debosky:

Tugay for blackburn? the dude is a bit part player, he plays very few games these days, the others may be true. . .but Carrick was the main creativity in the Spurs before he went to Utd, and even there, he is a few paces behind Scholes who remains the best English midfielder

Dayo no dey watch EPL,he has dropped massive clangers like this before.How can someone claim Joe Cole,not Lampard,as the creative fulcrum for Chelski?Never mind his reference to Tugay.The most creative midfielder for Blackburn is Bentley,followed by David Dunn

That a player like Gerrald or Lampard lacks flair has nothing to do with whether he is world class.The problem with England is that their players,with few exceptions, are all one-dimensional-lacking technique and restricted to long passes and fierce shots at goals.Joe Cole is an exception but he is largely peripheral in matches.

I think what they need to do is eat some humble-pie and acknowledge they suck that is the first step to their recovery

dayokanu:

Much has been said about the lack of technical ability compared to the Croatians.
If you look at the England players and their role in their clubs, they are usually complimented by more technical foreign players (possible exception of J Cole). The England players tend to be the one to provide the drive and passion but the real quality comes from the foreign players. These players are then rated world class and come into the England set up but can't perform. They are class but in a certain role.
Look at the leading Premiership clubs and pick out the real class players that pull the strings.
Arsenal - Fabregas
Man Utd - Ronaldo
Liverpool - Alonso
Chelsea - J Cole
Man City - Elano
Everton - Arteta
Spurs - Berbatov
Portsmouth - Krancjar
Blackburn - Tugay
You often hear players talking about who can do what in training, and time and time again these are the sort of players who get mentioned. It all boils down to the way we bring players through the ranks. The bigger stronger faster players dominate at younger age groups, and the skill players are over run. In other countries these players are protected and developed in the right way, allowing them to develop at their own pace. As a Liverpool fan I find it hard to say this, but Wenger and Arsenal are now seeing the benefit of bringing this culture to our football several years ago. Its just a shame hardly any english guys seem to be coming through their system

From BBC 606

While I disagree with some of your choices, overall I agree with the principle of your arguement. Great Teams will have that one special string puller.

People like Zidane, Ronaldinho.

In the past England had Hoddle, Gazza.

Currently they do not have that type of player.

Now without that type you can still be a good team but it will be dependdent on good organisation and tactics by the manager. Look at what Greece achived.

England need to start playing with:

1. Hunger

2. Lack of fear

I personally would start all over again as a new coach. Forget the big egos, pick the core of the team from the under 21's and let the egos fight for thier places.

Shameful.

debosky:

Gerrard is a class player, Alonso or no Alonso - Alonso did not play the last 5 games in which Stevie scored in each game.

phew. . . . . . . . for once in nairaland history, i agree with debosky however i must confess that when the two play together, the red midfield is superbly fearsome. liverpool is badly missing the injured alonso, whose exit, mid-stream, in the arsenal game, enabled the north-london juniors to organise their midfield and egualise.

@Tosh

You guys can still win the premiership sha.

Once you withdraw/BOOTED OUT of champions league in the coming weeks, then you can win it. Youhave a team that can do it man.

@ Akolawole,

Liverpool is well-equipped to win the premiership but Rafa is their problem.
They have been unlucky with injuries as well . . . . Alonso, Agger and Pennant add an extra dimension to the team.
I hope they get booted out of UEFA so they can concentrate fully on the league . . . .I wanna see their character and hunger.

@ Dayokanu,

Your theory is flawed.
PAUL SCHOLES is the man for Man Utd.
GERRARD is the key-man in Liverpool.
LAMPARD calls the shotz at Chelsea.
BENTLEY does it for Blackburn.
FLABBYASS is the icon at Arsenal so what the heck are u on about?

@Jackal

Some of us will still have the same problem as Rafa

He has too many players.

'Pool can win it.

Akolawole:

He has too many players.

'Pool can win it.

Apparently Rafa doesn't think so, he is fighting with Tom Hicks that they need to sign three players now

what were you doing over the summer transfer season? buying ball boys?

The man will not cease to amaze me. . .adding three players mid season is very rare for any top team, its either due to some unexpected long term injury (e.g what MU has) or a threat of relegation/not winning anything.

Even in such situations, I can understand why the owners are not too interested, buying Leiva, Babel, Torres, Benayoun, Voronin two or more 'youth players' just a few months ago and you want three more? Rafa's middle name must be Oliver

MU has Rooney, Park Bench, Foster and Scholes out, but you don't hear talk of 3 players.

'Pool would come 2nd I maintain ! of course Arsenal would win and Chelsea might not even be in d top 4 !

MU has Rooney, Park Bench, Foster and Scholes out, but you don't hear talk of 3 players.

Debosky, Imma add to that list!

Gary Neville, Silvestre, _{(Vida was out last game)} .

Remove the equivalent of this guys from Assnal and you are left with a Carcass of a team _{Am i also suffering from Assnal Compulsive Disorder?}

Rikky . . need u be reminded dat Arsenal played without 4 formidable stars RVP, Hleb, Flam and Fab4 and still won unlike a Scum team that Anelka d gunner nailed !

@Rikky and vieria

Na so you like " JM " reach.

Watch out for my signature in the next few days.

Akolawole:

@Rikky and vieria

Na so you like " JM " reach.

Watch out for my signature in the next few days.

@ Akola, U like my siggy?

I bet you agree that Jose owes his career to Scholesy! Anyway, i know you agree!!!! Cos we don debate am tire for this site, right!!! .

Dont dare say anything contrary,. . . otherwise, Imma unleash and call, "Le Chacal the Jose hater" on you

Unleash Chacal always ranting like a toothless bulldog on Akola ? Yeah rite ! Lmao . .

Mc Omo:

Unleash Chacal always ranting like a toothless bulldog on Akola ? Yeah rite ! Lmao . .

Oloye Kit/McOmo, wetin dey?

Round house dey locked this kind time? I thot it was a 24hr non stop edifice abi You no sabi Fashola house for State House Marina?   

Get ready for Chacal's venom this burrrful morning!,  .

I saw some website address in your profile,  . Are you now in the hospitality business, abi Fashola don collect Ije[i][/i] from your mouth. Haba, after sweating and making enemies for the success of his elections, he now wants to comot You from setting? 

Imma launch a "we no gree o, we no gree" protest at the nearest Nigerian Embassy here!, Hope my actions wont land my ass at Muritala Muhammed ,Sharp sharp! .

Sincerely, Kilonsele leko ile? Everthing has been stale since the time your godfada (fashola, ofcos) stopped peeking and fantasizing about them Lagos girl's V-strings, G-string & Barbeach thongs!

Rikky baba . . . .me run scared of Jackal's venom ? Abi because I don decide to chill cos of my Fasholaism u think say e no dey body again ? Round house dey kampe jare and nothin do me and my Gov, remember say na sumtin' we dey do b4 we enter Alausa !

I just Hope German would decide to have mercy on England someday.

England failed to beat Germany for the 18th successive time as the hosts won with goals from Sandra Smisek, Birgit Prinz and Melanie Behringer.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/women/7512958.stm

Under 17, U-21, National team female team

England managed a 2-2 draw with czech how hopeless

The English still do not realise that outside of the premiership, they are rubbish. Their players are completely over-rated by their overly biased media. The English players never do wrong in England. If they make a mistake, the commentators always have a way of making escuses for them but if an African makes the same mistake, the African is 'rubbish'.
That's why English players are not good! There errors are glossed over and they dont realise that they are not nearly as good as what they hear from their media. Sky commentators are not allowed to criticise English players (so it seems anyway) and so the English players' performances dont get scrutinized like other nationals. Their inadequacies show when they are with their national teams but then again it always the fault of the coach (according to their media). They dont realise that their players as not as good as they want to believe.

English team is crap, same as English players and Press. Nigerian natioanl team is crap too not with the help of playing in England and the Nigerian press too in a bid to sell papers.
England to scrape through world cup qualifiers.

Who cares?

Those English players are a over-hyped over-paid pathetic bunch i just hope they make the World Cup because if they dont then they should simply be disbanded

You know the problem with failures, They blame everybody but themselves.

I can remember England blaming coaches for their woes instead of admitting that they have shitty players.

Keegan was not good enough, Venables was not good enough, Hoodle not good, Eriksonn was too defensive, Mc Claren lacked ideas, I wonder what they would say about Cappello. Cant they smell the coffee? Their players are crap.!!! Wayne Rooney especially.

In 2000, Germany admitted they had a below par collection of players and they worked on it the bresult. They have played a world cuo final, Euro cup final and 3rd place at the world cup, 3rd in U-17, Won European U-19. You can see the attributes of a footballing superpower here

while i was watchin d game yesterday i found myself askin, r d czech realy dat good, or d english players r just too crappy? I mean did u see d goal milan baros scored, JT was absolutely useless, wes brown was outclassed. sometin is wrong, d english have a collection of brilliant players, but as a team, dey suck!!

Are you sure the players are good individually?

Is it a John Terry that has Carvalho to cover his Ass in Chelsea? Or who does not know that Vidic and Evra contribute 3quarters of Man Utd defensive cover while Brown and Ferdinand are just there to make up the numbers.

Is it Wayne Rooney. I dont even want to talk about him. In Man Utd they say he works for Ronaldo to score but in the National team 5 goals in 4 years thats like 1.2 goal a year.

Ashley Cole was good but he is not past it he has lost a lot of his grit since that Ronaldinho step over over 2002.
Who is the deputy? Wayne Bridge, Lescott or whom. Those 2 cant play for the German female team.

Owen Hargreaves is top draw why? He learnt the rudiment of football in Germany. Do you wonder why he was England's best player of their last tournament? but they hardly use him. instead they are screaming for Gareth Barry. Imagine watching Gaerh Barry easily bring to mind Garba Lawal. Never here nor there never outstanding like a Gerrard and not too bad.

Who are the Keeper any top EPL side has an English Keeper? James, Green, Carson? Its better to use 11 players instead of using 10 and a ballboy whose only job is to pick the ball from the net

Owen Hargreaves is top draw why? He learnt the rudiment of football in Germany. Do you wonder why he was England's best player of their last tournament? but they hardly use him. instead they are screaming for Gareth Barry. Imagine watching Gaerh Barry easily bring to mind Garba Lawal.

why carrick/barry are preferred to hargreaves remains a mystery to me.hargreaves is the best holding midfielder england have.

PS: did u see their game against the czechs? what an incredibly pathetic display! even capello seems to have caught the english fever.he actually said the english team are as good as the spanish side that won the euros.

dayokanu:

Owen Hargreaves is top draw why? He learnt the rudiment of football in Germany. Do you wonder why he was England's best player of their last tournament? but they hardly use him. instead they are screaming for Gareth Barry. Imagine watching Gaerh Barry easily bring to mind Garba Lawal. Never here nor there never outstanding like a Gerrard and not too bad.

Fantastic description!

@Ritchboy,

Hargreaves learnt from the best at Munich that is why he is different. Someone who learnt under legendary Stefan Effenberg, Jens Jeremies, Torsten Frings and Michael Ballack even Sebastian Deisler can only be top draw.

Now They would say Cappelo is bad. Every coach becomes bad the moment they touch the English National team.

How come people with no coaching experience excel In Germany Like Rudi Voller coached at the finals of the world cup, Klinsmann was 3rd at the world cup, Jogi Loew was runner up at the Euro's Any of this achievement is more than what England has achieved in the last 40 yrs.

Cappelo is trying to defend is job thats why he said the nonsense abt England and Spain. If you are the coach of Al Ittihad you would say they are better than Man Utd and Real Madrid put together,.

@dayokanu
Gareth Barry and Garba Lawal that was a brilliant analogy and funny i must add.Hargreaves is always injured i guess thats why he cant make the starting line-up often

Seriously those Brits suck big time they get paid a gazillion bucks and yet they still struggled to beat a Czech team that didnt make the quarters of the Euros but oops i forgot that England didnt even make the Euros the funniest part for me was the boos and i am sure if England lost the fans would probably have ripped the chairs and threw it out on the field

@A-40 ,

Next up they would criticise Capello that he is not good enough.

Better use Brigit Prinz than Shrek Wayne Rooney

dayokanu:

@A-40 ,

Next up they would criticise Capello that he is not good enough.

Better use Brigit Prinz than Shrek Wayne Rooney

That was harsh you didnt have to diss England's golden boy like that

If Capello cannot rescue them i wonder who will

Brigit Prinz goal record for national team exceeds Shreks so if u want astriker better get Prinz