So England will return home having failed to get out of the group. I didn't hold out much hope for England's chances during this world cup for the reasons i gave in my last write up, but even I thought they would get through to the next stage. I'm afraid all those journalists getting excited at all that young raw talent were completely deluding themselves as usual.
Fact one, are they in fact, really that good, how many of those Liverpool players have actually tested themselves in the premier footballing competition, the champions league, answer none. Until you have seen Sturridge, Sterling and co in that competition for a couple of seasons, all we really know is that they are pretty good premier league players. The clamour for Sterling to play was just plain embarrassing, fuck me, you would have though he was the next Messi the way some journos and ex players were going on.
Fact two, there was no way that back four was good enough at this level, as I pointed out ahead of the competition. It took two games for the press to realise it was a sub standard back four, why, it should have been glaringly obvious to anybody that's watched football for any length of time before the tournament began. Until that gets sorted out, they'll be struggling to get out of the next European championship group stage as well, that's if they get through the qualifying stages.
Fact three, Hodgson is a pretty limited manager as his career has shown. Let's look at Van Gaal and Holland, that is surely one of the lesser Dutch squads of recent history. And yet he's got through them through the group stages with three wins and must have a decent shot of getting at least to the semi finals. That's because he has assessed his squad, seen his weakness and strengths and adapted his tactical philosophy around the strengths, hoping to negate the weaknesses. Now look at Hodgson, a piss poor back four and what protection does he give it, Gerrard and Henderson. Hodgson has been praised for being brave for picking those young guns. I don't see it, what I saw, as usual, was an England manager managing to shoehorn, most, if not quite all the "names" that the press were screaming for him to pick, regardless of what that meant for the shape of the team.
Fact four, the climate, I thought England would struggle to cope, but the longer the tournament goes on the more I see most European countries struggling. Unsurprisingly the South American teams are getting stronger, as the tournament heads for the knockout stages. The Germany Ghana encounter was a great game, but it looked to me that Germany felt the conditions for that spell that saw Ghana equalise, take the lead and have a great chance of killing the game with a third goal. It's credit to the Germans that they managed to come back to grab a point. But if I was to put any money on a European country getting to the final, I would put it on Holland, their result against Chile was very impressive. Now that's not a sentence I expected to write ahead of the tournament.
Anyway it's been a pretty good world cup so far, to be a great one, that will have to continue through to the knockout phase, I'm reasonably optimistic that we'll get it.
Fact one, are they in fact, really that good, how many of those Liverpool players have actually tested themselves in the premier footballing competition, the champions league, answer none. Until you have seen Sturridge, Sterling and co in that competition for a couple of seasons, all we really know is that they are pretty good premier league players. The clamour for Sterling to play was just plain embarrassing, fuck me, you would have though he was the next Messi the way some journos and ex players were going on.
Fact two, there was no way that back four was good enough at this level, as I pointed out ahead of the competition. It took two games for the press to realise it was a sub standard back four, why, it should have been glaringly obvious to anybody that's watched football for any length of time before the tournament began. Until that gets sorted out, they'll be struggling to get out of the next European championship group stage as well, that's if they get through the qualifying stages.
Fact three, Hodgson is a pretty limited manager as his career has shown. Let's look at Van Gaal and Holland, that is surely one of the lesser Dutch squads of recent history. And yet he's got through them through the group stages with three wins and must have a decent shot of getting at least to the semi finals. That's because he has assessed his squad, seen his weakness and strengths and adapted his tactical philosophy around the strengths, hoping to negate the weaknesses. Now look at Hodgson, a piss poor back four and what protection does he give it, Gerrard and Henderson. Hodgson has been praised for being brave for picking those young guns. I don't see it, what I saw, as usual, was an England manager managing to shoehorn, most, if not quite all the "names" that the press were screaming for him to pick, regardless of what that meant for the shape of the team.
Fact four, the climate, I thought England would struggle to cope, but the longer the tournament goes on the more I see most European countries struggling. Unsurprisingly the South American teams are getting stronger, as the tournament heads for the knockout stages. The Germany Ghana encounter was a great game, but it looked to me that Germany felt the conditions for that spell that saw Ghana equalise, take the lead and have a great chance of killing the game with a third goal. It's credit to the Germans that they managed to come back to grab a point. But if I was to put any money on a European country getting to the final, I would put it on Holland, their result against Chile was very impressive. Now that's not a sentence I expected to write ahead of the tournament.
Anyway it's been a pretty good world cup so far, to be a great one, that will have to continue through to the knockout phase, I'm reasonably optimistic that we'll get it.
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