Big Fat Sam's England

No really?

 

I was getting our supper ready when the post-match 'analysis' was on - I only caught bits of the "...looking in the Championship..." 'debate (from Hoddle - I think) was anything *meaningful* said.

Whoever comes up with an effective goal-scoring strategy (other than walking the ball in and praying for a penalty) for when you play against teams that just park the bus and play with 10 fullbacks (9 tonight) and a goalie ought to get in contact with the FA pronto.

 

We can win it!

 

Was there a game on?

 

It was indeed bizarre. We may well romp qualifying in this weak group but we have no hope of real progress while Rooney is allowed to call the shots. This proven underperformer at international tournament finals is allowed to set his own retirement date as well as dictate where he should play tactically. We should retire him now and move on even if it initially weakens the team.

 

But it was interesting to see ace pundit 'Dixo' get caught out claiming that never in a million years was Walcott's 'goal' offside - even though it looked like it came off Sturridge at the time and the subsequent (3?) replays showed that it did. So it appears that he wasn't actually watching the match he was being paid to comment on. Nice work if you can get it.

*CUE MUCH HILARITY IN THE STUDIO*

"...over to you Wrighty...."

 

Always been a bit of a strange one to me. It's offside in that situation but if a forward ball from an attacking player deflects off a defender it's not onside!

 

Watched the first 10 minutes,nothing different. Returned to Jo Konta and the conclusion of her match.

Watched another 10 minutes after half time and gave up again to return to E M Forster.

 

Rashford is about ten times as talented as any England player on the pitch yesterday.

He should have started at the Euros ahead of Sterling. He should have started yesterday.

 

Exactly and I wondered wtf he was on about, Rooney no better.

It's simple enough - 'was the player offside the last time the ball touched a team mate?' and in this case it wasn't even close. Had the Slovak touched it last isn't relevant, Sturridge was already offside long before that..


PS. 'Slovak' is not a racial slur

 

Quality win. Solid performance.

What's the problem?

 

I'd like to thank Allardyce for, although indirectly, pointing out what some of us have known for a long time.

The manager doesn't pick the team, he doesn't even pick the formation or the lineup. The sponsors and the FA do.

 

I thought they played in the same manner and had exactly the same problems as when they played under Woy.

 

Scarily accurate. Did you have inside info?

 

Because there was a big stoppage in stoppage time for injury to their keeper.

 

I'd like to think that he played the usual suspects to see if he could get more out of them than Woy, and now that he knows he can't, he'll pick young, fresh flair players like Rashford, Alli and maybe Barkley. And hopefully Vardy instead of Kane.

 

We seemed to play like we did v Iceland with the first touch being awful, players misjudging bounces and getting caught out. I know the commentators said they didn't water the pitch but shouldn't really make a difference to a pro footballer.

Looked much more penetrating once Alli came on.

We should be getting players like Alli and Rashford in for these games now. Bleed in the new blood and get out the old dinosaurs. These new players seem to have something more about them, more confidence and seem to feel less pressure.

 

I thought Big Sam would be refreshing but he openly admitted he let's Rooney do whatever he pleases

 

I may be in the minority here, but after a crappy and uninteresting Euros - I couldn't give a flying feck about international football right now.

It's a complete waste of a footballing weekend and it does my head in that we have to wait 5 days now to watch the 'Orns.

 

International football is dying, certainly in Europe. The players couldn't give a **** and any game that I saw had half empty stadiums.

 

I couldn't give a monkeys about England, Allardyce or Rooney. England will do what they always have done; breeze through the qualifying campaign before failing miserably at every major tournament.

It annoys me that we all miss out on a weekend of club football because England have to play.

I'm pretty sure I've said it before, but I'm done following the national team. This summer was the final straw. A pathetic display. The appointment of Allardyce was just so incredibly underwhelming, but what is even worse in my eyes is the poor selection pool of English managers that the FA had to choose from.

 

Me too. Why don't we choose players from League 1 & 2, who'd give their right arm to play for England, and then keep Premier and Championship games on.

 

International football does seem to be falling down in terms of priorities and prestige unfortunately.

Before appointing Allardyce the best names England could attract were Klinsmann and Steve Bruce. Roberto Martinez is the best Belgium could come up with. Spain have just appointed a manager who has only had two full time management roles - one in 2003 where he was sacked after 10 games and the other where he was sacked by Porto.

 

Gonna stick up for Sam here .... he's absolutely right to keep some kind of continuity, these games are not meaningless friendlies.

However once we have qualification sewn up I think most of the country won't want to see any hint of 'same old, same old' and Sam knows it. If there are better options I'm pretty sure he'll find them..

 

I question whether any level of continuity was required from argubly the worst result in England's football history.

 

Slovakia are no mugs and had Sam made wholesale changes it would likely have ended in embarrassment too IMO. Leave experimenting for the friendlies.

 

And then when we qualify we'll need to ''stick with the players who have done so well to get us here''. Same old b*llocks every single time.

No one's asking for wholesale changes, there are not currently enough decent English players for that. Just play the players who are on form rather than garbage like Henderson and Rooney who have been appalling for England for years and have had poor starts to the season for their clubs and don't come out and say that one of the players can decide wherever he wants to play.

 

I think that much depends on how we qualify.

Truth be told, so poor is the pool to work from, there's little reason to expect England to perform well in any tournament nowadays. It's certainly no coincidence that little Iceland has more players plying their trade at top level abroad than we do.

 

We may be crap at football but at least we are good at tennis and the Olympics now.

 

The depth is poor but then first XI still contains mostly starters for the bigger clubs in one of the strongest leagues in the world and should be able to make quarter finals. You can't compare Iceland with us as they don't have a decent domestic league so all their players are going to play abroad.

JB is right. Ditch proven finals failure Rooney and build a team round the younger spurs players. Stick Vardy/Rashford with Kane and go from there. That change alone would add more impetus. Rooney and his overbearing influence over successive managers holds back any development that might be achieved.