Benitez has a duty to put England first

[Cobs]

chinnyreckon

[Guest Kaizer]

I wonder why every England manager is s****, could it be that the players are not as good as some people thinks?

[RP]

Bobby Robson was not sh*te. Glenn Hoddle could have been alright if he'd stayed in the job longer.

 

SCS is a joke though.

[Cobs]

Venables wasn't schite and Sven wasn't schite

 

TCS seems to out of his depth like Taylor was

[RP]

Keegan was also out of his depth..

[Cobs]

Keegan was also out of his depth..

yes he was - strange that i forgot about him.....

[Gomez]

I wonder why every England manager is s****, could it be that the players are not as good as some people thinks?

 

Ericsson achieved about the right level. With the players England had, they should have been between 8 and 5th in the world, so quarter finals is about right. We generally beat teams worse than us and were generally beaten by teams better than us. The problem was other managers around him were over achieving. Portugal / Greece / Italy etc, all did better than there squad should have done.

 

McClaren, Hoddle, Keegan all under achieved, because they were and are cr*p managers.

 

Venables wasn't schite and Sven wasn't schite

 

Venables was nowhere near as good as people think he was. He only played a handful of competitive games and they were all at home. He got us to the semis (luckily against Spain if we are honest) which was the minimum any host nation up to that point had achieved.

 

Every job he has had since '96 he has been f**kin' atrocious in. He was an OK manager in the eighties and early nineties, but the game moved on dramatically and he didn't.

Edited September 6, 2007 by Gomez

[Cobs]

Hoddle had one tournament, where we qualified top in a group containing Italy. We went out of the World Cup to the Argies on penalties, having largely outplayed them with 10 men.

 

He didn't underachieve.

 

What Venables did after he left the post as England manager has nothing to do with what he did as England manager.

 

We got lucky against Spain but were stunningly unlucky against Germany, again. The 4-1 destruction of the Dutch when his Xmas tree formation finally clicked was one of the England performances of all time.

 

 

IF our boys could have grown the cojones to win a penalty shoot-out or two Sven would probably be seen as the stand out England Manager of all time.

[Earl Hafler]

Venables wasn't schite and Sven wasn't schite

 

TCS seems to out of his depth like Taylor was

 

At least Taylor gave a good press conference.

 

The current set-up does remind me of those days, though. Difficult to be passionate about a team filled with players you don't think should be playing, led by a cant with a sock fetish and managed by a man who looks like he'd be more adept at discussing 0-6-0 steam locomotives than 4-4-2 formations.

[Gomez]

Hoddle had one tournament, where we qualified top in a group containing Italy. We went out of the World Cup to the Argies on penalties, having largely outplayed them with 10 men.

 

He didn't underachieve.

We lost to the argies on penalties, we were only playing the argies because he f*cked up the group stages because he was two stubborn to play Michael Owen until it was too late. Nor was it that good an argy side, nor did we get anywhere near to outplaying them. Owen was the only one causing them problem due to Beckhams through balls, when he went off we had nothing.

 

What Venables did after he left the post as England manager has nothing to do with what he did as England manager.

Well it does if you are discussing how good a manager he is and his place alongside SCS which is where this discussion stemmed from.

 

We got lucky against Spain but were stunningly unlucky against Germany, again. The 4-1 destruction of the Dutch when his Xmas tree formation finally clicked was one of the England performances of all time.

IF our boys could have grown the cojones to win a penalty shoot-out or two Sven would probably be seen as the stand out England Manager of all time.

 

If If If... Yes the 4-1 was great, not quite as good as Sven's 5-1 but so what neither won us trophies, they were basically one off performances. Does that count as an achievement? What are we Everton?

 

Yes we are crap at pens? Whose fault is that? Penalties are not the lottery they are made out to be, if they were the some teams wouldn't always win them and the some teams wouldn't always lose.

[Cobs]

We lost to the argies on penalties, we were only playing the argies because he f*cked up the group stages because he was two stubborn to play Michael Owen until it was too late. Nor was it that good an argy side, nor did we get anywhere near to outplaying them. Owen was the only one causing them problem due to Beckhams through balls, when he went off we had nothing.

 

it was his call as manager to play who he thought was best. Not picking an 18 yr old and going for the tried and trusted experience of Sheringham was the safe bet - not stubbornness. And he had the balls to change it. The loss to Romania was down to an on the pitch f*** up by Le Saux. It's churlish to blame every player error on the manager.

 

We'll have to agree to disagree on the Argie match. I think we were the better team and Hoddle really showed his tactical nous that night.

 

Well it does if you are discussing how good a manager he is and his place alongside SCS which is where this discussion stemmed from.

well, it wasn't - see Kaizer's post above

 

If If If... Yes the 4-1 was great, not quite as good as Sven's 5-1 but so what neither won us trophies, they were basically one off performances. Does that count as an achievement? What are we Everton?

 

Venables lost one game in charge in 90 minutes and one on penalties in all his matches in charge - how the feck is that underachieving? What were you expecting him to do?

 

Yes we are crap at pens? Whose fault is that? Penalties are not the lottery they are made out to be, if they were the some teams wouldn't always win them and the some teams wouldn't always lose.

Missing penalties is the players fault.

 

In the last World Cup we practised them like feck. Carra was the best one in training hence his last minute introduction in the Portugal match.

 

He forgot to wait for the whistle when he took his penalty, had to retake it, missed. How can you blame the manager for that?

Edited September 6, 2007 by Cobs

[Knox_Harrington]

In the last World Cup we practised them like feck. Carra was the best one in training hence his last minute introduction in the Portugal match.

 

He forgot to wait for the whistle when he took his penalty, had to retake it, missed. How can you blame the manager for that?

You can blame the manager for the fact that his 22 was so short of options that rather than use his last sub to change the game with half an hour of extra time remaining or rest one of his exhausted players he chose, instead, to take off his right winger and play a centre half at right mid for three minutes simply to take a penalty.

 

If the man who chose to do that could have been England's all time great manager then what, exactly, does that say about the competition he's been up against.

[Herbie von Smalls]

gordon taylor on the money, for once. from the telegraph

 

Gordon Taylor, the chief executive of the Professional Footballers' Association, last night called on England not to inject Steven Gerrard with a painkiller to get him through tomorrow's crucial Euro 2008 qualifier against Israel.

 

"When you have got someone so special, you shouldn't take risks,'' Taylor said. "I want anything for England to do well but I cannot approve of injections. What may be good in the short term you may regret in the long term. I have seen that happen too many times.

 

"I am not being alarmist but we are dealing with a lot of cases when lads in their playing days had painkilling injections, with cortisone used too liberally, and it has damaged quite a few bones. Managers work in the short-term but I have to see it [jabbing Gerrard] from the health and safety aspect of the PFA.''

 

England head coach Steve McClaren stresses he will not take risks with his best player, and is in contact with Liverpool, but he reserves the right to have Gerrard's broken toe jabbed before the match at Wembley. The midfielder hopes to play without an injection and England's medical staff are also determined to avoid resorting to the needle.

 

"Pain is the body's way of telling you you have a problem,'' continued Taylor. "You can have a bad bruise, a bad knock, but a break is a break. If you can tell me how playing with a break can make a break better, I am ready to listen.

 

"The decision has to be taken away from the player. If a player is asked will he play, he will. Bryan Robson would have played with a broken leg. Football, with its riches, must make sure it does all it can to protect our special assets - and not take short-cuts.

 

"Stevie is a player any manager of any team in the world would want. But even if it wasn't Stevie [facing an injection], I would still give the same answer. The principle applies to every player. And say he plays Saturday against Israel, and suddenly it is desperate we need him Wednesday against Russia? Isn't it better we just rest him for those few days?

 

"We are really concerned at the moment with the shrinking pool of resources [for England], so even more reason for looking after our prized assets. We have a moral duty not to take risks with young men.''

[So Cal Red]

^can't really argue w/ that... just say no to drugs!

 

the long-term implications are not worth the risk... let the break heal first, ffs.

[floyd]

 

Don't listen, don't listen

To Second Choice Steve

all you gotta do is be yourself

Edited September 7, 2007 by floyd

[Cobs]

You can blame the manager for the fact that his 22 was so short of options that rather than use his last sub to change the game with half an hour of extra time remaining or rest one of his exhausted players he chose, instead, to take off his right winger and play a centre half at right mid for three minutes simply to take a penalty.

 

If the man who chose to do that could have been England's all time great manager then what, exactly, does that say about the competition he's been up against.

that they've all fecked up/been too unlucky to get their squad of players any further either?

 

Robson could have similar claims - one penalty shoot out from immortality

 

Sven's lot failed twice

[Gomez]

it was his call as manager to play who he thought was best. Not picking an 18 yr old and going for the tried and trusted experience of Sheringham was the safe bet - not stubbornness. And he had the balls to change it. The loss to Romania was down to an on the pitch f*** up by Le Saux. It's churlish to blame every player error on the manager.

Romania where all over us until Owen came on

 

 

We'll have to agree to disagree on the Argie match. I think we were the better team and Hoddle really showed his tactical nous that night.

well, it wasn't - see Kaizer's post above

See your post:

Terry Venables is the England No.2 - do you think he's tactically incompetent?

And yes I do. As I said, the games moved on, he hasn't.

 

Venables lost one game in charge in 90 minutes and one on penalties in all his matches in charge - how the feck is that underachieving? What were you expecting him to do?

Never said Venables underachieved, I said Hoddle, Keegan and McClaren underachieved. Venables didn't last long enough to achieve or underachieve. What I said with Venables was that he was not as good as people like to remember. They think back to the Holland / Scotland match as though it was some golden era, they forget the Spanish and Swiss matches. As I said. By getting us to the semi, Venables did the minimum expected of the host nation.

 

Missing penalties is the players fault.

 

In the last World Cup we practised them like feck. Carra was the best one in training hence his last minute introduction in the Portugal match.

 

He forgot to wait for the whistle when he took his penalty, had to retake it, missed. How can you blame the manager for that?

Ah the smilie, always good when your arguments tailing off. FWIW, I didn't blame the manager for Carra's miss, in fact I didn't mention Carra or SGE at all.

 

The manager picks the team, selects the penalty takers and prepares the players both physically and mentally for the match and that includes penalties. Yes, you can pick odd one offs where luck plays a part, but in general if you prepare players better than the opposition, you'll win more shoot-outs than you'll lose. This is why Liverpool have won something like 12 out of 13 shoot outs, while England have won one ever. The england team always seems to have the mantra you can't emulate the conditions so there is no point in practising.

[Tommy Cockles]

The current set-up does remind me of those days, though. Difficult to be passionate about a team filled with players you don't think should be playing, led by a cant with a sock fetish and managed by a man who looks like he'd be more adept at discussing 0-6-0 steam locomotives than 4-4-2 formations.

 

Nothing more needs to be said about either man.

 

Robson could have similar claims - one penalty shoot out from immortality

 

That was the one England side that genuinely deserved to go all the way.

[Cobs]

See your post:

 

And yes I do. As I said, the games moved on, he hasn't.

perhaps you might like to note the 12 hour gap between that and what the debate had moved on to?

 

The manager picks the team, selects the penalty takers and prepares the players both physically and mentally for the match and that includes penalties. Yes, you can pick odd one offs where luck plays a part, but in general if you prepare players better than the opposition, you'll win more shoot-outs than you'll lose. This is why Liverpool have won something like 12 out of 13 shoot outs, while England have won one ever. The england team always seems to have the mantra you can't emulate the conditions so there is no point in practising.

apart from the last WC where we practised like feck and still lost

 

 

care to enlighten us all as to Liverpool's techniques for practising all these penalty shoot outs?

[Gilps]

Sven's record is already looking better now we're being reminded of a time when England qualifying for tournaments in the first place was hardly a given.

 

We've only had 3 genuinely bad England managers in my time - Taylor, Keegan and SCS. Although if Wilkinson's one game counts, it's 4.

 

Venebles' record is hard to judge because of the lack of competitve games during his tenure. Certainly Taylor would have been slaughtered in the press for some of the friendly results under Venebles, but then he has always had the press largely onside. We were lucky against Spain at Euro 96 and the performances agaainst the Scots and the Swiss were hardly the stuff of legend, but that Holland game was. He did in the end come closer to winning something than anyone else other than the 1990 side.

 

Hoddle did do well and there can't be much doubt we'd have done far better at Euro 2000 if he'd still been in charge. I can never quite decide on that Argentina match. Owen was causing them such problems through the middle that instead of shifting him wider after Beckham's dismissal and keeper Shearer up top, it might have been braver to take Shearer off and put McManaman or Merson wide right. Who knows. It was still a fine performance overall.

[honourablegeorge]

Dunno why peopel talk about Englad "underachieving"

 

They always get into the quarters of the Wordld Cup, which is far enough, as they'll always be a top 8 nation. Semi finals should be the top 4 sides, which England simply aren't.

[Spike]

In the context of expectation of our beloved nation and the fourth estate all England managers have been s****

[Spike]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/i...als/6977430.stm

 

Euro failure frightens Ferdinand

 

He said: "I cannot even contemplate not qualifying. If, God forbid, we failed, it would be a catastrophe.

 

Couldn't be playing a worse opponent then could we?

[honourablegeorge]

James Richardson on the Guardian podcast thingy - "Will Steven Gerrard need a painkilling injection on Saturday? Only if he's sat watching the game...."

Edited September 7, 2007 by honourablegeorge

[Tommy Cockles]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/i...als/6977430.stm

 

Euro failure frightens Ferdinand

 

He said: "I cannot even contemplate not qualifying. If, God forbid, we failed, it would be a catastrophe.

 

Couldn't be playing a worse opponent then could we?

 

 

Well, no. If, at any point, England's defence gets parted "like the Red Sea" then I think that is something UEFA should definately look into.