Liverpool FC Forum

[Reg]

There is no consistency to say that Gerrard is great for Liverpool and cr@p for England - either he is a good player or he isnt.

The sad truth is the england roile is seen as a part time job and they dont take it seriously until it is too late and then they cant save a desparate situation. We had every opportunity to qualify but the players couldnt be arsed and we had an appalling third rate manager who will struggle to get the managers job in the premiership.

Too much money, no hunger, no pride.   What a load of bowlocks.

[stmichael]

Listen, Gerrard is a terrific player but as I've said in the past he's so one-paced it's untrue. If a game isn't being played at a breakneck tempo then he'll do his best to ensure it's played that way. Playing to Gerrard's strengths involves getting the ball from back to front as quickly as possible and giving him the opportunity to shoot from 25 yards. No other national team on earth plays like that.

[puroresu]

Listen, Gerrard is a terrific player but as I've said in the past he's so one-paced it's untrue. If a game isn't being played at a breakneck tempo then he'll do his best to ensure it's played that way. Playing to Gerrard's strengths involves getting the ball from back to front as quickly as possible and giving him the opportunity to shoot from 25 yards. No other national team on earth plays like that.

Agreed.  I was talking with my bro last night and questioning whether Gerrard could play and be a success in Italy or Spain as the game is so different.

England do not have a genuine class midfield player who can just sit and pass the ball.  A player who can control and dictate a game.  Without that type of player u see what happens.

[ivor_the_injun]

This is a moot point really. The team as a whole were absolutely dreadful, and of those who started I'd only have Crouch marked above 4 out of 10.

Gerrard was abysmal, but those around him were no better. Lampard gave a masterclass of reasons why he shouldn't be in the first 11, I'm not sure Barry completed a single pass successfully, and as for the defence... absolutely hopeless.

I've said in another thread - when your last throw of the dice is to completely take away any threat on the left hand side and replace it with Darren Bent up top, you're dealing with a brand of football that would disgrace many non-league sides.

Get it on the ground, pass it to the nearest white shirt, run into space. How players on the sort of money some of those f*ckers (including Gerrard) cannot grasp that I have no idea. Every time we lumped it forward up the middle, it may as well have been a pass to one of their central defenders. Those long balls across the pitch are all well and good when you're in control of a match and trying to demoralise the opposition, but when they're your default action in a game you're chasing you have absolutely no chance.

[stmichael]

England do not have a genuine class midfield player who can just sit and pass the ball.  A player who can control and dictate a game.  Without that type of player u see what happens.

Have to agree. Infact you could argue that the only players England have that are actually 'built' for International football are players like Carrick and Barry, neither of whom are much better than just 'good'. Neither of whom would get a look in at any of the top midfields in the world. England, once upon a time, did have a very good ginger playmaker but then a certain Swede decided it would be a good idea to play him on the left-wing. Subsequently he didn't score for ages so was considered a weak-link and eventually retired from international football.

The level of technical ability on display is cringing and the sad thing is that it'll be mentioned now for the next few weeks, if we're lucky, and then the press will go back to insisting the players are good enough and that something 'needs to be done to get them to play well'. Bullsh#t. The reason Lampard plays well for Chelsea is that they don't mind that he's very, very limited. They embrace it and build around it. Exactly the same with Terry at the back. The reason Gerrard plays well is down to a Hamman, Alonso or Mascherano - England don't have anyone remotely close to that calibre with the possible exception of Hargreaves. Rooney's got Tevez, Scholes, Ronaldo and Co on a similar wave-length. Joe Cole, Flumps and SWP are something of a step down. Michael Owen, well there's no point going into that one.

[ivor_the_injun]

I think Gerrard and Hargreaves will emerge as our central midfield pairing in future, but I'm hardly convinced by that combination either.

I don't mind us having Lampard as back up for Gerrard, but putting them both in central midfield is like trying to accommodate two goalkeepers in the side. He took his penalty well last night, but he's been a passenger in the national side for years now.

[puroresu]

scholes was and still is an excellent player.  He was sacrificed for the so called dream partnership of gerrard and lampard.  shocking.

[stmichael]

Gerrard was abysmal, but those around him were no better. Lampard gave a masterclass of reasons why he shouldn't be in the first 11, I'm not sure Barry completed a single pass successfully, and as for the defence... absolutely hopeless.

I couldn't work out who was playing where in midfield at times. I mean at times Gerrard was playing deeper than Barry ffs. He was asked to play in a strange system in the first half and in the second half he appeared to be asked to play EVERYWHERE, as Frank Lampard couldn't be bothered to track back or do anything other than slouch around slowly just outside the Croat's penalty area. For the system to work Gerrard needed to be further forward picking up the ball from Crouch. Instead he was 30 yards behind him. What's the point of playing Barry behind him if Gerrard's going deeper than him to collect the ball?

Having said that, in the second half Gerrard was woeful I thought. Lost the ball as much as anyone. Tried a difficult pass when a simple one would have kept posession and continued the attack and this is the main reason I defended Rafa when he took Gerrard off against Everton (although he wasn't so bad in that game, and was playing much better than games before that). It was no surprise to me that we kept the ball much better and were more fluent when Leiva came on.

Sometimes you need a player to play intelligently. Keep the ball, get in the right positions for the system you are playing, and then do your damage with blistering runs in the attacking third. Gerrard did none of these things last night.

[ivor_the_injun]

He does my nut sometimes, I must say, with this insistence that he carry the team through, particularly in taking corners and free-kicks. He was even taking them last night for England, and I don't think I've seen him put a decent ball in from any dead-ball situation all season.

He'll have a snarl at lads around him for not picking out his runs, but he'll put the ball out for a goal kick or a throw with an unbelievably ambitious pass and no-one seems to pull him up on it. I love the guy to bits and wouldn't swap him for anyone, but there's no question that he thinks he's got more to his game than he actually has.

[Bammo]

England heat signatures

This is an interesting feature. Looking at Gerrard's info it makes it even clearer he played too deep. He was in our box more than Croatia's!

[ivor_the_injun]

Saw that earlier - check out Crouch's. He ran over 12k, and his coverage all over the opposing half of pitch puts into perspective how poor the midfield were. He wouldn't have had to have dropped so deep so often if they'd have had more control over the game.

[Bammo]

It did amaze me that with 3 central midfielders Crouch still had to come deep. The worst thing about that was when he did drop deep, noone wanted to get forward. All that happened was the game slowed right down.

Can someone give a reasonable explanation why England don't play at a high tempo? Every Premiership team does, yet we slow it down at intenational level and play a game suited to the opponents.

[ivor_the_injun]

Can someone give a reasonable explanation why England don't play at a high tempo? Every Premiership team does, yet we slow it down at intenational level and play a game suited to the opponents.

I think the problem is that we do intend to play at a high tempo, but our players are so terrible at passing the ball that the wheels come off every attack almost immediately.

We started with a real urgency yesterday, and there did look like there was that kind of mission in mind, but a slack pass got snaffled up, and suddenly the ball was going through Carson at the other end.

[stmichael]

Can someone give a reasonable explanation why England don't play at a high tempo? Every Premiership team does, yet we slow it down at intenational level and play a game suited to the opponents.

I think the problem is that we do intend to play at a high tempo, but our players are so terrible at passing the ball that the wheels come off every attack almost immediately.

We started with a real urgency yesterday, and there did look like there was that kind of mission in mind, but a slack pass got snaffled up, and suddenly the ball was going through Carson at the other end.

Couldn't agree more.

I think Croatia's second goal summed up the problems England have for me. England had the ball and were passing it comfortably in midfield. The ball went back to Campbell in an ideal situation for him to let it run across him and move it to the right wing. That was the right ball to play. Instead, Campbell cut back onto his left foot, closing out all his passing options in the process and so lumped it forward. Moments later Croatia had scored.

England did it all game. Rarely did they look to get the ball into Crouch's feet and get runners off him. I know Gerrard and Barry were far from brilliant but you could at least see them trying to do a job, what was Lampard there to do? He's supposed to be the attacking midfielder but not once did he make a run off Crouch.

[account deleted by request]

England heat signatures

This is an interesting feature. Looking at Gerrard's info it makes it even clearer he played too deep. He was in our box more than Croatia's!

Interesting to note that fat frank ran further than Gerrard last night, and Barry although its to be expected in a holding role that he wouldn't cover the same amount of ground as Lampard and Gerrard only covered about half as much.