28-06-2016, 13:29
Being an English person who's never really got the fuss surrounding the England team (I genuinely don't understand how people can get passionate about them or 'support' them) I found last night quite hilarious. On paper I expected us to batter them and when we went 1-0 up early I did think the floodgates would open. Iceland just wanted it a lot more though and responded brilliantly - the second their first went in our lot shit themselves and went into a lull they never really came out of.
Their first goal was Walker's fault - he lost his man completely, unforgivable when we knew before the game they're a danger from set pieces.
Their second is a combination of the midfield being half arsed (Alli and Dier just watch them pass about in front of them) and Joe Hart making another hash of what should have been an easy save.
After that we never looked like getting back in the game. Roy had a complete mare with his subs - Vardy's a bang average footballer at best unless a defence allows loads of room in behind for him to run into which Iceland didn't, what a pointless sub. We'd have been better getting Rashford on much sooner as the only thing we hadn't done that we had the potential to do from the bench was run direct at them - 4 minutes for him to make an impact is a joke. Rooney going off for him as well - why? Sacrifice a defender at that stage, it's knockout football and we're sticking to a back 4 in the last minute needing a goal.
All that said, our biggest issue was... WE DON'T PRODUCE CREATIVE PLAYERS.
Leicester - Mahrez
Arsenal - Ozil
Spurs - Eriksen
City - Sila/De Bruyne
The top teams in the Premier League utilise English players as cogs in their team to surround the more talented creative players they acquire from abroad. How many #10's have we produced who could get into a top team? None. When a top team needs to break a team down it will be their foreign players who make the difference, not English players. If we had someone with that bit of guile, technique, creativity, vision, ability, whatever you want to call it, we could well have got back into the game, but we had nothing.Rooney is possibly our most creative player but he spent the entire tournament either hitting crossfield balls or passing sideways, and last night couldn't even get either of those things right.
Basically, we're shit. We don't produce good enough players to warrant the expectations most people in this country have. Our keeper is average. We have 2 attacking fullbacks who can't defend. Both of our centre halves are suspect. No real creativity in the midfield. No wingers. 1 good striker who had a stinker of a tournament in Kane. Why get excited and get your hopes up for that lot?
Yes we should have beaten Iceland, but would we really have expected us to do anything other than get a proper battering once we played a decent team?
Their first goal was Walker's fault - he lost his man completely, unforgivable when we knew before the game they're a danger from set pieces.
Their second is a combination of the midfield being half arsed (Alli and Dier just watch them pass about in front of them) and Joe Hart making another hash of what should have been an easy save.
After that we never looked like getting back in the game. Roy had a complete mare with his subs - Vardy's a bang average footballer at best unless a defence allows loads of room in behind for him to run into which Iceland didn't, what a pointless sub. We'd have been better getting Rashford on much sooner as the only thing we hadn't done that we had the potential to do from the bench was run direct at them - 4 minutes for him to make an impact is a joke. Rooney going off for him as well - why? Sacrifice a defender at that stage, it's knockout football and we're sticking to a back 4 in the last minute needing a goal.
All that said, our biggest issue was... WE DON'T PRODUCE CREATIVE PLAYERS.
Leicester - Mahrez
Arsenal - Ozil
Spurs - Eriksen
City - Sila/De Bruyne
The top teams in the Premier League utilise English players as cogs in their team to surround the more talented creative players they acquire from abroad. How many #10's have we produced who could get into a top team? None. When a top team needs to break a team down it will be their foreign players who make the difference, not English players. If we had someone with that bit of guile, technique, creativity, vision, ability, whatever you want to call it, we could well have got back into the game, but we had nothing.Rooney is possibly our most creative player but he spent the entire tournament either hitting crossfield balls or passing sideways, and last night couldn't even get either of those things right.
Basically, we're shit. We don't produce good enough players to warrant the expectations most people in this country have. Our keeper is average. We have 2 attacking fullbacks who can't defend. Both of our centre halves are suspect. No real creativity in the midfield. No wingers. 1 good striker who had a stinker of a tournament in Kane. Why get excited and get your hopes up for that lot?
Yes we should have beaten Iceland, but would we really have expected us to do anything other than get a proper battering once we played a decent team?