http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/18778825 Is he the biggest waste of money in the history of football?
Its debatable between him and Torres since their respective moves. However, Carroll looked a lot better player for England at the Euros than Rooney...
Carroll is a good old fashioned English centre forward, 2 wingers who can cross a ball and he would get 15-20 a season, but everyone nowaday wants to play the 'Spain' way. Load of rubbish, should be teaching kids how to cross a ball and how to beat a man not learn the art of a 2 yard pass.
Yes that's right, what can the Cruyff system possible have to teach us English? Afterall we invented the game, bloody ungrateful foreigners. The quicker we get rid of this passing nonsense and get back to tribbling and crosses for the big man the better! then we'll learn em. Howard Wilkinson model or Cruyff? Only one winner there right, got to be Wilko's. Alternatively we could recognise that they might be onto something here - you can draw a line from Cruyff's arrival into Spain, the total adoption of the Dutch model by Barca and the transformation of Spain from a country we used to call underachievers (infact they never were that, they have tended to achieve about what should be expected given their size, wealth and history) to being, in terms of win ratio's alone, the greatest international team of all time.
Everything that's wrong with the English mentality right there - passing is boring. I always though that good football was about passing, moving and scoring. Unless I missed a meeting when we decided that long diagnals from left to right is the way to go. hitting an 80 yard pass might look great when it comes off, problem is more often than not your hitting an isolated winger who ends up passing it back anyway, or it goes into touch, or you simply give the ball away.
my point is that if everyone plays the short passing game then it will be ***** to watch...the game will go nowhere,with teams just sat waiting for the other to make a bad pass....
Football is a simple game made difficult, 4 defenders who defend, 2 midfielders who do the box to box work, 2 wingers who can cross and 2 strikers to head/kick/backside the ball into the net its folk like you who try and complicate the game by having pass pass pass pass, pass back to the keeper, pass to the full back into midfield then back to the defender!!! YAWN. Dont get me wrong Spain made it look good but English football has never been like that nor should it be, we should have stuck to our strengths instead of flooding the game with ten bob foreigners just to make the Premier League brand the best in the world!
Football evolves and new staregies and formations come and go. 4-4-2 was the norm to about 2004, then suddenly everyone wanted to play the 4-3-3/4-3-2-1 formation Chelsea adopted. The 'Makelele' role became a staple for most leading teams. Now it's evolved again, the Barcelona/Spain way is now what everyone wants. It'll change again once people develop ways to stop the Spanish style. But just because players like Carroll don't suit the fast, flowing passing style, we shouldn't think of them as unnecessary. Carroll is a wonderful striker, very strong, fearsome in the air and has a cracking left foot. He just ended up at the wrong club. The Spanish template is there for people to try and copy. But clever coaches will adapt and build on that template to make best use of their resources.
There's nothing genetic which says English football should be about this style or that style - the problem we have is that we are too reluctant to tap into the Network of footballing know-how, we are always chasing the latest trend once its being used effectively rather than being one of the countries at the forefront of innovation. As long as we continue to try and copy the latest trend we'll struggle. but sticking to the idea that "this is the way we play football in England and evermore shall it be thus" is an even worse strategy which will condemn us to never get passed the qualifying rounds of any final we get to from now until the end of time.
