From Rhys Jaggar : I guess you could talk about England…..
Fabio’s new 4-4-2 when defending and 4-2-3-1 when attacking?
How Joe Hart grabbed the England jersey?
How the half-crippled Jermain Defoe banged in a hat-trick, pulled his groin again then said he would be fit for Tuesday!!
The effect of Dawson’s injury on Spurs?
Whether Rooney will pull another performance out tomorrow night?
What the future holds for Frank Lampard in an England shirt?
Whether Adam Johnson and Theo Walcott are competing for one place or whether Milner/Johnson/Walcott are competing for two?
What happened to France last week?
Etc etc etc………..
Myles replies :
I can’t wait for tonight.
The Joe Hart England team is playing in Switzerland, four days after we thrashed Bulgaria 4-0 at Wembley.
England are always lions in September and lambs in June, we’ve known that for decades.
And Bulgaria are the Blackpool of the European Championships.
Football is unpredictable and England’s back four is dodgy, so tonight could be a 2-2 draw. Coach Ottmar Hitzfeld is a canny veteran who will be planning to finish second in the group. The Swiss game will be damage limitation
Jermain Defoe scored a left-footed hat-trick last week and that’s very unusual.
Rooney ran the show and produced four assists, more or less, having found Ashley Cole’s run before the first Defoe goal.
Talking about the Rooney partnership, Defoe said on TV that, “When I scored the second, he came over and said ‘Keep it going JD, you’ll get the third.”
If Defoe gets a goal, it takes pressure off Rooney to score. Wayne really likes other footballers, as I said last season. You can see that in almost every game he plays.
Jermain Defoe, like Martin Chivers in 1972, is a striker who likes to play within the width of the penalty area.
In the summer of 2009, Defoe decided he wanted to have a big season and go to the World Cup. So he worked on his upper body, got stronger, closed defenders down more and held the ball up much better.
Defoe goes back a long way with Harry, who loaned him out from West Ham to Bournemouth when he was about 18. Harry may have said : you’ve got by so far on talent, on your finishing, now you need to improve your all-round game.
Milner, Johnson and Walcott?
James Milner is a throwback, a guy with the face of a Fifties coalminer. Dogged, durable and versatile, Milner linked well with Rooney and Ashley Cole on Friday.
Glenn Johnson can’t defend and almost scored an own-goal to make it 1-1. When he swung his right boot at a cross and missed, the ball hit his left shin and flew low towards the goal. Joe Hart got down and held it on the line and then looked up at Johnson and grinned. His little grin said : These things happen, try not to do that again !
A good goalkeeper has to be alert for emergency moments like that, especially when Glenn Johnson is around.
Sadly, Walcott and Glenn Johnson’s attempts to combine were comically inept. I wouldn’t start Walcott tonight. He played like a plank against Bulgaria. Yes, you’ve seen people on TV telling you that “Walcott’s on fire at the moment” but he played like a plank on Friday night.
If Adam Johnson starts, and the play is on the left, as it will be with Cole, Milner and Rooney having a lot of the ball on that side, AJ can take his fullback inside, opening up the right flank. Glenn Johnson can exploit that space and Rooney or Milner can hit him with a 35-yard crossfield ball. Football is a simple game made harder by stupid players and paranoid managers.
I saw England’s system as one that could be a 4-4-1-1.
Rooney can do some the things that Iniesta and Xavi do but that doesn’t mean England should try to play 4-3-3 with inappropriate personnel.
We hired Capello to find a midfield balance and you’ll never have a midfield balance if Lampard and Gerrard both play. The last decade has proved that. Lampard has different qualities and can play the Barry role because better at keep-ball than Stevie G will ever be. But he’s not so good at being a match-winning gladiator.
The key, as Glenn Hoddle said last night, is to have five in midfield, so each player has less ground to cover, and opponents can’t pass through you so easily.
At home to Bulgaria, England pressed hard, dominated midfield, scored early, then took 58 minutes to score again. The goal times were Defoe 3, Defoe 61, Adam Johnson 83, Defoe 89.
Remember that tonight : England took 58 minutes to score the second goal against Bulgaria at Wembley.
A good friend of mine said Walcott was unlucky to be taken off just as the game was opening up. I know why he said that. But I don’t agree.
England’s back four will face Derdiyok of Bayer Leverkusen, a useful player but not better than the strikers they play against every weekend.
I’m really looking forward to to tonight’s game. Could be a bummer, could be a 1-0 defeat or a 2-2, but I want to see Joe Hart’s England team because Joe gives me a sense of beginning. He should have played in South Africa and Capello knows that now.
Personally, I can only enjoy a team if I really like some of the players and believe in them and want to see what they can do. Rooney’s been naughty but I think he’ll play well tonight.
What happened to France last week?
Well, the main thing in France is the state, the government, the authorities, respect for the state, the status quo, the language, the history of France.
After the squad refused to train in South Africa they sent the deputy sports minister down there and she lectured the delinquent millionaires from the banlieu..I heard Sarkozy was in the dressing room before the Belarus game. What a tart ! Result : France 0 Belarus 1.
Tonight they play in Sarajevo and Bosnia have the dangerous Dzeko, a lanky, prolific striker wanted by many big clubs.
Spurs without Dawson?
Gallas and Bassong can get Spurs through September and October till Dawson comes back. A risky pass by Gerrard caused the injury. He volleyed a midfield ball backwards and wrong-footed Dawson, who overstretched and fell very awkwardly. It looked horrible, like a cruciate. But it’s not.
Rafael van der Vaart is a proven playmaker-goalscorer with a good temperament and a steal at £8 million. He is 27 and has 83 caps and I’m very interested to see how Harry uses him and how he settles into English football.
Ajax/Hamburg/Real Madrid is a good CV. I like him as a player, so I’m glad he’s come over here to ply his trade.