missed, you wonder when this run of choking in key games will end. Eriksson’s departure means that now Steve McClaren will take over in August, and while preparations for Euro 2008 will start right away England will look back to tonight as the time when all their fears came true - They were the better team, but still ended up losing because of stupid mistakes.
A full analysis will have to wait for tomorrow. But really, really…
They say that football is more than just a game - and if you saw the tears on the faces of England players you’d know this was a match that England should have won, and a tournament where England should be in the semi-finals.
Till tomorrow.
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I think Sven failed the Bottle test, he should have played 4-3-3 with Rooney Crouch and Lennon up front, Or was he hoping of winning the world cup on Penalties.
With Gerrard Cole and Hargreevs in midfield we would have threatend the Portugal defence more, and with our superb defence we still might have stopped Portugal’s attack, this was Svens waterloo and he failed, I have no criticism of Svens team selection up to the Portugal match, but he had to go all out for attack, you have to in a Quarterfinal of a knockout competion, dont you think??
You can’t blame him for our exit, but he equally you wouldn’t expect him to miss some of the attempts he had yesterday. I find it curious that a man who frankly is knocking them in week in, week out for Chav$ki, somehow misses them when playing for his national team. I’ve never seen him take a penalty and strike it so weakly. Perhaps he cares more about the Russian club….. He wasn’t the only one though. Every one of ours bar Hargreaves’ was weak. Why can’t they just take a decent run up and smack the thing in hard?
In the last 15 I’d have liked to see him just go all out for attack and stick Theo Walcott on - He’sa kid and unproven, but sometimes it’s the youngsters who don’t get plagued by fear and doubt and can create something.
Anyway, it’s all over and it’s time to concentrate on the coming Premiership season.
Lampard cannot play with Gerrard and Gerrard is a far better player, PERIOD!
Watch Gerrard with Liverpool. Alonzo and Sissoko play holding roles and let Gerrard roam free. As a result: Come back VS Ac Milan for Champions League 2005 and come back VS West Ham for 2006 FA Cup Final!
Watch Gerrard for England. HE is ALWAYS covering for Lampard, ALWAYS!
In previous tournaments, Lamps has scored, but he should have been dropped during this one. He is a defensive liability.
Look at Lamps for Chelsea. Essien and Makelele are ALWAYS covering for him. Look at Essien for Ghana. He is much better because he does not have to deal with Lamps in the midfield.
Lamps will lose his place on Chelsea to Ballack.
Lampard needs to be dropped from the English midfield AND Gerrard should be made the new English CAPTAIN!
“Steve Gerrard, Gerrard; He’s Fucking Hard, He’s Hard!, He’s better than Frank Lampard, Lampard; He’s Steve Gerrard, Gerrrard”!!!!!