| Jun 27 |
What We Learned From Germany vs Engerland (4-1)Ouch! That Was A Spanking Well, we have seen some bad Engerland performances and we’ve seen some shocking Engerland performances, but this was simply a disaster (that’s worse than bad and shocking in the lexicon of tragicomical footballing parlance in case you’re worried). Buoyed by the victory over Slovenia (Slovenia for god’s sake), Engerland played the same side. Only on this performance you wouldn’t have thought these guys knew each other let alone had played together only four days earlier and that some actually played together professionally in the same football clubs. Now in their last five matches Engerland have been simply shocking against Mexico, Japan, USA, and Algeria and only rancid against Slovenia, but at least there has been some vague shadow of a collective understanding between the players, if only the collective understanding not to pass accurately to one another or do anything that might constitute a coherent attacking move. Not so here. Here our defence, comprised of Glen Johnson (who is better going forward than defending), Titface (who has lost a yard of pace since Rio left him), Far-Too-Slow-Son (who never had the pace to begin with) and Ashley Cole (who truth be told is actually good), looked like they’d never seen a football, let alone played professionally for a number of years. The positioning of Titface and Slow-Son for the first goal was just shamateur, and for them to then be outmuscled by Klose should shame them both into quitting international and probably club football. Sadly this wasn’t their low point in the game. Admittedly there was a moment when, through sheer ineptness on the Germans’ part and the law of averages, Engerland looked somewhat dangerous. We even scored, not that that will in any way exonerate the useless Slow-Son, but he will at least have a World Cup memory that isn’t of himself being ripped a new one by the Germans. We even scored a second, a beauty from Lampard and the only memorable thing he has done in an Engerland shirt for at least a year, which was so obvious that no one believed the ref when he disallowed it. It could have changed the game in a sad, wallpapering over the cracks sort of way, but disallowing it could have given Engerland the spur they needed to really punish the Germans. Amazingly, for about 3 or 4 minutes, Engerland were on top and Germany looked really flaky. But then Engerland imploded. Again tactical insanity was our undoing. Putting 9 men into the Germans’ penalty area might seem like a good idea when you have the ball and it’s a free kick about 28 yards out. Two seconds later when Barry has conceded possession and the Germans are running at your lone man defence it’s starting to look a little less intelligent. It’s even less clever when you do it again after they’ve scored the third. Admittedly the fourth German goal was a great example of the beautiful rush play that England’s top teams have been doing for years. You think about Man U and Arsenal and Chelsea and what comes to mind is fantastic flowing counterattacking, movement of the ball from box to box in seconds, transforming turnover of the ball into opportunity. That’s what the Germans did and have been doing for the whole of this World Cup and what Engerland have not looked like doing in the best part of a decade. The saddest thing is not that so many of the players in Man U, Arsenal and Chelsea who are doing the moves are foreign, but that some of them are clearly English and never display this form for Engerland. So What Has Gone Wrong For Engerland? And Where Do We Go From Here? Where do we start? It’s clear that we’re now going to see a rash of international retirements because many of these boys clearly do not have it in them to go through this all over again. The so-called golden generation have been revealed as Knockout Round Nohopers. I think it’s the end of the road for:
Whoever is the manager, and Fab’s position is far from certain, he has to rebuild with pace and ball control rather than reputation as his criteria for inclusion. We went to this World Cup with an old squad essentially comprised of Sven’s Quarter-Finalists minus David Beckham and Theo. I think Fab missed a big trick by relying too much on stolid experience rather than youthful exuberance, or at least a balance. Maybe Theo Wallchart can’t put a cross in all the time, but he does often scare the shit out of defenders, even international ones. Maybe Adam Johnson wasn’t ready, but he better be now. Maybe Hart didn’t have the experience, but now he’s been to a World Cup and he’ll still be around when the next one comes. I think we need to develop a new defence, a controlling midfield, a potent attack and we have to find a way of bringing Rhino into the games. Because he might as well announce his international retirement and do a Scholes if this is how he’s going to be played for Engerland. In the 4 World Cup games and the half dozen or so before he has been starved of service and support and has barely had a touch of the ball. He is a shadow of the force he was at Euro 2004 and might as well take his talent and put it in a cupboard and forget about it, because he isn’t going to get a result from it from Engerland if this carries on. 51 Down 13 To Go 13 Teams Remaining One Response to “What We Learned From Germany vs Engerland (4-1)”Leave a Reply |
-
Palace Blog
Halfway between creative working and working creatively. Are you simply the things you like or are you more? Can you be more creative by changing what you do? Random acts of senseless beautality. That's what I'm interested in.
Search
Stumble it!
[...] speed of motion, intelligence, aggression, pace and power. Their clinical demolitions first of the spastically useless Engerland and subsequently Argentina, have been compelling viewing and the only matches I’ve kept on my [...]