Roy Hodgson, know your role and shut your mouth

[Megadrive Man]

Utter shite, I guarantee if Brendan Rodgers was in charge of this squad we would be seeing a totally different outcome,

 

Agreed. This is the one argument that the Woy apologists can't possibly win!

[Son of L8]

I'm just going to copy/paste this in here, because I really can't be arsed commenting on it...

 

From the Beeb's post-match coverage:

 

 

Hodgson said: "If the team works as hard as they did against Norway, show the appetite and desire, and the aggression in the defending, show the exciting moves that were there for all to see, the fans will come back."

Hodgson's side failed to register a shot on target until Wayne Rooney's 68th-minute penalty at a half-full Wembley, and needed keeper Joe Hart to make a fine save at 0-0.

They had 63% possession throughout the 90 minutes but the only save Orjan Nyland had to make was a powerful shot from new Arsenal signing Danny Welbeck late on.

But Hodgson said: "Two shots on target? Don't give me that one.

"Don't hit me with statistics. When we had that much possession, and you talk about two shots on target?

"What about all the shots they threw themselves in front of?

"We enjoyed some positive moments, some good movement and good play. All the things I wanted I thought I saw for large periods of the game."

 

[polymerpunkah]

 

"We'll find it hard to bring attendances back to very high levels because the opponents we're playing won't excite the public," said Hodgson.

"They're not the teams that normally attract full houses."

And the beat goes on.

 

I'm starting to develop some grudging respect for him.

 

Surely this must be the ultimate 4 million pound piss-take?

[Hades]

Hodgson is a legend, demoralizing England's winning chances so completely that when they come back to Liverpool they're insanely hungry for success.

[xerxes]

There is a dull inevitability about it all.

 

The group is so easy, even Roy can get us to qualify, then we will sink without trace when the serious competition starts.

 

The performance was awful, at home, against poor competition. Would Brendan do better? We will never know because he wouldn't take it for a very long time. We are locked in a cycle of the only takers being those looking to top up their pension fund, an when we did go for a bright young coach in McLaren, that didn't work either.

 

On the plus side Sterling had a good game, on the minus side, Sturridge needs to be scoring in games like these if we are to make CL progress. It was a shame that Lambert didn't get a longer run out.

[A_S]

Wow, he even belittled 'shots on target' as a stat! Whilst they can be artificially inflated if a team is hitting them straight at the keeper from outside the box, taking until the 68th minute via a penalty to even register one when the team enjoys 63% possession.......is it even possible for that stat to be warped in a positive way?

 

And they called Rafa's a 'rant'.

[PestiRed]

Barney Ronay is rapidly becoming my favourite writer. From last year's description of Fellaini as a 'brave sad cartoon dandelion chased by malevolent Lego men' to this week's description of Welbeck as 'English football’s most vaguely promising 23-year-old non-scoring goalscorer'

 

And today he takes a pop at Woy's ability to claim he is playing youth whilst simultaneously destroying it's chances of success

 

England’s new order looks like the old order and the one before that

 

Only Raheem Sterling and Daniel Sturridge dispel the gloom on a night of dreary second-rate international fare

 

Barney Ronay at Wembley Stadium

 

 

Welcome, then, to the new England order. Which looks, on the face of it, quite a lot like the old England order. This friendly international had been trailed in the match programme as the start of “a new journey”, a moment of fresh starts and new cycles and general youthful evolution. And yet England’s 1-0 victory here felt like something more painfully familiar, from the awkward, angular early exchanges, that sense of England’s players struggling always to control a ball that simply wants to bounce too much; right down to the tiny speckles of moribund hope, of talent unexpressed and potential unexplored, that decorated a night of second-rate international football at a stadium wreathed in a predictable fug of post-World Cup ennui.

 

On nights like these poring over England’s failings always feels a bit like pummelling the rib cage of a broken man. Indeed, as underpowered sporting occasions go this post-tournament belch of an autumn friendly always looked like a gimme. And yet such is England’s capacity to sink to the occasion right now that it was still possible to feel a little startled by the stodginess of a performance of lumpen but willing intent from a team lassoed for the occasion into a depressingly rigid meat-and-potatoes 4-4-2 that leant the whole evening a peculiarly dank, retro air.

 

It is, of course, much more challenging to search for glimmers of hope in among the beeps and pings of the life-support machines. For England there was one obvious bright spot and a few supporting flickers. Raheem Sterling, stationed on the left wing in defiance of all evidence of his attacking fluency, was an obvious man of the match and made the goal that settled the game, drawing a foul inside the Norway area with another fine, upright, scuttling surge. The penalty kick was expertly converted by Wayne Rooney, who scarcely had to move from his customary position clamped at the central edge of the penalty area to take it.

 

Daniel Sturridge was a nimble-footed presence at the point of England’s attack. John Stones had a decent game at right-back. Otherwise if there were grounds for hope they were simply that this was at least a relatively new England team out there playing like the same old England team as Hodgson picked seven players aged 25 or under. What youthfulness! What brio! What stifling tactical rigidity!

 

Indeed England were almost alarmingly muted at times in the first half. Back and forth. Back and forth. Back again. Forth again. Watching the lateral movements of England’s four-square midfield there was a danger some in the crowd might have been lulled to sleep like deck hands in hammocks. There is above all a sense of trapped energy about all this. The modern full-back is a wonderfully potent force at times, just as the footballing world is currently rife with roving attacking midfielders. And yet in this suffocating truss of a formation England are denied access to any of this, the full-backs running a straight line around halfway and only Sterling’s natural adventure drawing him inside into areas he can be most effective

 

It is baffling that anybody who saw Sterling’s contribution from the tip of the attacking diamond in Liverpool’s win at White Hart Lane on Sunday would want to isolate him on the left wing, beyond the obvious need to accommodate Rooney in his own preferred role. And indeed at times there seemed to be two England teams playing simultaneously: the one with Sterling and Sturridge and (in glimpses) Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain in it, all fleet-footed, if slightly ragged, attacking ambition. And then the rest, pegged out in those familiar straight lines, with Rooney not just immobile but strangely deathly in that muted No10 role, the clogged artery at the heart of this England team.

 

There will be much debate about systems, more specifically the one Hodgson reverted to here, abandoning the 4-2-3-1 seized on before the World Cup like a middle-aged man desperately squeezing himself into the nearest pair of tactical skinny jeans. And yet it would be wrong to fixate on formations. Not only is 4-4-2 itself experiencing a cautious revival (Atlético Madrid won La Liga with a high-energy variation last season), but as many sage judges have pointed out, international football is less about systems as about players in the end, the indivisible base metal that your system provides.

 

With this in mind, if there were some tempting parallels to be drawn between the presence of Norway at Wembley and the travails of Graham Taylor and the team that could not “knock it” 21 years ago, there is undoubtedly a broader sense of pessimism now. Even in the throes of that doomed World Cup qualifying campaign under Taylor there was still some vague hope then that the newly booming Premier League would eventually provide, that English football’s grand schematic makeover would involve spending just a moment or two ironing out the knots in the England team.

 

And yet quite the opposite has happened. The success of the Premier League has brought with it a profound developmental strangulation of young English talent. The players were willing, as ever, at Wembley, and some belated relief arrived late on in the final post-Rooney minutes when that portable pall of gloom seemed to lift a little. Rooney will be comforted by having scored his 41st England goal on his captaincy debut. But England were undeniably more fluid, as they were against Italy in Manaus, with Sterling in that central role and two quick mobile forwards ahead of him.

 

Not that this matters particularly. Hodgson will not drop his captain for the Euro 2016 qualifier against Switzerland in Basel on Monday. And while there will be frustration at the restraints imposed by some overly linear tactics, the greater sense of waste lies in the evidence here and in Brazil of a shallow, and strangely unassertive pool of talent.

 

And of another new era dawning, once again, with a familiarly muted thud.

[Stickman]

Not sure what tactics the face rubber is trying to get across here???

 

[Alan Sex]

Not sure what tactics the face rubber is trying to get across here???

 

"A Spider! Get it boss! Get it!"

 

Woy: "Alwhight! Woy to da wescue!"

[Guest Numero Veinticinco]

"Rooney's been very quiet"

 

That's because he's absolutely fucking SHITE.

He is. He fucking is. He's earning 250k per week and ylhe is the captain of one of the biggest clubs in Manchester and one of the best footballing nations in the UK. No idea how he pulls it off. He is fucking shite. Then there's Roy Hodgson as England manager. I wouldn't leave that cunt in charge of a chip pan in an electricity blackout. Cunt.

[lifetime fan]

Patsy.

[Jairzinho]

Patsy and pasty. Manager and captain.

[RoyHodgeGone]

Roy proves again that he is the master of Scandanavian football with a solid win and clean sheet vs Norway. The lack of shots on target tells you that this is a ruthlessly efficient unit that Roy is drilling. 

[RobbieOR]

That rugby headed cunt Kevin Davies things Brendan should repace him. Funniest thing Ive heard in ages.

 

http://www.express.co.uk/sport/football/506874/Liverpool-boss-Brendan-Rodgers-should-replace-Roy-Hodgson-as-England-boss-Kevin-Davies

[sh#t waffle]

Both Kevin Davies and Roy Hodgson are complete fucking twats.

[RoyHodgeGone]

That rugby headed cunt Kevin Davies things Brendan should repace him. Funniest thing Ive heard in ages.

 

http://www.express.co.uk/sport/football/506874/Liverpool-boss-Brendan-Rodgers-should-replace-Roy-Hodgson-as-England-boss-Kevin-Davies

 

I bet Kevin would like to marry Angelina Jolie too.

 

I'm not actually convinced Roy will stay on that long. Look what happened to Keegan after Euro 2000. A couple of bad qualifiers and who knows? The trouble is there is just no-one to replace him with. I can't see them going down the foreign manager route again. 

 

Who knows, if Hull have a good start to the season - and they've made some interesting signings - perhaps the Steve Bruce bandwagon will begin. Longer term, Garry Monk might be one to follow. Swansea have a record of making shrewd managerial appointments and I can imagine the 'new Rodgers' title taking hold. 

[Torvald Utne]

I don't see why Rodgers couldn't do both, I've never understood why the England manager position is full time

[PestiRed]

Shame on Kevin Davies, trying to give the England job to someone who isn't English. Patrick Barclay, Martin Samuel and Henry Winter will sort him out

 

Kevin does know that Northern Ireland isn't in England, doesn't he?

[Special K]

http://www.standard.co.uk/sport/football/patrick-barclay-phil-jones-shows-that-he-may-be-returning-to-his-old-form-9710593.html

 

Barclay's opinion. The mind boggles

[Tony Moanero]

Barclay is an empty-head.

[Trumo]

I don't see why Rodgers couldn't do both, I've never understood why the England manager position is full time

 

I'd much rather our manager be fully focussed on us.

[Russ Atmosphere]

[PestiRed]

http://www.standard.co.uk/sport/football/patrick-barclay-phil-jones-shows-that-he-may-be-returning-to-his-old-form-9710593.html

Barclay's opinion. The mind boggles

Van Gaal has stimulated and improved Jones in the United defence? Does Barclay actually watch the football or does he just smoke crack, fantasise and write about that instead?

[markcd]

I'm sure this has been posted before, but if we are mentioning Barclay and Hodgson on the same sentence.....

 

Patrick Barclay: Good luck, old friend – the road from Malmo to Manaus is long

 

 

 

 

Award-winning writer sends a good-luck message to Roy Hodgson - a man he has known for 35 years

PATRICK BARCLAY

 

 

 

Sunday 08 June 2014

     

         

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A A A

From where you sit, the journey is just beginning – your contract with the Football Association lasts until after the 2016 European Championship and you'll relish the prospect of taking your younger players, matured by two intervening years, to France – but for me it's a culmination. Ever since I got to know you, I've wanted to see what you could do for England in a World Cup. Yes, you were at the European Championship two years ago, but you didn't have enough time. This is the high wire without a safety net. So don't feel under any pressure…

Remember when we first met? It was 24 April 1979. More than 35 years ago. I'd gone to Malmo because if Nottingham Forest won in Cologne the following night while the Swedish club overcame Austria Vienna at home, Brian Clough would be up against your mate and fellow Englishman Bobby Houghton in the European Cup final. It came to pass: Ian Bowyer was to score in Cologne and Tommy Hansson in Malmo. But first, Jeff Farmer, then of the Daily Mail, and I of The Guardian went for lunch with Houghton to hear the story of his life, and when we arrived at the restaurant you were there as well.

You were the successful young manager of Halmstad. Naturally Jeff and I took an interest in your subsequent career, and when five consecutive titles at Malmo were followed by the guiding of Switzerland to their first World Cup finals in 28 years, I became convinced that you should manage the international team closest to your expatriate heart. Your affection and respect for England and their coaches – the likes of Bobby Robson, once your course tutor, Dave Sexton and Don Howe – was manifest in every conversation, and so was your drive to carry on their work, adapting it to the conditions of your time.

At various stages I sought to persuade the FA to appoint you to your current job, but they appeared to think the answer to England's under-achievement lay in paying vast salaries to designer managers from the Italian club scene: Sven-Goran Eriksson and Fabio Capello. Most of the media seemed happy with such expedients. Only Jim Holden of the Daily Express and I were consistent in our arguments for you, and our combined weight seemed an ounce of feathers until, no doubt coincidentally, the FA regime of David Bernstein shocked the nation by overlooking Harry Redknapp in favour of you.

It was frustrating to think of all the millions that could have been saved and invested in proper coaching had Bernstein's predecessors not run England as if the national team were a loasdamoney club. But at least your salary had been driven up – I doubt that you'd have even asked what it was had they come for you 15 years ago – and it was better late than never. But was it too late, too long since you had completed your Swiss sojourn by steering them to your homeland for Euro 96, for England to enjoy the peak of your powers?

I don't think so. For all your Kafka-esque experiences at Liverpool, it was only four years ago that you supervised one of the most inspiring European campaigns by an English club in Europe. A list of Fulham's opponents on the route to the Europa League final against Atletico Madrid tells its own story: Roma, Basel, Shakhtar Donetsk, Wolfsburg, Hamburg… and, of course, Juventus.

What a night that was at the Cottage. I was still trying to get through the turnstiles when David Trezeguet made it 1-4 on aggregate, but Bobby Zamora struck, then Fabio Cannavaro was sent off, and the combination of intelligence and passion with which your players used that advantage is something that will live with me for ever, as will the sight of Clint Dempsey's chip drifting inexorably home to secure victory. Your lads even took the final to extra time before succumbing to Diego Forlan and Sergio Aguero.

Now, in Brazil, you are to face the equivalents of Cannavaro, and the reality of Forlan (and perhaps, in time, Aguero), but with even better players such as Steven Gerrard and Wayne Rooney, and trump cards like Raheem Sterling and Ross Barkley. Yes, and an infinitely greater weight of expectation, or at least glare of scrutiny, as you were reminded when a balanced assessment of Barkley after the friendly against Ecuador was portrayed – understandably – as killjoy nit-picking.

Comparing them in a roundabout way with Crewe Alexandra was unfortunate too; you'll never be the finished article until you learn to relax and play the media game. Still, I suppose Alf Ramsey, who never bothered with that, did all right.

But do England really expect to challenge for World Cups these days? For much of your time in charge your measured and realistic personality, it seems to me, has conspired in the lowering of expectations. You must, however, get out of that group. And you should, for Uruguay are not as good, overall, as the Chileans who so impressed Wembley seven months ago, and Italy are vulnerable to the pace your attacking players have in abundance. Then the nation will accept a respectable defeat and the honouring of your contract in full, especially if the promise of youth develops in Brazil. Can you complete the formation, in these few short weeks, of something akin to the Fulham who overcame Juventus? It would be quite a feat, but the opportunity is what you wished for.

All the very best, as ever...

 

[Boss]

http://www.standard.co.uk/sport/football/patrick-barclay-phil-jones-shows-that-he-may-be-returning-to-his-old-form-9710593.html

 

Barclay's opinion. The mind boggles

 

He's obviously a manc because he skimmed over the only positive from the game... Sturridge and Sterling, putting that solely down to them being at the same club, he didn't even mention the clubs name, just briskly moved through those prose as an adjunct for his praise of Phil Jones.

 

Then talks about Ferguson's tactical use of Jones before lumping the praise on yes you guessed it Van Gaal for last nights famous victory. No mention of Hodgson whatsoever, no mention of the tedium, no mention of weetabix head going missing as always, no mention of shot's on target, just a propaganda piece on Phil Jones deflecting away from reality.

 

What i want to know is how he gets away with it? how one of the editors doesn't say to him "hang on there's virtually nothing on England in this, you've just wrote about Man United here, you were meant to cover the England game weren't you?".