Just listening to the press conference of Allardyce

Nobody ever 'blasts' the GB Tennis team, Phil. Nobody cares about the GB Tennis team. It's an individual sport, I don't care how you dress it up. We've finally seen this decade a world class, British tennis laiker. Stands to reason that Britain have done well off the back of that.

I will accept your references to posh Rugby and the cricket team, because like the England football team, they are teams. It's a team sport. However, we have always been one of the very best at cricket. It's a sport played by so few countries, which helps. Same for posh Rugby. And in both disciplines, we have our ups and downs.

In football, it's been downhill since Paul Gascoigne retired.

 

Big Sam will pick the team from a squad controlled by sponsors, no change from previous managers!

 

Hate the man, he nicked Vaz Te and buggered our season up.

 

But England had Dr Steve Peters, the world's most renowned and successful sports psychologist (see the wonders he has worked at Team Sky for example), for both the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Euros. He even did extra sessions with Raheem Sterling - those worked well didn't they?!

Correct.

 

I think that's a very easy cop out & ignores Hodgson's failings.

He didn't pick a centre back who could bring the ball out from the back which is essential against opposition who sit behind the ball.

He didn't have a set piece specialist, playing against on paper weaker teams you know you will have lots of the ball & get many set pieces.

He had no width, the only natural wide player was Sterling who was playing on the left & had to cut in every time.

It was a terrible decision to take so few wide players. I'll use Spain as an example as they've recently won things. What they did when they couldn't break teams down with passing football was to bring on pacy players like Pedro & Navas who could stretch the opposition & run to the touch line creating space & opportunities for others.

We had none of that. Hodgson would make subs & it was like for like or forcing a striker wide where he's uncomfortable.

There was no familiarity within the team, players in there who'd never played together 2 months before the tournament.

Smalling & Cahill hadn't built up a relationship with the full backs. In fact I don't think that back 4 had ever played together before the Russia game.

We had Rooney been pushed into midfield in a tournament!

These are the kind of things that should be built up throughout qualifying & the friendlies so that when you get to the tournament all the players know each other's strength's & weaknesses & are comfortable playing with each other.

Instead we get to a tournament & start all over again. Anyone who's even played 5 a side will tell you that it takes time & games to build an understanding with other players.

I've no doubt about there's issues with the mentality of the players but there was a lot more to it than that.

 

I'd say it's been a lot longer than 14 years.

 

He'll be ushering in the new phenomenon that is Tiki Hoof.

Cant make my mind up whether us going back to the dark ages is a good thing or not. Get rid of all this notion that we have to follow Spain or Germany's example and concentrate on what we do well ourselves. I'd have preferred Pochettino but I'm hopeful we'll be 'ok' under Allardyce.


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10000000% disagree with everything you have just said. Somethings never change eh?