England

[Jenks]

Doesn't bother me. His lack of pace yet position as our supposed best defender was holding us back anyway.

 

[beautifulgame]

My point is that those players over the past 10 seasons have performed at the highest level - the CL with their clubs. They produce it for the clubs in the CL on a consistent basis over the past 10 seasons.

The players - well that group of players - were not the problem. The system was the problem and it still is.

Untrue. The English players were generally fillers, the foreign players are the reasons for those wins.

 

[Jenks]

Gerrard and Carragher were filler for Liverpool? Lampard, Cole and Terry were filler for Chelsea? Rio, Rooney and Scholes were filler for United? Come on, you're being silly. They were crucial. A better point would be that thoseforeign players with their superior skills in keeping possession and passing were what made it possible for those English players to shine in the first place.

 

[La Furia]

What a scumbag John Terry is, acting like a victim because the FA only went part of the way defending his racist antics.

 

[Jenks]

His hearing is today I believe, so it looks like they'll find him guilty, and this was all a 'jump or be pushed' type scenario.

 

[Ursegor]

Gerrard and Carragher

Lampard, Cole and Terry

Rio, Rooney and Scholes

4 of those 8 players you named are defenders but the backline hasn't been England's problem anyway. 2 are glorified second strikers who are playing in midfield and have no clue about passing, moving, positioning, defending, organising. One, like many Ferguson players, retired 10 years before his club career ended. And one is an inconsistent, indisciplined, technically average striker who is immensely hyped up because he's English and wearing a United jersey. Rooney played second fiddle to every forward at United. First Ruud. Then Ronaldo. Now it looks like van Persie. He's not a forward to lead a whole nation to glory. England = shit goalkeepers, good defenders, shit midfielders and an overhyped striker (+ Heskey + Carroll + Crouch + Defoe).

 

[Jenks]

You're adding arbitrary criteria trying to rescue a refuted point, while refuting another that no one is making. For all their footballing inadequacies, the fact is they did perform at the highest level and were not filler in their clubs. Rooney technically average? Behave. I'm not sure what team you were watching, but Rooney was never kept out of the team by RVN or Ronaldo, nor RVP now. They don't even play in the same position. He is overhyped, but that's a far-cry from being average, and to suggest he's been a 'filler' player at United is laughable. Hart isn't shit either.

 

[FCBarca]

What a scumbag John Terry is, acting like a victim because the FA only went part of the way defending his racist antics.

That kind of myopia is endemic in those parts

 

[Meitux]

Untrue. The English players were generally fillers, the foreign players are the reasons for those wins.

drogba the biggest example for chelsea

 

[Jenks]

Lampard's passes either set-up or started the moves that lead to two of the three goals against Barca. It's fair to say that these teams couldn't have done what they did without their foreign players, but to say the English ones were all just filler is bordering on retarded.

 

[PearLBLacK]

Untrue. The English players were generally fillers, the foreign players are the reasons for those wins.

drogba the biggest example for chelsea

No.

English players aren't fillers or sidekicks to the foreign players. True, the Spaniards with their greater skill and ball control, the Africans with their more physical approach, and the odd Dutch/Italians/French with their better tactical awareness have had a great deal in English clubs' success. English clubs have reached the UCL final in the past two seasons and from 2009 - 2005, with 2008 witnessing an all English final. But that isn't all down to foreign players with English players just having a side role.

In 2012, Lampard, Cole, and Cahill were very crucial to Chelsea's success. The year before, United had Rooney, Scholes, Carrick, and Ferdinand, all featured in the final. In 2009, all four again took part in the final. In 2008, there were a total of 10 English players in the starting lineup of both teams. In 2007, four English players played in the final for Liverpool. The year before, Arsenal, probably the EPL team with the most foreigners, had 2 English players in their lineup, forming the core of their defense. And in 2005, Liverpool had 2 English players, one of them the captain.

The problem with English players is that they underperform in international tournaments. I mean, they last won a major tournament in 1966, and their best performance since then was reaching the semi-final in WC 1990. The same with the Euros, they haven't reached the semifinals since 1996. It could be the system that's at fault as AnfieldEd said. But when you have a top class coach in Fabio Capello, and even he can't guide you past Algeria to win your group in the WC, it's gotta be something more than the system. At least the future might be brighter than the past 4 years with youngsters like Wilshere, Welbeck, and Ox emerging.


I still don't like England though.

 

[Ursegor]

Meh.

2012 Chelsea didn't make the final because Lampard, Cahill and Cole are such superior players. It was the biggest run of luck you'll ever see in football which had nothing to do with the individual quality of the English Chelsea players. And even if you have to highlight players who were crucial, it has to be Drogba and Ramires. Not Cole or Lampard.

Liverpool had their greatest moments with Alonso-Mascherano in midfield and Torres at his peak upfront. Those 3 left and all of a sudden Gerrard looks past his prime (albeit just turning 32) and Liverpool as a whole are battling for relegation.

United reached the CL final in 2011 but they weren't the second best team in Europe by any stretch of imagination and they got humiliated in the final. As expected with a Giggs-Carrick central midfield. Olympic Marseille and Schalke in the knockout rounds. Talk about an easy route.

Arsenal in 2006 were the most un-English team ever. Henry, Ljungberg, Fabregas, Pires, Gilberto Silva, Lehmann.

2008 was THE year for English clubs. But here is the Chelsea lineup in the final: Cech, Essien, Carvalho, Makelele, Ballack, Malouda, Drogba. 7 out of 11 players not English.

The best English players, as I said, are defenders. Cole, Terry, Ferdinand. But that's really it. A Gerrard-Lampard-Beckham-Joe Cole midfield is not WC winning material. It's utter shit.

 

[Jenks]

You're twisting the facts to suit your opinion. Liverpool won absolutely nothing with their Alonso-Mascherano double pivot. The year they won the Champions League Gerrard and Carragher were instrumental. United never won in 2011, so why point to that? Why not point to the year they did win it, the year they knocked out Barcelona thanks to a Paul Scholes screamer? Ashley Cole has consistently been among the best left backs in the world for years, and Lampard is 15 goals away from becoming Chelsea's all time top scorer. And for an 'average' player, 31 goals in 71 European games isn't bad for Rooney either, the first three being a hat-trick on his début in the Champions League. The only valid point in there is the Arsenal one, even then, somewhat off point. Nobody said they were World Cup winning material, that's a straw man. The point of contention wasn't that they were somehow world class, it was your suggestion that they were 'filler' players, which is absurd, frankly.

 

[Ursegor]

No. You are twisting facts. I don't care if Liverpool won something with Alonso-Mascherano or not when assessing the quality of football players and teams. Because Liverpool clearly played their best football in 2008 when they battered Real Madrid with 4-0 or United with 4-1. Not in 2005 when they got battered 0-3 until halftime by Milan and somehow fluked their way back. Nevermind that the 2005 Liverpool team had a whooping 2 Englishman in the starting XI.

I didn't point to United in 2011. PearLBLacK did.

A Paul Scholes screamer is irrelevant. Scholes retired 8 years ago from international football.

Cole has been among the best LBs in the world. And I've already stated TWICE that defense was never England's problem. So why bring him up again?

Rooney's record doesn't surprise me. Teams Manchester United regularly face in Champions League group stages:

Basel
Otelul Galati
Bursaspor
Glasgow Rangers
Besiktas
ZSKA Moscow
Aalborg BK
Celtic Glasgow

That's just from 2008 onwards.

Also I didn't call Rooney average. I called him technically average. Which is a difference.

"Filler players"? No. They were / are important parts of their teams. But being an important player in one evironment (surrounded by 9 or 10 foreign players + a foreign coach) doesn't automatically make you an important player once you are taken out of that specific environment. Fabregas was the best midfielder in the Premier League by quite some distance for years. In a different environment he doesn't replicate that form at all. Football dynamics are a bitch, eh? Lampard could do his best centreforward imitation being covered by the likes of Makelele and Essien in midfield. Likewise Gerrard's huff and puff football with Alonso and Mascherano allowing him that freedom. So who's England's Makelele then?

 

[AnfieldEd]

Yet those players in the CL over the past 10 years have produced.....

Yet you've still missed my point. They may be overrated, they maybe be average but there is no doubts over the past 10 years those players have produced in the CL.

So my point remains in that it is the system and what the system surrounds itself in and what it produces which is why england flounder and embarrass themselves on the international stage. Put those players in the french, italian, spanish, brazilian system etc and you'd see vastly superior results on from them on the international stage.