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Useless International matches

juice man

Can't make his mind up
Poorest group of England players I can ever remember.
Lol I feel like England fans say this every year. Its almost like a loaded excuse - team does crap, blame the lack of quality.

I think the players are actually very good. The coaching has been crap for way too long though. You need to identify some youth and give them a chance over a long period.
 

RandyMarsh

Established Member
I actually don't think our 1st team is that bad. It's definitely the management that's holding us back and not getting the best out of them. Gives this current squad a better manager and i think we could compete with any country in Europe.

Hart
Clyne Smalling Cahill Shaw
Wilshere Carrick
Sturridge Rooney Sterling
Kane

Think that team's got a bit of everything. Goals all over the front line, pace and trickery in abundance. Experience throughout the spine. Strong technical ability. I'm not saying we'd win any major competition with that team but with the right manager behind us i think it's definitely capable of a QF/SF run.
 

Trilly

Hates A-M, Saka, Arteta and You
Trusted ⭐

Country: England
England are just funny to watch tbh. Love how the media hypes them up and they continue to fail every time.

Don't really support a national team. Occasionally try to support England and Nigeria but they're both laughable tbh.
 

Dennis_Bergkamp_10

Established Member
On Holland, do you guys think that the poaching of their most promising young players during their formative years has drastically reduced the talent pool available to them?

It something that has become more and more common.

Bad career choices lead to the growth of clearly talented players being stunted, they never end up seeing the light of day as their confidence is shattered as well as not being exposed to much high level football.

Or is it simply that they have a bad bunch?

They've always had talent, with the only real dearth coming in the gap between the golden 70s generation and the time where guys like Gullit, Van Basten and Rijkaard started to come through. After that they had a fantastic spell with players such as Bergkamp, Overmars, Cocu, Davids, De Boer's, Kluivert, VDS, Davids, Reiziger, Seedorf, Staam.

You even have guys like van Nistelrooy hanging about there somewhere

Even after that they had a decent batch come through marked by players such as RVP, Sneijder, Robben, van der Vaart and other useful guys.

Now there's this massive drop and I can't see where they can gain some reprieve.

It hasn't helped that young players tend to move quickly nowadays. Still, there I don't think it's the most important factor in our quality drop. When Van der Vaart broke through he won the Golden Boy award. You could just see at an extreme early age with those players (Sneijder, Van Persie) that they had something really special.

A lot of young talent still gets gametime at clubs like Ajax and Feyenoord, because they've chosen to do so and can't compete with big foreign clubs. The level has just dropped. There are some good players there but it's not as exceptional as those player were.

I can still remember our team in the '98 World Cup in France. First one I've witnessed. Unbelievable quality, still think we should've won that tournament (we should have gotten a penalty in extra time vs. Brazil at 1-1 ;)). We're light-years away from that, and as GDeep says, it might take a while to get back there.

Who will take over when Robben quits for instance?
 

Kroket

Trusty and Sensible
The current crop of Dutch footballers are not as good as the players of the noughties but they are also massively underachieving at the moment. We won't be winning tournaments anytime soon but we should still qualify for big tournaments and survive the group stages.

The way I see it our current struggles have more to do with poor management than a poor player pool. After the shambles of Euro 2012 Van Gaal was a short-term fix - he did fantastically well resultswise but his tactics were unconventional and never going to work in the long term. After he left the Dutch FA should have chosen a manager who could effectively manage the transition from reliance on the fantastic four (Robben, Sneijder, Van Persie & Van der Vaart) to the new generation. Instead we got Guus Hiddink who had been out of the game for years. He had no chemistry with the young players, his tactical views were hopelessly outdated and he was arguably too biased towards players from the Eredivisie, constantly selecting players who had barely any experience playing against teams with foreign playing styles over solid if unspectacular guys playing in the bigger leagues.

Blind is going to give us much of the same, except that unlike Hiddink he has never even been a remotely decent manager. He started Van der Wiel who hadn't played a single match this season, whilst Verhaegh, Janmaat and Bacuna were also available. Nigel de Jong was sat at home, instead we play an inexperienced, moderately talented Klaassen out of position. Virgil van Dijk wasn't even called up in favour of a young lad from Ajax who's played a massive 9 games in the Eredivisie. Luciano Narsingh is an atrocious footballer, period. Where's Jeremain Lens?

Honestly, it's obvious we won't be able to compete with Spain, France, Germany, probably even England for a while, but if we had a sensible manager, who isn't afraid to step away from the hopelessly outdated Dutch idea about what constitutes 'good football' we'd still have a respectable team which would have comfortably qualified for the Euro's next year.
 

BobP

Memri Fan
The absolutely set in stone players for England in the coming years will be:

Hart
Shaw
Smalling
Stones
Wilshere
Sterling

Outside of those six, everything else is up for grabs. Those who are in contention?

Attackers: Sturridge, Kane, Welbeck, Theo.
Midfield: Ox, Barkley, Shelvey. Henderson, Delph, Mason.
Defense: Jones, Chambers, Clyne, Gibbs.

RB is a major issue.

They're winning **** all anyhow.

So workmanlike.
 

A_G

Rice Rice Baby 🎼🎵
A-M CL Draft Campeón 🏆
Ward-Prowse will be a top player for England too I think.
 

Taylor Gang Gunners

Say Yeh or You're Making The List
Trusted ⭐
I largely blame Rooney for some of England's recent failures. Might be a bit harsh but it's the truth. Rooney is heralded as our best player, a world class player, which years back he was. But his performances in the big tournaments for England have been disenchanting.

What is it, ONE World Cup goal? None in the Euros? Not good enough is a massive understatement. You need your big players to do big things, Rooney has lead the line for England since he was a teenager, he's flopped internationally, but that can be said about several others I suppose.

Rooney will obviously break Sir Bobby's record for England, might even do it Saturday, but that doesn't change the fact that his performances in an England shirt have been dreadful.
 

darkgunner

Well-Known Member
The absolutely set in stone players for England in the coming years will be:

Hart
Shaw
Smalling
Stones
Wilshere
Sterling

Outside of those six, everything else is up for grabs. Those who are in contention?

Attackers: Sturridge, Kane, Welbeck, Theo.
Midfield: Ox, Barkley, Shelvey. Henderson, Delph, Mason.
Defense: Jones, Chambers, Clyne, Gibbs.

RB is a major issue.

They're winning **** all anyhow.

So workmanlike.

Ox is pretty much a starter for England when he's fully fit and in the team, he's performed well in the majority of his appearances. He's definitely ahead of Sterling for me.
 

Godwin1

Very well-known
I wonder how we would have done if the FA had brought in better choices for managment the last few years. For me Hodgson should never have got the job over Redknapp. I don't rate Redknapp that highly but he would have got better performances out of the squad that Roy ever could.
 

A_G

Rice Rice Baby 🎼🎵
A-M CL Draft Campeón 🏆
COE4kV9WgAASYKr.png


POLAND XI: Fabiański - Piszczek, Glik, Szukała, Rybus - Jodłowiec, Krychowiak, Mączyński - Grosicki, Milik - Lewandowski (C)
 

clockwork orange

Blind faith in "LVG filoshophy"
Good post kroket. Fully agree.

Have nothing with Narsingh either. Fairweather winger, only kind of useful with a striker playing. That striker was subbed off a few minutes after he came on. Rate Lens much higher, think Lens is even more likely (more consistent) to come up with a good perfromance than Depay.

I
 

clockwork orange

Blind faith in "LVG filoshophy"
Mesut one of the 1st names on the team sheet.

No out and out striker, maybe that's what Holland should do away v Turkey 442 with Lens and Depay.
 

RandyMarsh

Established Member
Muller's the best ST they've got. He's more than capable of leading the line. Is Can playing CB then with Boateng LB?
 
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