Unbeaten in 8 years of qualifying matches, won the group with a game to spare

First off I don’t see why we should all get behind the England team when whoever runs the FA have consistently shown they don’t give a damn about it themselves.

We had a spell where qualifiers were been played around the country & the fans were getting behind the team, brilliant atmospheres & entertaining games. We’ve now got a big, nice stadium in the middle of a shithole with no atmosphere & a load of tourists for fans eating prawn sarnies coming back to their seats 10 minutes after the restart etc.

They pick captains based on who sells shirts. How on earth can Beckham captain the side over leaders like Gerrard, Lampard, Terry, Rio, Campbell, Neville etc.

How was someone as petulant as Rooney ever seen as worthy of been a captain?

We constantly take big names over balanced squads. Look at last summer, you’ve got a manager who plays 4-5-1 so he took 4 strikers, 4 Number 10’s & only 1 winger in his squad so you end up with Sturridge & Vardy out wide.

You pick the best squad, 2 players for every position, if you have to leave out Rooney, Barkley, Rashford & Sturridge & take wingers you do it.

Look at Spain, they regularly leave out quality players. Gabi at Athletico Madrid is top quality, proven performer in La Liga & the champions league, he’s never had a cap. We’d never do that, we’d take him & play him or someone else out of position.

The manager choices are another example, they just go for the safe pick or what they perceive to be safe until Sven cheats on his wife or Big Sam gets caught dodgy dealing. But there’s no way Gareth Southgate was the best choice, he’s got it because he’s got a squeaky clean image & is good in front of the media. He’s had one club job & failed & didn’t do anything out of the ordinary with the under 21’s.

All the FA care about with the England team is making money. Every decision they make shows it, they don’t make decisions to try & win or improve they make them to make money & have a good image

 

I know it’s opinions but that one is genius.

 

A jobbing average premier league player. Nowhere near the level of 10 years ago.

 

Southgate doesn’t think so see article above.

 

The football’s terrible to watch. We do what we’re meant to do in topping a weak group but there’s got to be more entertainment. Why play 2 spoilers in Henderson & Dier against teams who park the bus? I get playing them both against Spain, Germany etc but they aren’t going to help break down negative sides who park the bus. Get some good passers in there, play Carrick or Shelvey, anyone who can pick a decent pass they don’t need to be a world beater. We don’t need great athletes & good tacklers against weak sides as we’ve got all the possession.

Play players who can do something unexpected who it’s hard to prepare your team to defend against. Players with a trick & pace, Sturridge or Rashford, someone like that up front with Kane.

Ultimately we’ve not got the players to compete with the best but there’s no excuse for been so dull.

The big giveaway that we don’t have top players in the champions league. How many of our English players do well in it? Barely any.

Go back to the 2000’s. Campbell & Cole for Arsenal, Lampard, Terry & later Cole for Chelsea, Gerrard & Carragher for Liverpool, Neville, Rio, Scholes, Beckham, Rooney for Man Utd all consistently good performers in the champions league against top sides.

It rarely happens nowadays. Seeing Kane tear Dortmund apart the other week was superb but he’s the only one at the minute. Hopefully Walker & Stones can do it but I’m not hopeful with many others.

 

They’re a lot better.

European club teams? Any? He’d get in most run of the mill sides but I don’t think many top sides would try & sign him

 

The minute you accept that we aren't one of the top eight nations in world football, the easier it is to watch and support them.

I was fortunate to grow up seeing us at Italia 90 and even in Euro 96 and France 98 we were decent. In fact, I thought we were still up there with the best for another 10 years and were unlucky once or twice when we certainly did have a world class team.

But ever since 2008 onwards it's been a decline. The standard of our players has lessened and the standards of players at so-called weaker nations' disposal has improved.

Our options in central midfield are average at best. Hamstrings us.

 

This stupid obsession to play two strikers on this forums hit the national team.

It's not going to happen because anyone with half a football brain knows it doesn't work. Pep, Mourinho Poch, Wenger, Conte. Look in Europe at the clubs. The big teams don't use it because it doesn't win you games.

To try and say Rashford shouldn't play out wides fecking brilliant. Someone best phone Jose to tell him this because he plays him wide left for Manchester United and he seems to be performing to an extremely elite level. But Django knows better than him.

The same posters mentioning these former players that performed for the club teams back then. Which isn't now? Apart from Hart then all the other players are Lighting up the premier league time and time again. 13 goals in a month playing in a system for Harry Kane but you know better than Southgate and Poch for the Premier leagues big scorer. The Premier league clubs have got off to a great start in the champions league games with Kane Sterling Rashford Henderson dier Walker Stones Cahill all playing well.

People need to look around them Once you hit that elite level things change. Wales have seen this. They haven't hit the heights they would have expected to because teams now see a point home or away against them like England as a massive result. They have Drawn more than they have won this campaign and that's with in large tGareth Bale that's amongst the best in the world pulling out worldies

Look at the other grounps around Europe and even the world. Natherlands, Portugal Wales Italy,

South America. Argentina are below Peru and Columbia. At the moment they aren't even in the hat for the world cup. They need to move up to 5th to be in the extra qualifiers.

 

Cahill world class is that a joke.

 

Watching us again. Clueless and inept. It’s like we are managed by Lee Johnson.

 

Big Keith innit.

 

There’s no stupid obsession to play two forwards from me. I’ve said time & time again that Barnsley’s been dreadful when we’ve gone 4-4-2 this season.

I’m not saying we should play 4-4-2 in big games or talking about playing it in the premiership.

You’ve lost me with this one. Why when I’m talking about breaking down poor international teams that park the bus are you talking about what formation Conte, Mourinho etc play in the premiership. That has no relevance to the point I’m making.

Against good teams we need an extra man in midfield. Against Lithuania, Malta etc, get a second forward playing who can drop deep, go wide, go past Kane etc, give us another option to break a team down.

Cahill & Henderson aren’t playing well this season.

The champions leagues barely started, let’s see how they get on throughout the tournament. We’ve been dreadful in it the past few years & English players haven’t done well in it.

I don’t think Mourinho trusts Rashford out wide in big games, he didn’t last season, he often played Lingard over him. He’s very talented but very raw & gives the ball away a fair bit. Let’s see on Saturday. I’d be surprised if he starts him against a high pressing side in Liverpool who are deadly on the counter.

Holland’s talent pool has completely dried up, they aren’t under performing they’ve just not got good players anymore. They’ve over achieved for decades & produced lots of world class players for such a small country. I’d be surprised if they ever make it back to been one of the best.

Hasn’t Bale missed a lot of games? Reckon they’d have qualified if he’d been fit more, just bad luck.

South America’s tough every time, rarely do Brazil & Argentina get an easy ride, lots of tough away games.

 

Did you just spend three or four paragraphs criticising someone for claiming they know better than a successful football manager?

 

Ok that was appalling today from England away in Lithuania, and I tip my hat (I would if I had one) to all of our die hard fans who went and stood there in the horrible conditions.
And to be honest, I think we have some of the best and most genuine fans in the world when you forget about the moronic thugs, which we always get tarnished with.
As for the group, I admit it was another awful group and we were always favourites to win. And we did win it so lets appreciate that eh, rather than criticise every single thing.

 

Those that went got two things out of it. They saw us win to nill again and by the looks of it they saw the GBBO tent randomly behind one of the goals.

 

What is a GBBO tent?

 

Amazing that no one ever notices/cares when we play badly and win in a Euro or WC game innit?

And on current form, Harry Kane walks in any team in the world at the moment and yes he is most certainly a world class striker. Anyone who thinks otherwise is deluded.

 

You do realise that is you asked "Pep", Mourinho,"Poch", Wenger and Conte. Along with Ferguson, Shankly, Paisly, Busby, Kith Hill and every other world class manager that has ever lived to name and prepare the perfect football team, then every team and style of football would be completely different from each other.

You can sit there and give it the usual "ffs, you think know better than these footballing geniuses, *chortle*" all you want, but it's a game of opinions and if someone thinks the game should be played with 2 strikers then thats their prerogative...

 

Not world class at all. Ha.