Algeria v England [OFFICIAL THREAD]

[Man Friday]

World-beaters under Terry. Egg-beaters under Gerrard. Conclusion: We are better under Terry. Hardly straw-grasping!

i wear my cap one week, and play brilliantly at golf, the next week i forget said cap, and am awful


- your conclusion = its the cap

If your cap is as important to you in playing golf well as the captaincy is to the success of a football team then I suggest you try to remember it in future. Terry captained England during its qualifying campaign how many times? How many times have you forgotten your cap in order to confirm whether this could be a factor in how well you play your golf?

[brendywendy]

listening to all the ex proffesional footballers who are pundits at the world cup they are unanimouse that the captaincy of any football means virtually nothing.




the cap also played a very big part in RFCs winning run after the liverpool game-so it mnust be a lucky cap!

[Hoop Blah]

We're one of the teams in with a shout and quite often those top 4-10 teams go out through what can be seen as an unfortunate turn of events.

That Portugal game in 2006 sticks in my mind as a game where, although down to ten men and missing Owen, we were the better side and probably should've won the game.

The 2002 Brazil game, we came up against a better team, gave them a run for their money but didn't have the guts to take the game to them and make the extra man count. We bottled it to an extent.

As much as it's cool to be-little England (and I've had enough of non-football fans doing this for the last couple of weeks) and slag off their chances we still have a collection of players better than many others. They're a bunch are ego's that are fed and believe to much of their hype at club level, and there is something going on it that squad at the moment stopping them playing, but they are still well capable of beating most other teams in the competition ON THEIR DAY.

[Hoop Blah]

I think being away from their own little world full of yes men and hangers on, not have the freedom to do whatever they like, and being kept on a tight leash whilst cooped up for a month will be having a lot more effect than Terry not being captain.

Could Capello have managed them better? Quite possibly as it doesn't matter if it's his way or their way, he needs to be doing whatever it takes to make them as comfortable and ready to perform as possibly.

If that means ruling them with the iron fist is counter productive then he's cocked up.

[brendywendy]

tbf hes the boss, its the world cup, if the boss says you have to do something, do it

all this player power shit reeks of the attitude shown by the french.
its not up to them who is the boss, or what players play where.
just get on with it and play - there was oxf*rd all about that shit against algeria that was down to the system - it was just down to them sulking.
mno one asked rooney to miscontroll the ball every time he touched it, no one told the midfield to pass back to the defence every time rather than take a player on or try a difficult(or simple) forward pass.

bunch of gaylords

[Wax Jacket]

they are still well capable of beating most other teams in the competition ON THEIR DAY.

this.

I think we'll see a decent, comitted, dull but ultimately succesful performance

[Dirk Gently]

Spoilt overpaid brats who spend their careers working 3 hours a day and then doing whatever they like - with people paid to do absolutely everything for them - in reacting badly to authority shocker!

[Royal Rother]

Does anyone really believe that we will see an improved performance on Wednesday? I don't. I did not think we would be as bad as we were against the USA but look what happened.

We will be eliminated on goals scored.

We will definitely see an improved performance - we will win the game comfortably; I am pretty certain of that.

The sad thing is though, I don't really care. We will still be over-rated shite for most of the rest of my life and give very little cause for excitement of that I am absolutely certain.

Except when we are under-rated shite of course. Like now.

Oh, here we go.

Stick to your banana obsession, Mr Royal "My brain is bigger than the British Isles" Rother.

Love you too!

[Hoop Blah]

brendy, any manager in any walk of life has to produce the right environment for their subordinates to flourish and to give them the best chance of success.

I'm not suggesting that the team should be free from any restrainsts (that approach didn't work for Sven) and able to basically run itself, but in a situation where you have limited resources and where the mental state of the team is paramount the manager has to get the balance right.

That team against Algeria was pretty much the exact same one that steam rollered the qualifying group yet they were so woeful on Friday night you have people questioning their ability to play the game.

It's all down to the mental side of the game (and perhaps a contribution from the ball).

[papereyes]

1-0 up, lost to fluke goal from ronaldinho - unlucky
portugal - unlucky


imo

In that 2-1 loss, England played for an age against a 10 man Brazil and failed to get a shot on target. That is not unlucky in my book.

[papereyes]

I actually fell asleep for 20 minutes in the second half so can't and indeed won't comment on the whole game.

[Seal]

I expected more on here than the usual boring 'overpaid' rubbish.

It's not their fault if they're paid a lot of money. It's the clubs. Would you turn down a whopping salary if you were offered it?

Clearly there is something amiss, but I really don't think it has anything to do with their monthly salaries.

Bored? Overcoached? Burnt out Carrying injuries? Or just not as good without their more technically gifted foreign club team mates around them? All much more likely factors than their personalities and incomes.

Still think we'll make it to the Q/F and go out in a blaze of glory with our one half decent performance mind.

[Man Friday]

1-0 up, lost to fluke goal from ronaldinho - unlucky
portugal - unlucky


imo

In that 2-1 loss, England played for an age against a 10 man Brazil and failed to get a shot on target. That is not unlucky in my book.

...nor anybody else's. Brazil would have won that day had they been down to 9 men, let alone 10. They were playing in third gear and you could quite easily see that they could have upped their game had they wished/needed to. We never got a look-in.

[papereyes]

I didn't say they SHOULD have won 2-0. I said "it could have been 2-0 to them" (if they had taken their couple of half-chances). It could have been 2-2 if we had also taken our two half-chances.

Or presumably 2-0 to us if we'd taken a couple and they hadn't Genius.

It was 0-0. Neither side looked like scoring. Atrocious game. We are bringing nothing to this world cup.

At least France have brought the LOLZ.

[floyd__streete]

ReaLOLism! Floyd thought we could win the thing, i've never thought that. This country is so cringeworthy with the World Cup hype and it gets worse every tournement.

This view is mine and nobody elses and is not a Kes fishing post.

I said for months beforehand that we had a great chance from a generous-looking draw and with plenty of top-drawer players who could form the spine of a decent national team. Then Capello picked Carragher, King, Heskey and SWP instead of the man who kept him out of the Man City team for much of the last league season. Then the players decided to get all precious about the team being picked 2 hours before kick off, as if they were planning to go out on the lash or something if they hadn't been picked. The post-match sarcasm of David James spoke volumes about the precious arrogance of this squad.

I actually said Argentina would win the thing.

[papereyes]

'coup' really isn't the first c word that springs to mind when I hear the name John Terry

[floyd__streete]

The last time that we were unfortunate to go out of the WC was in 1998. Perfectly good goal disallowed.

Perfectly good apart from Shearer's elbow practically garotting Roa in the Argentina goal? The last time England were unfortunate to be knocked out of a tournament was actually in 1996, and that was after they had been pretty poor in three of their four games prior to the semi.

[Hoop Blah]

Do you not think we were unfortunate against Portugal in 2006 then Floyd?

We played well and got knocked out on penalties despite looking the more likely to win the game even when down to 10 men and missing the likes of Beckham and Owen through injury.

[Terminal Boardom]

The last time that we were unfortunate to go out of the WC was in 1998. Perfectly good goal disallowed.

Perfectly good apart from Shearer's elbow practically garotting Roa in the Argentina goal? The last time England were unfortunate to be knocked out of a tournament was actually in 1996, and that was after they had been pretty poor in three of their four games prior to the semi.

Perfectly acceptable behaviour imho