England National football team thread

I watched the game yesterday and the England U21 squad performed decently. They could have scored more than just the two goals but they were wasteful with those chances. Their defence was a bit shaky though. Norway would have scored if they had a little bit more cutting edge upfront.

I see, well i didnt see it personally. I know Walker & Gibbs are likely to be in the starting XI so maybe that will make the defense stronger.
 
Martin Samuel: Sacking Fabio Capello not answer England | Mail Online

Can always depend of Sir Samuels to be shining light of solid reasoning for football journalism amongst all the drivel analysis in the British media.

His idea of christmas three-formation sounds good also:

-------------------------------------Carroll-------------------------------------------------

-------------------Young-------------------------Rooney----------------------------------

----------Wilshire-----------------Parker------------------Gerrard-----------------------

Only problem is that sometimes i worry England dont know how to play without wingers well.
 
The Ballon d'or merged with the World Player of the year a couple of years ago,

Also, im not sure that there is overhyped media speculation in this country compared to other European countries, I was in Spain during some of the World Cup, and as the tournament progressed, even the most broadsheets of broadsheets began to focus on the football, and nowadays, even a draw is considered a poor result, but then again, it is here and this asks the question of why can Spain pull it off and we can't? The answer is simply that they have better players than us, no matter how much they are paid, the quality is still there. Personally, the problem lies with the big PL clubs, who are more likely to look overseas for their new young star instead of nurturing homegrown players through into their starting XIs.

For example, in the recent Champions League final, 7 of Barca's starting XI were Spanish, it would have been 8 had Puyol been fit enough to start, compared to Man Utd, who had 3 English (4 including Giggs) in theirs, and not many, i think only Giggs, started their career at Man United, whereas Iniesta, Xavi, Busquets and Messi have been playing in the same team for most of their lives, in particular Iniesta and Xavi, who have supposedly been in the same team since they were 8.

Sorry it's a bit long, I started writing and didn't stop
 
1-1 in the end for the Under 21s. But some other decisions from coach Pearce i found puzzling:

- Why Manciene as skipper. Surely Henderson, Jones or Smalling would have been better choices, especially given by no ones canculations should he have been a starter.

- Not starting with Rodwell & Landsbury/Muamba in the mid-field instead of Mancience & Cleverly was strange.

Hopefully that chances as the tournament progresses.
 
And how many players above the age of 21 are allowed to be fielded? I'm pretty sure Mata's 23.
 
Last edited:
The players must be 21 or under from the beginning of the qualification campaign. After that it doesn't matter.
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Top