Internationals thread where we moan about England lots

[Royal Rother]

Toilet really, but England will still probably win the group and then people will get excited about the world cup and then they'll make heavy work of winning the group, put in a decent performance in the last 16 and get knocked out by the first good team they play in the QFs

They're nothing if not predictable

It's got to be semi finals. We're 4th in the FIFA Rankings you know.

[Silver Fox]

REally? Oh well, people can actually say we underachieved this time and be right!

[Extended-Phenotype]

What zips my bellend is the way pundits and papers keep banging on about how important experience is in the team - it's the experienced players who keep letting us down!

Cole was shit. Carrick anonymous. Gerrard was utterly abysmal. What's worse is that that is pretty standard. I appreciate we aren't blessed with replacements, but surely anyone is better than Stevie who seems to make every pass with his eyes shut.

Who knows, without him on the pitch gifting the ball away every single time he touched it, perhaps we'd have capitalised more on our superiority in the first half and be top of the group today.

Same old England, because we have the same old f/cking players still walking into the side without justification.

[creative_username_1]

I loved Stevie G's passing last night.

yep that one wot he did that went to another player was #woooorldy

[tulip]

Toilet really, but England will still probably win the group and then people will get excited about the world cup and then they'll make heavy work of winning the group, put in a decent performance in the last 16 and get knocked out by the first good team they play in the QFs

They're nothing if not predictable

It's got to be semi finals. We're 4th in the FIFA Rankings you know.

How?????

[barelylubedcock]

It's a formula, so essentially, as pointed out by Sanguine, England are very efficient at beating the teams around and below them but tend to lose to one of the same handful of teams. So they rack up the points and, as they're usual qualifiers and usually through the group stage and because the formula strips out the worst results, they tend to do quite well.

Also, Brazil aren't scoring points at the moment. They'd arguably be above/around England.

Then 4th through to 9th are actually pretty much indistinguishable (difference is about 100 points out of a thousand, I'd kill for experimental accuracy of that level), so that also kind of makes sense. You'd expect a close game between those nations.

You also have to realize that most international teams are pretty pish.

[PieEater]

Not exactly a complete performance from England. As Keane said, we've yet to see one from this particular shower of despicable fukkwits. Or something like that.

I thought he was spot on with all his comments, the first half showed that they really weren't very good and we fail to beat a real contender again.

[Royalclapper]

Thought England looked pretty decent first half while Montenegro were a little bit conservative. They got their equaliser then we could have nicked it at the end. Ashley Young is shyte, he's deteriorated alarmingly for club and country. Rubbish at the Euro's as well.

[Victor Meldrew]

You look at that England side and wonder how many of those would have played regularly in different eras.
Excluding Cleverley and Welbeck because of their ages I think only Gerrard and Rooney might have been considered.
Hart v Banks,Clemence,Shilton etc-no contest.
Johnson v Neville,Rob jones etc.-no chance
Smalling and Lescott v Charlton,Butcher,Adams etc.-no chance
Cole v Baines now?
Milner v anybody but Scott Parker-no chance
Carrick v about 20 others-no chance

More than anything else this lot strike me as incredibly dull and unimaginative-the movement of Montenegro (what was the ratio,something like 100:1 in terms of population,therefore choice?) was just so much better than ours in that second half and yet all of ours play in what some consider the best league in the world and even some more considered opinion would put us as the 3rd best which is still miles ahead of Montenegro.
So many people that I know and others that post on here find watching England a pain and if ever hype exceeded actual performance that is our national side since 1996.

Whereas we would readily want Aguero and Messi,Iniesta and Xavi,Van Persie and Van der Vaart,Schweinsteiger and Ozil,Kompany and Hazard from other national sides I'm not sure how many of ours would be wanted by those other countries.

[sandman]

May have been mentioned earlier but can't be bothered looking. Scotland have joined the illustrious company of Andorra and San Marino in being the first sides mathematically unable to reach the WC.

[Royal Rother]

You look at that England side and wonder how many of those would have played regularly in different eras.
Excluding Cleverley and Welbeck because of their ages I think only Gerrard and Rooney might have been considered.
Hart v Banks,Clemence,Shilton etc-no contest.
Johnson v Neville,Rob jones etc.-no chance
Smalling and Lescott v Charlton,Butcher,Adams etc.-no chance
Cole v Baines now?
Milner v anybody but Scott Parker-no chance
Carrick v about 20 others-no chance

More than anything else this lot strike me as incredibly dull and unimaginative-the movement of Montenegro (what was the ratio,something like 100:1 in terms of population,therefore choice?) was just so much better than ours in that second half and yet all of ours play in what some consider the best league in the world and even some more considered opinion would put us as the 3rd best which is still miles ahead of Montenegro.
So many people that I know and others that post on here find watching England a pain and if ever hype exceeded actual performance that is our national side since 1996.

Whereas we would readily want Aguero and Messi,Iniesta and Xavi,Van Persie and Van der Vaart,Schweinsteiger and Ozil,Kompany and Hazard from other national sides I'm not sure how many of ours would be wanted by those other countries.

It's just the same old same old.

All the phone ins are full of people saying the same things we've (well, certainly I've ) been saying for the last 10 years.

It's all bollocks and we will continue to fall behind. Give it another 10 years and a victory against the likes of Montenegro will be seen as an achievement.

San Marino and Andorra are two of only handful of teams we've played in the last 10 or so years who have not looked technically better than England. Now that the likes of Montenegro are getting more professional and disciplined in their approach, and perhaps no longer have an inferiority complex, they are turning their technical superiority into all-round performances that will, shortly, enable them to eclipse us in international qualification and tournament football (if we actually get there of course).

[Extended-Phenotype]

<England Procedure>

1 New manager comes in.
2 Fans of big clubs talk up and demand inclusion of their overrated heroes living in bubbles of can-do-no-wrong.
3 Media gets behind these overrated heroes as commodities and selling points.
4 Sponsors get behind these overrated heroes as commodities and selling points.
5 FA gets behind these overrated heroes as commodities and selling points.
6 New manager is channelled into picking the overrated heroes.
7 Fans of big clubs spot the overrating of rival player and ridicule.
8 Overrated player crumbles for England under the unfamiliar pressure of scrutiny outside the bubble of can-do-no-wrong.
9 Manager with his job on the line loses opportunity for experimentation.
10 Players continue in downward spiral.
11 Rival fans up their vilification.
12 Player fans up their glorification.
13 Media, sponsors and FA continue to reap financial benefit of now celebrity status players.
14 National team has a lousy tournament.
15 Manager gets sacked or quits.
16 Goto 1