J'accuse

[Ginger Ninjas]

Why are we going home early?

We are going home just about on time in my opinion.

How about, Why are we not winning the world cup even though we have a very talented group of players and the longest preparation time afforded to such a group in a very long time?

Is that ok? Or are we not to set our sights any higher than the quarter finals?

[soggy biscuit]

Why are we going home early?

We are going home just about on time in my opinion.

How about, Why are we not winning the world cup even though we have a very talented group of players and the longest preparation time afforded to such a group in a very long time?

Is that ok? Or are we not to set our sights any higher than the quarter finals?

It's always nice to have dreams but setting sights higher than quarter finals is simply being unrealstic.

[papereyes]

The fact is this: England were dumped out of the World Cup by the first half-decent team they met in two years of competitive matches. If there is even one mature adult amid the blubbing mass of blame-shirking babies that seem to comprise England players and officials, this will eventually be acknowledged. And England may even evolve to the state where they can rationally review their tournament. If they do, they should learn a slew of valuable lessons, including the following:

1. There is a way to win penalty shoot-outs: in fact, there are several ways. Jens Lehmann demonstrated one of them during Germany's win over Argentina. Knowing a shoot-out was a possibility, the Arsenal keeper, or someone on Germany's staff, researched the penalty-taking habits of their opponents. The result: Lehmann went the right way for every shot, saving two of them. Elementary really. Why did none of the lavishly paid Englanders think of doing this?

Portugal goalkeeper Ricardo gave an exhibition of another method of winning shoot-outs. Again it's straightforward. Like Argentina's Sergio Goycochea in 1990, Ricardo didn't dive until he saw which way the player was shooting. This makes perfect sense, since players are so racked by nerves in shoot-outs that they are rarely as precise as they otherwise might be so waiting gives the keeper an excellent chance of saving, particularly from anyone planning to cop out by blasting it down the middle.

2. Wayne Rooney is nowhere near as gifted as Diego Maradona but he's the closest thing England have got to him so Steve McClaren should build his team around the brutish genius, just as Argentina did with Maradona in 1986. Maradona, of course, had appeared in the World Cup four years earlier, when, just like Rooney, he failed to live up to the hype and hopes invested in him and ended his tournament by getting a red card for kicking an opponent in the balls. McClaren's task is to craft a side that enables Rooney to fulfil his potential, since the Manchester United winger has the intelligence and ability then to bring out the best in those around him. Marooning him in a dysfunctional 4-5-1 system patently does not achieve this.

3. Clone Joe Cole and ignore the hackery: Cole and Rooney were the only two England players consistently comfortable in possession. Unlike Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard, they are aware that a neat 20-yard pass can be as effective as a barnstorming run. Quite simply, English players need to improve their close control and short passing. Here at least there is hope: Sir Trevor Brooking may be perceived in public as a worthless fence-sitter, but the truth is the FA director of coaching has frequently panned the lack of focus on basic techniques and is working to improve coaching across the country. The fact that Sir Trevor seems to be a clean-living sort is also good news, because otherwise there'd be the risk that the hysterical media would find some utterly irrelevant dirt on him and drive him out of the job.

4. Do not make John Terry captain: anyone pictured crying after a defeat should be automatically disqualified from leading their country. Just as Brian O'Driscoll revealed himself to be an unsuitable Lions captain last summer by tearfully and constantly moaning about being speared, Terry's reaction to Saturday's elimination betrayed self-pity. That's not inspiring. You can be sure Zinedine Zidane, for example, won't cry if France are beaten by Portugal, even though it'll be his last ever game (Yes, I know Maradona frequently cried but he was above all rules; except the anti-doping ones, obviously). David Batty may have been a disagreeable runt in many ways, but his stiff-upper-lip reaction to missing a penalty and losing to Argentina in France '98 was admirable; of the players I saw on Saturday, only Gary Neville showed similar fortitude. Neville didn't sob or mewl, he retained his dignity and shook the hand of each of the Portuguese. Since Neville remains the country's best right-back and is therefore guaranteed his place for the next two years or so, he should be given the armband.

[Maguire]

Oh Jesus, RR is on his "I told you so" crusade. What a tosser.

How about "He was right and I shouldn't have called him an amoeba brain"?

Right about what, exactly? That we shouldn't have played Gary Neville That we shouldn't have played Hargreaves That 7/1 was a great price for Ecuador to turn over England

If you mean that we wouldn't win the world cup, well, stand aside Nostradamus there's a new kid in town.

[Big Ern]

Responsibility always rests with the manager, but there were a lot of failure throughout the World Cup

1 - Sven's squad selection was essentially flawed and when he lost Owen, he was forced to play a system not familiar to a lot of the players. Why did he take Jenas, who didn't play a minute, when he could have talen another striker instead like Defoe or Bent.His subsitutions were poor and the general lack of direction was apparent for all to see. The players clearly didn't know what their jobs were, and it was painfully obvious that certain players were in the side for their reputations, not their ability. Not once did he change the game with a substition, or give Lennon enough time to show us what he could do.

2 - David Beckham again proved poor at a major tournament and apart the free kick against Equador, was a passenger in the team. His leadership was poor and was to blame for the first Sweden goal through a basic defending error that you would expect a school boy to be aware of. Hopefully this is the end of Beckham as an international player.

3 - Frank Lampard. Was a waste of space in the Englad team and should have been dropped after the group stages. Created nothing, and when he got in a position to score, he inevitably struck the ball high and wide. I reckon a career in rugby union beckons for the fat useless waster. Should not be a first choice for England again.

4 - Wayne Rooney. Was immature in getting sent off and should have realised the more the game went on, thre more ball and space he would get. Let his temper get the better of him, and at the top level you just can't do that.

5 - The FA .Should have sacked Sven a long time ago.

[Ginger Ninjas]

Why are we going home early?

We are going home just about on time in my opinion.

How about, Why are we not winning the world cup even though we have a very talented group of players and the longest preparation time afforded to such a group in a very long time?

Is that ok? Or are we not to set our sights any higher than the quarter finals?

It's always nice to have dreams but setting sights higher than quarter finals is simply being unrealstic.

I don't think so. Even Sven has said that he expected to reach the final, and most of the players beforehand were of the opinion that just getng to the last 8 is not a success. I accept that no team can go into the competition expecting to win it, but that would have been the goal of the England team and management - there are probably only 8 or so teams that had a chance of winning the tournament before it started, and we were certainly one of them - so we have not performed to our full capabilities (nor were we outplayed by a superior team - except in the penalties) and therefore going home at a time most people would agree is disappointing given the calibre of the players

[Royal Rother]

Oh Jesus, RR is on his "I told you so" crusade. What a tosser.

How about "He was right and I shouldn't have called him an amoeba brain"?

Right about what, exactly? That we shouldn't have played Gary Neville That we shouldn't have played Hargreaves That 7/1 was a great price for Ecuador to turn over England

If you mean that we wouldn't win the world cup, well, stand aside Nostradamus there's a new kid in town.

Yes, that was absolutely the extent of it!

[soggy biscuit]

so we have not performed to our full capabilities

Making hard work of an easy qualifying group, again making hard work of a fairly straight forward 1st round group including beating Paraguay by an own goal, struggling against Trinidad (the bookies outsiders in the whole tournament) who included players from Englands lower divisions and again being poor against Sweden and letting in a goal from a throw in.

We then went on to draw the outsiders of all the second round and once against struggled.

How people think we even had a slight chance of winning is beyond me

[Ginger Ninjas]

How people think we even had a slight chance of winning is beyond me

Becasue, unlike Greece at Euro 2004, the sum of its parts is greater than the whole. In essence England have an excellent squad of players (equal to any country, perhaps excluding Brazil and Argentina), but could not play as a team to the required standard

[Royal Yank]

The football wasn't the best, certainly not pretty, and you can debate tactics till the cow comes home.

Simple fact of the matter was that the team selection and the tactics got us as far as the quarter finals. In fact they got us to the end of the quarter final with the scores even - despite the sending off. Would we have won if Rooney hadn't been sent off? We'll never know. But we still got to the end of the game with a huge chance of progressing.

Step forward the penalty takers. Other than Hargreaves, the rest should be ashamed, and those three individuals are to blame. Perhaps Robinson could have done the same sort of homework that Lehman had done as well.

Step forward Lampard, Gerrard, and Carragher - it is your fault. You couldn't strike a ball with power and accuracy from 12 yards. Simpe really.

[Arch]

Sven knew what team he wanted about 18 months ago. I think he had a certain right to expect that those eleven players would raise their game. He stuck with Lampard and Gerrard in midfield because, like many of us, he believed they were match winners - players who show up for the big occasion - and far better than any alternatives who might have offered better shape. He turned out to be wrong, but I think it was a reasonable idea. Every reorganization of his ideal eleven involved a dilution - take out a player who's potentially a world beater and replace him with a solid Premiership pro. I have never ever seen Carrick do something that suggested he was a world champion in waiting. I have seen that from both Gerrard and Lampard on the big stage. To some extent the same argument applies to Beckham. Choose a player of huge international experience, a regular for Real, the one player who can deliver the killing pass, finally back to full fitness, or throw the dice with an untested teenager (Lennon) or SWP who has hardly played a full competetive game all season and is also largely untested in the international arena.

Sven's problem was two-fold. One, his ideal eleven didn;t live up to their billing. I don't think that's his fault. Two, he had no clear plan when the ideal eleven became unavailable. As I've said before 4-5-1 with Rooney up front was not in itself indefensible. Rooney professed himself happy to take on the task and the lone forward has to get used to frustration. it comes with the formation - ask Henry. But 4-5-1 is problematic without real wingers. Rooney was never going to get the support he needed from Cole and Beckham. Once that formation was adopted, Lennon should have been automatic, and Cole should have been instructed to get into the box on a more regular basis.

Also, Lampard should have made way after the group stages. I know I'll get panned for this, but I believe we could have thrived with Beckham pushed into the middle triangle with Gerrard and Hargreaves. He was useless in the wide right of a midfield 5, but he's still a good footballer, a good passer, a respectable tackler at this level, and capable of the creative act that we dearly lacked.

And finally, I'm not buying the idea that Jermaine Defoe or Darren Bent would have miraculaously transformed us into a World Cup winning side. I think Sven knew this too.

[SpaceCruiser]

And finally, I'm not buying the idea that Jermaine Defoe or Darren Bent would have miraculaously transformed us into a World Cup winning side. I think Sven knew this too.

No, but at least we would have had some decent cover for the forward positions instead of an untried youngster.

[Arch]

And finally, I'm not buying the idea that Jermaine Defoe or Darren Bent would have miraculaously transformed us into a World Cup winning side. I think Sven knew this too.

No, but at least we would have had some decent cover for the forward positions instead of an untried youngster.

I don't disagree, but in the end it was irrelevant. No one else was going to be put out there anyway. Having said that, we were in an embarrassing bind for the semi, although I still maintain that neither Defoe nor bent was going to miraculously rescue our World Cup. We're just short of quality strikers.

[TBM]

Step forward Lampard, Gerrard, and Carragher - it is your fault. You couldn't strike a ball with power and accuracy from 12 yards. Simpe really.

But then you could argue that the others who had chances in the game are to blame as if they scored in normal time we wouldn't have even gone to penalties

[Royal Rother]

Good post Arch.

I do think Carrick could also have made a difference. He did against Ecuador when his forward passing completion was far and away the best from any England player in the tournament.

Reading showed last year that it really doesn't need wholesale changes to transform a very average team into hugely impressive table-toppers. It just needed intelligent assessment of strengths and weaknesses and adapting to a style that suited the players available. Plus one or two new faces.

Eriksson had sufficient time to find his magic formula, and 4 million reasons why we had a right to expect him to find it. The tinkering he did in friendlies proved worthless as he continued to play Gerrard and Lampard together despite the fact that it has never worked. A good manager does not always play his best 11 players. Gunnarsson OR Sidwell. Lampard OR Gerrard. That one realisation could have made all the difference to our World Cup, but he didn't have the foresight / balls / whatever to recognise it and act upon it. (Plus of course there's always Beckham...)

[Victor Meldrew]

Arch,
Wouldn't diagree with anything much of what you wrote but I fear that you have Sven's blinkers regarding Beckham.
To play in the central area of midfield requires dexterity ,preferably two-footedness and speed of movement.
Poor old David has none of these and that's why he hasn't played there for England,Man Utd or Real Madrid.
The structure of our side under Sven has always been to accomodate him and meant that Gerrard and Lampard haven't had wide players with pace to bring into the game and Joe Cole has been stuck out wide left when surely he would have been better employed (if anywhere) on the right.

Now that Beckham's career for England is surely over we may see two wingers getting to the bye-line and crossing whilst defenders are back-tracking rather than the predictable Beckham passes where defenders are facing the play and can deal more comfortably with everything.
Lennon lacks a final ball at the moment and I could see Walcott playing wide right (or a rejuvenated SWP) as another option as he could always be too lightweight to play through the middle.
I am quite excited that younger and pacier players may force their way into the side because I feel that for so many years we have been dull and predictable and when it comes to the crunch and big games we have lacked real flair.
Until we go down to 10 men we have also forgotten how to give everything(making up for the lack of flair),something that English sides have always been renowned for.

As for the penalties should we with our record ever again try not to lose rather than to win during the normal period of play?
Sven has now gone and hopefully with it the safety-first approach which meant that we would never lose by much but also were unlikely to win the games that matter against the better countries.
One final point and that is Gary Neville and his mates should have a good look at how the 1966 side succeeded where this one has failed-a side that played together as a unit without any stars whereas this one thinks it has stars but they only come out at night when the games are over.

[Arch]

OK, I'll stand correction on Beckham. Who knows about the future, but maybe for this tournament, given the personel, we could have brought Cole more central and gone with this midfield:

-----Hargreaves/Carrick-------
Lennon Gerrard Cole Downing

[From Despair To Where?]

Step forward Lampard, Gerrard, and Carragher - it is your fault. You couldn't strike a ball with power and accuracy from 12 yards. Simpe really.

I think you're being harsh on Lampard. Credit where credit's due, it was the first time in the tournament he got a shot on target.

[shadesrwrf]

The FA for me. They appointed Sven. I expect to be blaming them again in 2010.

[Royal Yank]

Step forward Lampard, Gerrard, and Carragher - it is your fault. You couldn't strike a ball with power and accuracy from 12 yards. Simpe really.

I think you're being harsh on Lampard. Credit where credit's due, it was the first time in the tournament he got a shot on target.

Step forward Lampard, Gerrard, and Carragher - it is your fault. You couldn't strike a ball with power and accuracy from 12 yards. Simpe really.

But then you could argue that the others who had chances in the game are to blame as if they scored in normal time we wouldn't have even gone to penalties

Yes you could TBM - but it was quite aparrent to me that once Rooney went off, then they were playing for the draw - only counter attack or take chances if they happen to arrive, but basically play sensibly, defend well - and we'll get to penalties. That game plan was sucessful - everyone did what they had to do to get to that point. Lampard, Gerrard, and Carragher blew it. Had they been sucessful, we would be moaning about tactics, Sven, lack-of-strikers etc etc etc, but saying, 'hey but at least we are in the semi-finals'. The buck stopped with those three.