[quote author=Ryan link=topic=42823.msg1220175#msg1220175 date=1290034111]
[quote author=TheBunnyman link=topic=42823.msg1220072#msg1220072 date=1290027489]
Christ, what a boring match! England being totally outplayed by a France team in cruise control. Wenger sounds genuinely embarrassed by how bad England are, while Lizarazu actually said: 'It's a shame for Gerrard, who's a world-class player, to be stuck in a team with such a lack of skill.'
England are so much like Liverpool under Hodgson that it's depressing.
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Absolutely agree Bunnyman.
I watched that and actually felt sorry for England. Some top quality players (Gerrard, Milner, Johnson, etc etc) being made to look like cunts by an ordinary French team and more pertinently - by their own Manager.
How long has Capello had in that role? Fucking too long by the looks of it. He hasn't advanced them one bit since the day he took over. I presume English fans, like most football fans, would be happy to see their team play shite, unimaginative football so long as it had them competing at the top and in with a chance of winning something. Well he hasn't even got that. They were embarassed at the World Cup, and on the evidence of that performance tonight - they're going backwards.
Crappy, 30 years outdated, rudimentary tactics, play, tempo, movement and poise. Everything done in straight lines, and from back to front. It took 29 seconds for the first ball to be pumped long up to Andy Carroll's head. It came from Rio at centre back. And that set the tone. Fucking rubbish.
The French meanwhile, in disarray 3 months ago, simply played their way around England. Nasri pulling strings everywhere and popping up wherever he liked. You don't have to be confied to a position just cos your name has you there on a teamsheet (another bug bear of mine - there's fuck all wrong with playing players out of position from time to time, but I'll get to that on another day). Easy triangles, moving into position, drifting away from stoic markers, doing the easy thing. That's a pretty average French side doing things relatively simple, and they made England look shite.
The pundit on Setanta (I don't know who the fuck he was) said at one point in the second half: "Look at that - Milner picks it up and he's got 3 players on him. THAT'S the difference - the French are hunting in packs! We need to start doing that - get amongst them, rough them up a bit!".
No you fucking blert, that's exactly what you don't need to be doing. The problem with England over the last 30 years encapsulated in one pathetic soundbite. There's a reason why you can't "hun in packs" - because you can't get anywhere near the fucking French, and because this isn't the Vauxhall bastard Conference. And how about some movement amongst the English players so that the French don't end up having 3 players covering James Milner? I fucking despair, and I'm not even English.
Players like Gerrard, Ashley Cole, Rooney, etc etc deserve better than this shit. England's style, mentality, and play hasn't adaptyed in 30 years. And whatever billions Capello is getting every year to continue that trend are being sorely wasted.
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Just to take issue with the pressing thing: the French commentators were mostly shocked, not by England's technical weaknesses (they take those for granted) but by the lack of 'fighting spirit'. Lizarazu kept going on about how they were four metres away from the player with the ball all the time. Clearly most of the players were trying to economise how much energy they used because they played at the weekend and will play again next weekend. In a competitive match, the gulf between the two teams wouldn't have been so huge, because England would have pressed more aggressively and France would have made more errors. But when England take their foot off the gas, there's just nothing else there to compensate.