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England players' technique

Walsall supporters react to England's despairs - as they happened. No text speak, please.
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WombourneSaddlers
 
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England players' technique

Wed Jun 20, 2012 5:49 pm

In the short term, I think RH has done very well to manouvre this squad into the quarter-finals. His tactics have been clear, the players all know what is expected of them and the work rate/commitment is back up to the level you would expect. The fact that the media have downplayed their chances till now is also a step forward, a recognition that they are an average collection of international footballers, just a surprise that some people have taken so long to recognise it. Maybe, with continued solid defending, maximum effort and a spot of fortune, we could go further and emulate the Greeks.

But, this tournament aside, one thing that irritates/confuses me is that no-one ever seems to look beyond the short term. I have been watching England in major tournaments since 1982. In every one (assuming we've qualified) at some point, we have heard the excuse that obviously the England players don't have the technique to match the likes of Italy/Netherlands/Portugal/Brazil/Spain/Germany/Croatia/Uruguay/Argentina/Russia/France/Belgium/Switzerland etc. (delete as applicable) so we have to 'play to our strengths,' whatever they may be. RH is even now in the process of expertly fashioning a sturdy wallet from a pig's ear and doing it a lot better than most of his predecessors.

But in all that time very few pundits/managers/players/fans have asked why, at least not publically. Why do we always have to accept that we will be unable to retain the ball, pass the ball and dribble as well as most other major football nations (and a fair few minor ones too)? Our game is awash with cash, so it can't be a funding issue. We have tens of thousands of eager youngsters taking up the game so it can't be a limited pool of talent problem. And it surely can't surely be genetic. So why must it always be so? Wouldn't it be nice if once, just once, we turned up at an international tournament with a squad full of talented ball players with great technique who can win games by means other than set-pieces and last-ditch defending. We did it, for a bit, in 1990. I haven't seen it since. Perhaps if we could produce these players, the job of being England manager wouldn't be such a nightmarish one.

And a further question presents itself. If these players are so limited technically that our only hope of progress in a tournament is to get 11 of them behind the ball and lump it forward whenever it comes near us, then why are they being paid so much? Our squad includes some of the wealthiest footballers on the planet and yet we carry on as though they were a plucky bunch of amateurs who have somehow made it through to the third round of the FA Cup. If they are earning 110k+ pw whilst apparently being deficient in technique, then hasn't something gone drastically wrong with our game?

I don't have the answers to any of these questions, obviously.

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PT
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Re: England players' technique

Wed Jun 20, 2012 9:17 pm

It's grass roots kids coaching.

Us English are obsessed with winning from a very early age. Go to your local park on a Sunday and you'll hear dads and coaches screaming at youngsters to "put your foot through it" and the like. The biggest and strongest are deemed the best from an early age.

Things might change with a new generation coming through the academy system rather than parks football which is by and large ran by well-meaning dads rather than professional coaches. In countries like Spain, Holland and Germany there are many many more qualified coaches and they tend to preach a "love the football" mentality at around the age we're telling our kids that "if in doubt boot it out".

The big miss for England is of course Jack Wilshire who does have the kind of technique you describe.

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Re: England players' technique

Wed Jun 20, 2012 10:48 pm

It's because all the money gets sucked up to the top and spread amongst the ones who are already there, not where it's needed.

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Re: England players' technique

Thu Jun 21, 2012 3:07 pm

PT wrote:It's grass roots kids coaching.

Us English are obsessed with winning from a very early age. Go to your local park on a Sunday and you'll hear dads and coaches screaming at youngsters to "put your foot through it" and the like. The biggest and strongest are deemed the best from an early age.

Things might change with a new generation coming through the academy system rather than parks football which is by and large ran by well-meaning dads rather than professional coaches. In countries like Spain, Holland and Germany there are many many more qualified coaches and they tend to preach a "love the football" mentality at around the age we're telling our kids that "if in doubt boot it out".

The big miss for England is of course Jack Wilshere who does have the kind of technique you describe.

It's not as clear cut as that. Yes, there are berks running children's teams who shouldn't be allowed within a million miles of them but there is still more emphasis on individual technique nowadays than there ever was, 20, 30, 40 years ago. Personally, I question what happens to the boys when they reach the pro clubs. We have had Centres of Excellence for 24 years now and Academies for about 15 years. Would you say that the skill level of English players, at the top levels, has improved in that time? I wouldn't.

I am hopeful that the new centre at St. George's Park will start the improvement. It is intended to work on coach education (rather like the Italian model) instead of wasting millions, as on the the previous F.A. National School at Lilleshall.

The blocking of the development of promising young English/British players by cheap, second-rate imports has got to stop. Only fully established top-class international players should be allowed to be imported into the Premier League and Football League. Unfortunately, under EU employment rules, this is unlikely to happen.

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Re: England players' technique

Thu Jun 21, 2012 7:07 pm

The England v Sweden game was like watching Stoke v Blackburn.

Credit is due to Hodgson for getting the strategy right in playing to the players strengths, something the previous two managers failed to do.

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Re: England players' technique

Thu Jun 21, 2012 8:28 pm

The blocking of the development of promising young English/British players by cheap, second-rate imports has got to stop. Only fully established top-class international players should be allowed to be imported into the Premier League and Football League.


But wouldn't that just lower the quality of the Premier League/Football League? When you watch old First Division games from the 1980s, the decade immediately before the PL, which featured almost exclusively British players, it is shocking how poor technically the games were. I'm not sure that playing in a 'more English' Premier League would help the young England players in terms of developing the skills we are talking about.

Wouldn't a better solution in the short term (while we wait for the fruits of St Georges) be for talented young English players to look for loan deals or moves to other European clubs? Rather than sitting on the bench for Chelsea or Arsenal and complaining about a lack of opportunities, why not spend a season in the Dutch, German or Portugese leagues? Yes it would involve a pay cut, but it would give them an experience of a different kind of football. They might learn new skills and become better international players as a result.

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Re: England players' technique

Thu Jun 21, 2012 11:31 pm

WombourneSaddlers wrote:When you watch old First Division games from the 1980s, the decade immediately before the PL, which featured almost exclusively British players, it is shocking how poor technically the games were. I'm not sure that playing in a 'more English' Premier League would help the young England players in terms of developing the skills we are talking about.

Those self-same "more English" teams dominated European football, though, didn't they? They couldn't have been THAT poor!

Wouldn't a better solution in the short term (while we wait for the fruits of St George's) be for talented young English players to look for loan deals or moves to other European clubs? Rather than sitting on the bench for Chelsea or Arsenal and complaining about a lack of opportunities, why not spend a season in the Dutch, German or Portuguese leagues? Yes it would involve a pay cut, but it would give them an experience of a different kind of football. They might learn new skills and become better international players as a result.

That would be a really excellent idea but I couldn't see our teenagers doing that - what with the effort of trying to adapt to a foreign culture and, worst of all, actually learn a foreign language! It would be interesting to hear from our Premier League managers as to why our youngsters aren't sent out to foreign clubs.

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Re: England players' technique

Fri Jun 22, 2012 8:19 am

I feel that the debate on technique edges further from the original point of football every time, which is to win the match.

If you win the match, you've been better at football than your opponent on that day, because the object of football isn't tiki-taka or possession, it's to have scored more goals than your opponent in 90 minutes. That's it. Over-complicating this objective is often the product of sour grapes from managers of losing sides, believing that despite the final score their team was better at football because of technique and/or possession.

All this talk of what's easy on the eye and whatnot - what's easier on the eye than your team winning?

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Re: England players' technique

Fri Jun 22, 2012 8:30 am

4143 wrote:I feel that the debate on technique edges further from the original point of football every time, which is to win the match.

If you win the match, you've been better at football than your opponent on that day, because the object of football isn't tiki-taka or possession, it's to have scored more goals than your opponent in 90 minutes. That's it. Over-complicating this objective is often the product of sour grapes from managers of losing sides, believing that despite the final score their team was better at football because of technique and/or possession.

All this talk of what's easy on the eye and whatnot - what's easier on the eye than your team winning?


Totally agree, and this is where so many England managers have gone wrong over the years. We haven't really had as good a players as the top nations, but we have still had some bloody good players, that play to a high level, at the top level week in, week out. What the managers have failed to do is get the right blend, and get the most out of these players, which ever way that may be.

This seems to have been highlighted by Roy Hodgson, who realises we have a limited bunch of players, especially attack minded players, so has gone for the let's stay tight at the back approach, and see if we can nick a goal. Not pretty, but we won a group we really weren't even fancied to get out of.

Of course having better players, that can keep the ball, use it wisely, and so on, would give us more options in what we could do, but still, the main point is, we have failed on so many occasions to get the most out of what we have got, and worried more about what we haven't.

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Re: England players' technique

Fri Jun 22, 2012 3:05 pm

I feel that the debate on technique edges further from the original point of football every time, which is to win the match.

If you win the match, you've been better at football than your opponent on that day, because the object of football isn't tiki-taka or possession, it's to have scored more goals than your opponent in 90 minutes. That's it. Over-complicating this objective is often the product of sour grapes from managers of losing sides, believing that despite the final score their team was better at football because of technique and/or possession.

All this talk of what's easy on the eye and whatnot - what's easier on the eye than your team winning?


I agree that playing attractive football is not the purpose of the game (although as I said, it would be nice to see an England team do this, just once). But good technique is not the same as playing in a particularly pleasing style. The Germans have impeccable technique, but they play in a different way to the Spanish, the Portugese, the Dutch etc.

I'm not talking about extravagant skills or tiki-taka, just being able to pass, control and keep the ball, under pressure. We've regularly struggled against the better teams (and some ordinary ones) at major tournaments because we can't keep the ball. So we're left with two alternatives: attack at a high tempo, and give the ball away higher up the field, or get everyone back in our own half so that when we give the ball away, we are at least hard to break down.

I was just responding to the fact that it appears to be accepted by all in football that our players will always be deficient in technique, compared to other nations, and wondering why that would be. Surely if our players were better able to retain possession, we could then play at a higher 'English' tempo and still keep the ball, a potent combination. I think the 96 team under Venables came closest to achieving this.

Those self-same "more English" teams dominated European football, though, didn't they? They couldn't have been THAT poor!


That's true and I have no answer to it, other than to suggest that maybe sometimes we had a fitness/stamina edge and were able to outmuscle/outlast some of the lesser teams in Europe which we probably couldn't do now? Maybe if we'd had the Champions League structure in the late 1970s/early 1980s and had to beat 3-4 of the top European teams on the way to the final, we might not have dominated so much?

If I could turn it round again, why was it that we were able to dominate at club level in Europe but couldn't produce a decent England team in that era? Maybe there are just too many complicating factors to draw simple conclusions.

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Re: England players' technique

Sat Jun 23, 2012 7:33 pm

As much as the English couch potato sits at home jizzing all over the coffee table to La Liga on Sky Sports 4, I for one am not a huge fan of Spain's football, it's fine to a point but walking the ball into the net can be a tad boring.

I know many will scoff at my outrageous statement but watching 10 crabs pass intricately across the pitch isnt exciting as a full blooded 4-4 English league division 3 draw.

Just as those dego loving fans enjoy a quick one-two or 856 passes in a row, I get just as excited by a good strong tackle, which has effectively been banned because girls at UEFA and FIFA took a non sexual liking to diving long haired latino gypo's and decided that the sport that used to be a mans game morph into touch football.

Football has changed and not necessarily for the better. Bring back tackling! Bring back standing! Ban the mexican wave! Ban bands at matches! Force everyone to drink Bovril!

Much better

Whilst Im at it, 1 month ago a team with plenty of English players and some other foreigners without the MOSSIVE skill levels of the likes of Spain won the biggest club match in world football.

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Re: England players' technique

Sat Jun 23, 2012 9:23 pm

I know many will scoff at my outrageous statement but watching 10 crabs pass intricately across the pitch isnt exciting as a full blooded 4-4 English league division 3 draw


It isn't outrageous in the slightest. Entertainment comes in many forms and each to their own.

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Re: England players' technique

Tue Jun 26, 2012 9:01 pm

4143 wrote:I feel that the debate on technique edges further from the original point of football every time, which is to win the match.

If you win the match, you've been better at football than your opponent on that day, because the object of football isn't tiki-taka or possession, it's to have scored more goals than your opponent in 90 minutes. That's it. Over-complicating this objective is often the product of sour grapes from managers of losing sides, believing that despite the final score their team was better at football because of technique and/or possession.

All this talk of what's easy on the eye and whatnot - what's easier on the eye than your team winning?


Yes.....but you don't improve your chances of scoring (and winning) if you keep giving the ball away through mis-placed passes.

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Re: England players' technique

Tue Jun 26, 2012 10:23 pm

Welsh_Saddler wrote:
4143 wrote:I feel that the debate on technique edges further from the original point of football every time, which is to win the match.

If you win the match, you've been better at football than your opponent on that day, because the object of football isn't tiki-taka or possession, it's to have scored more goals than your opponent in 90 minutes. That's it. Over-complicating this objective is often the product of sour grapes from managers of losing sides, believing that despite the final score their team was better at football because of technique and/or possession.

All this talk of what's easy on the eye and whatnot - what's easier on the eye than your team winning?


Yes.....but you don't improve your chances of scoring (and winning) if you keep giving the ball away through mis-placed passes.


If you think I was suggesting that passing should be completely and totally neglected, the focus of your post is so obtuse that one might as well argue that having a team containing anything but attacking midfielders is a waste of time.

I'm prepared to offer you the benefit of the doubt, and expect that you were merely offering a codicil to my overall views, rather than contradicting them. :D

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Re: England players' technique

Thu Jun 28, 2012 12:14 am

4143 wrote:
Welsh_Saddler wrote:
4143 wrote:I feel that the debate on technique edges further from the original point of football every time, which is to win the match.

If you win the match, you've been better at football than your opponent on that day, because the object of football isn't tiki-taka or possession, it's to have scored more goals than your opponent in 90 minutes. That's it. Over-complicating this objective is often the product of sour grapes from managers of losing sides, believing that despite the final score their team was better at football because of technique and/or possession.

All this talk of what's easy on the eye and whatnot - what's easier on the eye than your team winning?


Yes.....but you don't improve your chances of scoring (and winning) if you keep giving the ball away through mis-placed passes.


If you think I was suggesting that passing should be completely and totally neglected, the focus of your post is so obtuse that one might as well argue that having a team containing anything but attacking midfielders is a waste of time.

I'm prepared to offer you the benefit of the doubt, and expect that you were merely offering a codicil to my overall views, rather than contradicting them. :D


That's extremely (not to say jolly well) decent of you.....it wasn't so much a codicil though - there is a word that fits perfectly, but my dementia results in words like that being tantalisingly just out of reach. Codicil will do (get the pun? :wink: ), but I reserve the right to post again when the other wretched word occurs to me, probably in a couple of days' time.

As to your overall views, I presume that was a veiled reference to Germany's ultimate success in the tournament - as Michael Flanders said..."Say what you like about the Germans, and who doesn't, what a marvellous song that is of theirs - German, German, overalls" :D

(Edit - an immediate afterthought is "rider" rather than "codicil", but it still isn't the word I really want :evil: )

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Re: England players' technique

Thu Jun 28, 2012 8:50 am

I have to reflect this morning with Spain safely into their 3rd consecutive major championships final, that watching two teams of hung over chuggers kicking three shades of **** out of each other on King Georges playing fields of a Sunday morning is much more fun.

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