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Post by Narcizo on Jun 13, 2006 11:37:39 GMT
I disagree. England do have the player who can make those kinds of players. Beckham and Gerrard both did it against the Paraguayans. It's just that lickle Mickey made a complete dog's dinner of them.
No arguing from me that England won't win the World Cup though.
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Post by Mr Bismarck's Electric Donkey on Jun 13, 2006 11:39:07 GMT
Shouldn't you be writing to the paper to complain about Zlatan or something?
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Post by Narcizo on Jun 13, 2006 11:44:06 GMT
Nope. The current mood sweeping the tabloids is that it's all Anders Svensson's fault and we will win the whole shooting match once Kim Källström is installed in his place. So there's no need to worry.
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Post by hornet on Jun 13, 2006 11:44:16 GMT
Yeah, of all the things you can complain about regarding this England side - rusty in defence and attack, lack of ambition, slightly iffy goalkeeping - creativity in midfield is roughly the last of them. I think you've been hypnotised by the hair.
Mmmmm, lovely, lovely hair...
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Post by hornet on Jun 13, 2006 11:46:29 GMT
Nope. The current mood sweeping the tabloids is that it's all Anders Svensson's fault and we will win the whole shooting match once Kim Källström is installed in his place. So there's no need to worry. If you can avoid Marcus Allback having to play again, I suspect that'd be a bonus. On the evidence of the last game, he's a natual finisher the way that Hissing Sid is a natural tapdancer.
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Post by coffers on Jun 13, 2006 11:48:52 GMT
That's why we should start Owen Hargreaves. Oh fook, I'll pretend I didn't see that.
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Post by Mr Bismarck's Electric Donkey on Jun 13, 2006 11:51:05 GMT
I noticed a lot of creativity in the second half against Paraguay, where Gerard was sighted roughly as often as the Loch Ness Monster and the rest seemed determined to stand under the shadow of the giant spider as much as possible.
I understand the midfield is our best, err, unit, and I've been boring Moo with clamour to play a 4-5-1 and focus on our strength, rather than on one of two unfit forwards and the Mersey Tower but if our midfield continue like they did against Paraguay then the hypnotism will last roughly until the day after the Quarter Finals, when England arrive back in Luton.
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Post by Narcizo on Jun 13, 2006 11:52:38 GMT
Ah! But he has international experience under the current manager and must, therefore, be better than, ohhhh just to pluck a name at random, Marcus Rosenberg.
My rule of thumb is that if the player is so crap that they have to play in one of the Shandiland leagues then they've no business being in the squad, let alone the field. Unless he's a keeper as there's only one outside of Shandiland at the moment.
Svensson, Allbäck, Linderoth etc etc. Everyone except Lucic. Because he was great in CM9798.
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Post by floplexter on Jun 13, 2006 11:53:00 GMT
That's why we should start Owen Hargreaves. You'd need some exotic jumpleads for that haircut. Can't comment on any Engerlundness as I didn't see any of that game. Only saw the MotD highlights of the Czechs, but I do like them as a unit. It's a lovely blend of technique and some fleeeir. Rosicky at least has been watching the previous few days and knows how the ball moves like a bastard in the air.
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Post by Narcizo on Jun 13, 2006 11:54:35 GMT
Hmm.. stupid people posting between. I thought the midfield weren't sighted much in the second half because they'd spent the entire first half running around like moon-struck lemmings in the 100 degrees heat.
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Post by hornet on Jun 13, 2006 12:06:17 GMT
I noticed a lot of creativity in the second half against Paraguay, where Gerard was sighted roughly as often as the Loch Ness Monster and the rest seemed determined to stand under the shadow of the giant spider as much as possible. I understand the midfield is our best, err, unit, and I've been boring Moo with clamour to play a 4-5-1 and focus on our strength, rather than on one of two unfit forwards and the Mersey Tower but if our midfield continue like they did against Paraguay then the hypnotism will last roughly until the day after the Quarter Finals, when England arrive back in Luton. Why concentrate on the second half over the first, where England had the game by the throat and were absolutely running the show from midfield? Even in the second, I can think of four or five clear-cut chances that were created. Which isn't to say it was a good performance, because plainly it wasn't. But it wasn't as hopeless as you (and the media, and seemingly everyone else ever) are making out. You can't play 4-5-1, as proven over and over, most recently by the Belarus B game and - hey! - the second half of the Paraguay game because the lone striker is too isolated and you end up with a midfielder in the middle of the park who's got nothing to do. More importantly, there's simply no English player who's up to the holding role at the international level - England have tried the formation about four times with three different players in the role and only Carragher managed to rise to the heights of "completely anonymous". If Claude Makelele or Gennaro Gattuso were English, I might be able to see your point. They're not. So I can't. Of course England look a bit toothless in attack at the moment, their two best strikers aren't fully fit. All that matters is getting out of the group by hook or by crook, no matter how "dull" or "unambitious" they look in the process to give Owen a chance to get match sharpness back, and Rooney the opportunity not to have to hop around the pitch. Yes, of course other teams have looked better in the opening games. But the tournament's five weeks long. You can't win it in the group stage, but you can certainly lose it. It related news, it's a game of two halves, we're over the moon Brian, I've hit it and it's gone in and one goalkeeper's been arrested and the second one's blown up, this is exactly the kind of start we didn't need.
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Post by floplexter on Jun 13, 2006 12:07:10 GMT
It can be taken as read that my complaints about the media coverage are still standing and remain unsaid.
Jim Rosenthal (he gives me the willies, with his dark soulless shark eyes), yesterday: "So the halftime whistle goes between Australia and Japan- let's get over to the England camp..."
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Post by floplexter on Jun 13, 2006 12:09:04 GMT
I noticed a lot of creativity in the second half against Paraguay, where Gerard was sighted roughly as often as the Loch Ness Monster and the rest seemed determined to stand under the shadow of the giant spider as much as possible. I understand the midfield is our best, err, unit, and I've been boring Moo with clamour to play a 4-5-1 and focus on our strength, rather than on one of two unfit forwards and the Mersey Tower but if our midfield continue like they did against Paraguay then the hypnotism will last roughly until the day after the Quarter Finals, when England arrive back in Luton. Why concentrate on the second half over the first, where England had the game by the throat and were absolutely running the show from midfield? Even in the second, I can think of four or five clear-cut chances that were created. Which isn't to say it was a good performance, because plainly it wasn't. But it wasn't as hopeless as you (and the media, and seemingly everyone else ever) are making out. You can't play 4-5-1, as proven over and over, most recently by the Belarus B game and - hey! - the second half of the Paraguay game because the lone striker is too isolated and you end up with a midfielder in the middle of the park who's got nothing to do. More importantly, there's simply no English player who's up to the holding role at the international level - England have tried the formation about four times with three different players in the role and only Carragher managed to rise to the heights of "completely anonymous". If Claude Makelele or Gennaro Gattuso were English, I might be able to see your point. They're not. So I can't. Of course England look a bit toothless in attack at the moment, their two best strikers aren't fully fit. All that matters is getting out of the group by hook or by crook, no matter how "dull" or "unambitious" they look in the process to give Owen a chance to get match sharpness back, and Rooney the opportunity not to have to hop around the pitch. Yes, of course other teams have looked better in the opening games. But the tournament's five weeks long. You can't win it in the group stage, but you can certainly lose it. It related news, it's a game of two halves, we're over the moon Brian, I've hit it and it's gone in and one goalkeeper's been arrested and the second one's blown up, this is exactly the kind of start we didn't need. Cheers, Sven.
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Post by hornet on Jun 13, 2006 12:11:39 GMT
Yeah, even I'm completely bored with the England camp.
It's even more unforgivable on ITV, where they've only got about five minutes to analyse the games in the halftime break. Although I suppose that anything that means we hear less from Andy Townsend or Fat Sam is a blessing.
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Post by Narcizo on Jun 13, 2006 12:31:17 GMT
Seems to be par for the course for any country though. Sweden has the same thing, although there's usually less to talk about so they only spend 5 minutes discussing whether there has been a training pitch bust up or why Paraguay won't let Swedish journalists in on their training, leaving 5 or 10 minutes (depending on whether it's a commercial channel) to actually discuss the game. And the midgame discussions have been quite good.
In fact the best bit of commentating was when contact was lost with the commentary box in the Mexico-Iran game (Goodbye Glenn Strömberg. Yay!) and you could just hear the crowd. Blessed no commentary for minutes on end. Then the Swedish equivalent of Alan Hansen came on and explained what had been happening in the match and how it related to what was happening at the moment. And then shut up again when there was stuff going on. It's so much better than just turning the sound off because you still got to hear the crowd and the ball being kicked and whatnot.
Incidentally this is something the Danes have learnt. Wherever possible I try to watch matches on Danish telly because they know when to shut up and minutes can go without them saying anything. It's great.
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Post by floplexter on Jun 13, 2006 13:00:32 GMT
BBCi have the option of 1)Tv Commentary 2)Five Live Commentary 3)Ground & Crowd noise.
Which is nice.
ITV Interactive have 1)Tv Commentary 2)The Hilarious Antics of Ally & Andy 3)The Goombay Dance Band
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Post by Moo on Jun 13, 2006 13:13:48 GMT
Option 2 on ITV is horrible. Just horrible.
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Post by hornet on Jun 13, 2006 13:26:23 GMT
My mum loved that Goombay Dance Band single. She's less keen on Ally McCoist.
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Post by elth on Jun 13, 2006 18:27:34 GMT
Surely the problem with England isn't the creativity in midfield (which is OK - not fantastic, unless I've visited a parallel universe where Lampard has learned to pass around the box instead of shooting every single time) from Becks and Gerrard, but rather the fact the England's tactics seem to be pass it around the defence for a while, decide that being as no midfielder has got into 40 yards of space, best not to risk a pass and instead knock it back to Robinson to lump at Crouch.
Not that it matters, as England sans Rooney are a long shot/set piece team which means field possession is far more important than playing anything remotely resembling football. Hey, it worked for the rugby team.
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Post by elth on Jun 13, 2006 18:30:43 GMT
Oh, and just about the only thing I want to hear from commentators is the names of players in possession. I have small TV with a shitty picture and it's hard to tell them apart sometimes.
We get Martin Tyler for the biggest matches, the others tend to go in one ear and out the other.
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Post by Narcizo on Jun 14, 2006 7:15:50 GMT
I thought Brazil played quite well considering they only had 10 men and a fat deckchair for the majority of their match. The Croats need to brush up on their "Not firing all shots straight at the goalkeeper" skills though.
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Post by coffers on Jun 14, 2006 7:36:01 GMT
That's an insult to deckchairs and, he's not fat, his manager said so.
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Post by Moo on Jun 14, 2006 8:55:23 GMT
Ronaldo did more running when he waddled off the pitch when being subbed than he did through the rest of the game. Shocking, he was, just shocking.
The Brazilians just didn't seem overly interested, did they? The Croatians were unfortunate on the balance of play, IMO, but what do i know?
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ronmanager
Meej's Sister's Turtle
ceci n'est pas une belgian
Jumpers for goalposts
Posts: 121
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Post by ronmanager on Jun 14, 2006 9:02:51 GMT
I had to endure sniggering girls (including my girlfriend) whenever Kaka got the ball. So I got drunk. And that didn't even make the game interesting. There was more entertainment to be seen during our half-time five-a-side game, especially when I received a proper bollocking from Ms. ² for falling on my new pants, and thus making it dirty.
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Post by Narcizo on Jun 14, 2006 9:05:45 GMT
Not very much.
I bet Johnny Croat was wishing they'd played like they did in the second half in the first half. However Brazil normally semi-struggle at the start of tournaments don't they? Turkey should have taken a draw from them last time and even Scotland might have gotten a draw off of them in 1998 but for an own goal. Which pretty much proves it.
At least Ronny made Lickle Mickey and Larsson look at the peak of their form.
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