The state of English Football

Originally Posted by Lou_Macari_Chippy

I dont fully buy that, yes there probably is a bit of truth in it, but we have consistently got to the quarter finals and semi finals over the last 20 years and often have only been beaten though penalty kicks.

In this case, the manager has done an extremley poor job, he has failed in a catastrophic manner and should be sacked.

We have the players to do ok, if Muriniho was running things we would have won the group. McLaren is/was a clueless numbskull, he never had the respect of the players at any time and his team selection was all over the place.

England has plenty of decent ball players and has produced some fine footballers over the years that have competed to a high level in most of the international competitions we have been involved in. Managers make teams.

Utter %@#$&!s.

Originally Posted by The Watcher

1986 - Qtr Final

1988 - 1st Round

1990 - Semi Final

1992 - 1st Round

1994 - Didn't qualify

1996 - Semi final

1998 - 2nd round

2000 - 1st Round

2002 - Qtr Final

2004 - Qtr Final

2006 - Qtr Final

2008 - Didn't Qualify

Four Quarter Final and two Semi Final appearances in the last twenty years. England only got to the quarter final stage "consistently" when Sven was in charge. They've never managed to get to the Semi Finals of major tournaments "consistently".

Blaming penalty kicks is a cop out. There is a reason the Germans are so good at them and the English and Dutch so bad...and it has very little to do with "luck".

I dont think that record is bad at all. but i think the fact that sven took us to the quarters consistently underlines my point, which is that it's the manager thats the main problem here not the players. Other than Bobby Robson, the managers england has had over that period have been absolutely terrible; just look at the list -

Graham 'turnip head' Taylor = gash
Terry 'lets pick anderson' Venables = gash
Glenn 'people in wheelchairs are paying for their sins' Hoddle = gash
Howard 'David Batty is class' Wilkinson = gash
Kevin 'i've spent all my cash so i'll get back into the game' Keegan = gash

It's no coincedence that when sven game along our results got better, but even with sven we could have done better imo. To be honest, it's amazing we got anywhere with that shower of shit.

Sure, maybe english football at the grass roots level could improve a bit, but our footballers are not that far off and with a decent manager we could and likely one day will, win a major competition.

Originally Posted by Save It

Jus been thinking seriously about tonight’s game and the biggest thing that stood out was the fact that all the Croatian team were comfortable on the ball. Even their centre backs on occasions felt comfortable knocking it back and forth between themselves. Now I’m 29 and have been watching England players for years and I can only think of three top quality technical players that England has produced. Scholes, Sheringham &
Gascoigne

Can you ever imagine an English player with the technical skills of a Maradona, Ronaldinho, Ronaldo; it just would never happened. I heard Fergie a few times on MUTV talking about the fact that we need to get kids playing on smaller pitches and with less players so they get just to passing the ball on the floor, and tonight I can see exactly where Fergie is coming from.

Can anyone seriously imagine going to a under 10’s game in Spain or France and seeing parents telling their kids to whoof the ball up front? That happens every week in England. The result of this is players like, Lescott, Richards, Cambell. Yes they may be athletic and strong and fast, but they can't pass the ball with their good foot let along there bad one.

i agree completely. in fact...

http://utdforum.com/forum/showpost.p...1&postcount=41

One of the big problems, at least until recently, has been the popular perception that England are a great team being held back by poor managers. In my opinion, they're not - for many reasons, a lot of them highlighted in this thread. They're actually a decent team that need a great manager to have a chance.

If England had the correct mentality and entered these tournaments in a well drilled fashion then they would have just that. Greece managed to win the last European Championships, after all.

The problem is that the England players seem to have big egos; they go into these tournaments and key matches thinking that they're the real deal. You can see it in their attitude on the pitch and from their comments in the media. Most of these "smaller" nations don't have this same problem. The Greek players, for example, understood their limitations and because of this they were willing to sacrifice their egos for the team to win. This might not have resulted in attractive football, but the Greeks (and Otto Rehhagel!) understood that they didn't have the players to win playing attractive football.

For the England players, with all their baggage, to develop this kind of team ethic you would need a manager who they would instantly respect. So not only do they require a top manager, they require a top manager with a big reputation too. Although even then I'm not sure that a player like Gerrard would be able to do it.

And even if the FA did somehow manage to hire someone of that ability and status, there would still be teams out there with technically and tactically superior players. Which brings us back to the youth development issue again.

Originally Posted by Serenity Now

One of the big problems, at least until recently, has been the popular perception that England are a great team being held back by poor managers. In my opinion, they're not - for many reasons, a lot of them highlighted in this thread. They're actually a decent team that need a great manager to have a chance.

If England had the correct mentality and entered these tournaments in a well drilled fashion then they would have just that. Greece managed to win the last European Championships, after all.

The problem is that the England players seem to have big egos; they go into these tournaments and key matches thinking that they're the real deal. You can see it in their attitude on the pitch and from their comments in the media. Most of these "smaller" nations don't have this same problem. The Greek players, for example, understood their limitations and because of this they were willing to sacrifice their egos for the team to win. This might not have resulted in attractive football, but the Greeks (and Otto Rehhagel!) understood that they didn't have the players to win playing attractive football.

For the England players, with all their baggage, to develop this kind of team ethic you would need a manager who they would instantly respect. So not only do they require a top manager, they require a top manager with a big reputation too. Although even then I'm not sure that a player like Gerrard would be able to do it.

And even if the FA did somehow manage to hire someone of that ability and status, there would still be teams out there with technically and tactically superior players. Which brings us back to the youth development issue again.

Fair comment.

Originally Posted by Save It

Jus been thinking seriously about tonight’s game and the biggest thing that stood out was the fact that all the Croatian team were comfortable on the ball. Even their centre backs on occasions felt comfortable knocking it back and forth between themselves. Now I’m 29 and have been watching England players for years and I can only think of three top quality technical players that England has produced. Scholes, Sheringham &
Gascoigne

Can you ever imagine an English player with the technical skills of a Maradona, Ronaldinho, Ronaldo; it just would never happened. I heard Fergie a few times on MUTV talking about the fact that we need to get kids playing on smaller pitches and with less players so they get just to passing the ball on the floor, and tonight I can see exactly where Fergie is coming from.

Can anyone seriously imagine going to a under 10’s game in Spain or France and seeing parents telling their kids to whoof the ball up front? That happens every week in England. The result of this is players like, Lescott, Richards, Cambell. Yes they may be athletic and strong and fast, but they can't pass the ball with their good foot let along there bad one.

Originally Posted by Zorg

This problem is ingrained in our culture - people don't like fancy-dans and think flair and creativity are to be frowned upon, whilst 'dogs of war' are heroes. It's £#%&!ing %@#$&!s.

Originally Posted by Grimson

But ultimately it's no trophies in 40 years. The likes of Greece and Denmark have won major trophies in that time. Germany, France, and Italy have won multiple trophies. And it's not just penalties; this is the 6th major tournament in that time England have failed to qualify for (3 World Cups, 3 Euros). It can't just be one poor manager after another. There's got to be more to it. Especially since the U17 and U21 records in their respective tournaments are equally disappointing.

Originally Posted by Qwertyuiop

When you have a Liverpool reserve and two Spurs reserves up front then you have to say something isnt right.

could not agree more with the above posts. the rot sets in when these players are 8-9 years old due to poor coaching.

i've some limited experience of this as i was at the rochdale and blackburn rovers centre of excellence when i was younger. the reason i left blackburn, despite them asking me to stay on, was that every time i tried something different in training, they would stop the game and say "keep it simple. you're not going to get a chance to do that in a match". even as a young 14-15 year old i thought this was wrong. they should be encouraging players to express themselves, rather than stifling any creativity shown.