From Stuart Elsner : Wenger and England
Last night got me thinking about Wenger and his philosophy.
Now although I think his attempts to get players to use their football intelligence has failed for the last ten years at Arsenal I do think at it’s core it is what creates great players
When you look at Italian, German, Spanish, Brazilian sides of the present and the recent past it is clear their players are simply smarter than ours.
Even their coaches seem smarter. We are naive, immature and desperate when it comes to football, and that goes from top to bottom and includes the fans and the press.
I know 1966 was a lifetime ago but the likes of Bobby Moore, Bobby Charlton and Alan Ball, men of the highest football intelligence, were like an alien species to the lightweight, pampered little boys our national game has created.
From Martin : Who is to blame?
Morning Myles,
Well, that was abject but as you state not too unexpected when saw team and then heard Roy explain his selection.The most obvious strength we had in previous games was the two full backs bombing on into clear wing areas and with Iceland likely to defend mostly the expectation is that could bomb on quite freely most of the game.
So what do we do, we put two players directly in front of them with orders to hug the touchline!So tactics basically taking two players out of the game and when the full backs tried to get involved it was congested, tight and complicated, all the things that were trying to avoid by going through the middle.We should have played exactly the same way as did versus Wales, Iceland were set up to give the full backs full licence.But, as workmanlike and as organised as Iceland are, any eleven from 23 with any tactics should have beaten them, so
a lot is on the players, who basically froze in the headlights.Kane was leggy, slow and abysmal, Sterling similar, he does not glide past people anymore with his free running fluency, he now thinks far too much and that kills his spontaneity.
Sturridge is not a wide right player, so not only was he stopping the fullbacks but was also adding nothing himself.
Rashford should have been on much earlier, if not starting if you were going to play two wide men.
Rooney tried, kept looking up for passes, but had zero in front of him and lost trust the more the game went on, to point he became as abject as everyone else.
Expected Jack to come on and provide some guile, and he kept standing in Rooney space,
Do not get me started on Hart, had his moment in every game played, and another shocker last night
When you watch how organised and driven the Italians were you realise how poor we are, that game was a lesson in knowing exactly what need to do before the game and then executing it, Spain huffed and puffed but that game was won before a ball was kicked, and that comes from the Coach.
overpaid and overrated is rightfully being bandied around today as it was embarrassing, not the losing itself, but the manner, and do we think for a second it will change?
Need a bright and brave manager and youngsters who can follow that lead to the letter, and we are a long way from that.
No doubt we qualify for next WC, there will be tinkering and finding best team/tactics till just before and there will be the inevitable exit.
Still enjoying the Euros though, been some good games, and looking forward to Germany-Italy immensely.
