Cricket-Match-Special ... A forum for discussion

Durhamfootman wrote:I noticed from the highlights that Alli got booed every time he touched the ball. Is there a reason for that?

Nigerian supporters i believe.

what has he done to offend them?

I think a few years ago they tried to persuade him to play for Nigeria. Obviously not happy at the rejection:)

ah.... fair enough.

he might agree with them, if Southgate doesn't start him regularly

He still has a bit to prove. Not sure he made much progress this season at Spurs. Needs to become more consistent but i'm sure Gareth plans to use him from the start.

The Germans haven't picked Gotze or Sane.

Probably sums up our chances when some teams can drop premier league young player, and one of the stand out players in the league, at the drop of a hat

sussexpob wrote:The Germans haven't picked Gotze or Sane.

Probably sums up our chances when some teams can drop premier league young player, and one of the stand out players in the league, at the drop of a hat

I'm shocked Sane has been left out. Have they got any other decent wingers?

Pat Nevin thinks England should be resting Kane for the 3rd group game (is that Belgium?), in order to defend deeper and counter attack with pace.

Not much chance of that happening, I would suggest.

Besides.... if he thinks we need to do that against Belgium, then he might as well suggest that England send Kane home after the first 2 group matches, because England would probably have to apply that principle to every match thereafter

silly idea

yuppie wrote:He still has a bit to prove. Not sure he made much progress this season at Spurs. Needs to become more consistent but i'm sure Gareth plans to use him from the start.

he probably will for the first two matches, where England are unlikely to need two defensive minded midfielders. Once better teams come along I imagine that will change. If he plays Henderson and Dier from the off, then that might tell us a lot about Southgate's confidence in his boys.

Have you heard of England DNA, btw? I hadn't until yesterday. Helps to explain where a few England selections have come from. Probably a very good idea, actually

Durhamfootman wrote:Pat Nevin thinks England should be resting Kane for the 3rd group game (is that Belgium?), in order to defend deeper and counter attack with pace.

Not much chance of that happening, I would suggest.

Besides.... if he thinks we need to do that against Belgium, then he might as well suggest that England send Kane home after the first 2 group matches, because England would probably have to apply that principle to every match thereafter

silly idea

Not necessarily - it's probably predicated on the notion that England will have already qualified for the second round by the time they meet Belgium, as both Belgium and England will be expected to beat both Tunisia and Panama (although I have my doubts regarding England). In any event England will almost certainly qualify with a draw against Belgium unless something really weird happens, so given how pivotal Kane will be to their chances of progressing deeper, and how long a season he's had, a rest might not be the worst idea in that situation.

Of course if the Belgium game is a must-win, surely Kane plays.

On a side note, I have never understood why England are such massive under-achievers in world tournaments. The last time we actually equalled or surpassed expectations was probably Euro '96, although you could argue then that we fell short as we had a bloody good shot to win the thing. Maybe WC 2002 out in the QF to eventual champs Brazil and beating Argentina along the way was creditable. Every performance since then has been a disappointment.

Most teams raise their game for the WC. England cruise through qualifying then get hammered in the tournament. Part of it is tactical, as sussex points out above - teams are content to sit deep v England and play for the draw and England can't break them down. Part of it is psychological - especially with penalties - that ties into the above, teams are content to draw v England in the knockouts as they know England will bottle a shoot-out. Probably part of it is inflated expectations -
England aren't as good as they're made out to be. But time and time again England have a squad that on paper has plenty of talent, then struggle. Why does this keep happening, again and again?

Kane looks like he needs games not rest.

Gingerfinch wrote:

sussexpob wrote:The Germans haven't picked Gotze or Sane.

Probably sums up our chances when some teams can drop premier league young player, and one of the stand out players in the league, at the drop of a hat

I'm shocked Sane has been left out. Have they got any other decent wingers?

Their options in midfield are utterly terrifying for whoever plays them. They have a B team that could win the competition.

I think Sane hasnt gone because Low will play wingbacks. He seems to have recently favoured that system. Ozil as the 10, Gomez up top or maybe Mueller.

Germany lack a world class striker maybe, but their midfield screams goals

BFL,

I think its not fair to suggest England have failed at world cups in the period of 1990-2010. We werent good enough to challenge in 2014 and got by far the toughest group in the tournament, and in fairness if we had taken our chances in those games, we should have won 2 of them, so hardly disgraced.

When we look how these tournaments ended, no one really smashed us apart. And a lot of the time we fell victim of bad refs.

1990 - Lost to what is seen as the best German side ever on penalties in an even game
1998 - Lost on penalties after pretty much dominating the match even with ten men. Abysmal ref decision to send off Beckham, had a goal ruled out in extra time.
2002 - David Seaman makes an error in a game against a very brilliant Brazil team, lost 2-1. Brazil maybe deserved to win, but the gulf was not wide.
2006 - Penalties again...... Rooney sent off for an innocuous shove on Ronaldo, Ronaldo wasnt booked earlier in the game for going up to Rooney without reason, and headbutting him.
2010 - At the half time whistle, the ball sailed 2 yards over the line to make it 2-2 vs Germany....... the worst decision I have ever seen in a game, the goal didnt count. A decision that changes pretty much all.

I think England arent helped by their culture in a way. I think that 1998 red card shows it. Beckham had been kicked, stamped on, pushed about, clawed in the the face, and immediately before he was sent off Simeone had ploughed very hard into the back of him not going anywhere near the ball.... yet everytime, with gritted teeth he got up and played on until he kicked out. Simeone got tapped on the ankle, at the force most 3 year olds would probably not even notice, and hit the deck like he had been shot as 6 of his team mates went waving imaginary cards to the ref.

Same with that Rooney one. Rooney gives Ronaldo a little shove, red comes straight out as the Portugal team surround the ref. Rooney gets Ronaldo in his face earlier, stays on his feet and takes it like a man with a scowl.

There's some fairly selective reporting and a lot of excuses there sussex. You wouldn't let the England cricket team get away with blaming the umpire when they're crap.

1990 - Fair enough, but I didn't go back that far.
1998 - Dominating the match? That's not how I remember it. I remember a decent first half, but pretty desperate defence for most of the second half. And penalties is theoretically a 50:50 shot, yet we lost. You can argue about Beckham's red card, but he was fool enough to retaliate right in front of the referee.
2002 - I said that one was maybe passable.
2006 - We were crap vs Portugal. Rooney was sent off after an hour during which we hadn't scored - it's speculation to say we might have won that match if he hadn't been sent off. There was barely anything approaching a chance after that. And again, merits of the red card or not, Rooney stamped on Carvalho's crotch then pushed Ronaldo right in front of the referee. Provoked or not, you can't expect to get away with that. And before that, we only just scraped through vs Ecuador in a pretty dismal performance.
2010 - We lost 4-1 to Germany, and were completely outclassed in the second half. Even if the goal had been allowed, it would have been 4-2. What's more, if we hadn't been so crap as to draw with both the USA and Algeria, we would have won the group and not had to play Germany in the second round in the first place.
2014 - Was an utter disgrace. One point, no wins, bottom of the group. Yes a tough group, but we didn't come close to getting out of it. We were humiliated.

And that's not counting an equally cruddy recent record in the Euros.

Sure, we rarely get thrashed. But we never rise to the occasion and deliver a performance when it really matters. We just scrape through group stages until we run into a decent team, then inevitably find a way to lose against them. When was the last time we put in an actually good performance to beat a half way decent team at a tournament? Maybe Sweden in Euro 2012, if you're being charitable. Besides that, I'd say not since we beat Argentina in 2002. We certainly haven't beaten a top 10 team since then.