Only thing worse than England

last night.

Was ITV telling us how good England were. Christ Adrian Chiles has slipped straight into full ITV bullshit mode, if it’s on this channel it’s great when we all know everything is shite “live and exclusive on ITV”.

Ah England were stuffing the Yanks, if it just hadn’t been for the slight blip. That was the party line from Chiles and his chums, including the tactical genius that is Keggy Keegle. That slight blip of course was in fact England being crap and not the David James moment from Rob Green. While ITV were telling us how good England were playing and how great Heskey and Gerrard were performing our eyes were telling us the truth. They weren’t and it was a standard opening game to a tournament from England.

Oh but Gerrard scored a great goal and was all over the pitch. Well yes he did score the goal, he damn well should have but after that he ran around like a headless chicken, oh there was tackles but they were more luck than judgement and it was no surprise he picked up a yellow. Forget all the Liverpool fans in the media and his ghostwriter, it was another undeserved cap to along with those 70 plus useless games he’s played for his country. When Rooney has to jump a couple of feet in the air, stretch his body to it’s limit and the ball skiffs off his head, then it’s not a great cross.

Gerrard and Lampard didn’t work, they don’t work. Lampard disappears, Gerrard gives the ball away. Neither are good enough to be in a central two, England aren’t good enough for them to be in a central two. They aren’t going to get better as ITV insist, I mean they haven’t got any better together since they were first paired, how long ago now?

The problem is even more exacerbated when Gerrard drifted out wide, normally on the right, and Rooney, desperate to get into the action because the service wasn’t there, shifted out to the left meant there was a gaping huge hole down the middle of the park. With a whole two England players in here from Heskey up front to Lampard just in front of the back two, a huge space for the Yanks to have the ball.

Oh and Heskey justified his place. That’ll be down to the ball for the goal then, because the rest was aimless crap. Highlighted expertly when played through with a great ball Emile was through on goal and managed to pick the only spot within the frame of the goal that wouldn’t, couldn’t, lead to a goal. Straight to the ‘keeper. He is hopeless, but he links up well with Rooney. Eh? Where was that then? That’ll be why Rooney was fully in the game. 🙄

Fabio started things off badly and compounded it during the game. Milner having been laid low with sickness shouldn’t have started, no not 20/20 hindsight, I had said when I heard he was ill and lost a bit of weight through it I immediately said he can’t play. We all know what it’s like going do with the shits when abroad, didn’t have to follow it up with a World Cup game at altitude a couple of day later. It was compounded by Fabio doing the right thing in withdrawing Milner when he got the yellow card but the wrong thing by bringing on Wright-Phillips. Christ I heard some talking him up. Final ball was lacking the did say. What final ball? He lost the ball before he had a chance to produce a final ball. Oh good build up by Wright-Phillips, eh? You mean when he got to the byline, could have got a cross over but turned right round the other way to get the ball on his right foot? Doesn’t say much for Joe Cole.

Ledley, well it was a gamble but think about the fact that even with no knees and his groin going after only a couple of minutes he still wasn’t skinned as badly as Carragher was. Dawson has to play in the next game now.

Lennon, again slagged off for no final ball, completely ignoring the fact there was, he got a couple of crosses over but what happened? Well Heskey was usually hiding behind a defender, Rooney wasn’t in place because he was having to do too much outside the box, no one headed for the near post and the rampaging midfield were no where near coming onto free balls inside the box. Of course after showing he had the beating of his man he hardly saw the ball and when it headed his way it was behind him making him stop and allowing the defence to get back or Gerrard was there shouting for it.

As for the ‘keeper and his impersonation of David James. Well I said he’d done well in the warm up game but as I’ve said before on here about Green, it was something you were expecting to happen sooner or later. Blame the ball? No, of the games so far the only bizarre thing the ball has done is fly straight. No wild dips or curves, it just flies high with long balls and bounces a bit high at times.

The worst thing really about England’s performance was the fact that the Yanks weren’t that crash hot, mediocre at best. They’re both lucky that the other two teams in the group are even worse – though as typing this Slovenia have two more points that them – but if Fabio can’t see the problems highlighted above and throughout nearly every post about England on here, then the only hope when we meet a quality side is that by default, through suspensions and injury, Fabio’s hand is forced to play the right team and right formation.

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