I don't understand England fans.
For years we've said how we need to start playing the youth and building for the future. We've always been too reliant on the "old guard" and to be honest it's not got us anywhere. The current crop of players (Terry, Gerrard, Ferdinand, Lampard etc) have was us a grand total of diddly squad.
Let's look at the past three tournaments these players were a part of.
South Africa 2010 - absolutely appalling performance from the whole team which culminated in our worst German defeat since the second world war.
Austria-Switzerland 2008 - this set of players didn't even qualify for the tournament...
Germany 2006 - Scraped past Paraguay, only hit 2 past Trinidad and Tobago (took ages to finally score) and drew 2-2 with Sweden. Won an easy group, scraped past Ecuador then lost to our first strong opposition in Portugal.
I think it's time we moved on and looked towards the future - and at last we have a manager that agrees. I think we can safely say that neither Jordan Henderson nor Martin Kelly will get a whole lot of game time in the approaching tournament, but they could become pivotal players to the England cause for Brazil 2014, the tournament we should be building for, and the vital factor is that it won't be their first full international tournament!
People are obsessing about Rio Ferdinand and Michael Carrick but while they might be able to offer us more for the upcoming tournament, they won't be the players we take to Brazil 2014.
England fans need to realise that we're not going to win this tournament, so we should start building for 2014 by blooding the younger players early in a tournament that we're not going to win. Germany did that in 2010 and look at them now. A formidable team, my favourites to win the tournament.
To conclude, while Ferdinand (35 at the next tournament) and Carrick (32 at the next tournament) may have been the better players in the short term, we shouldn't be focusing on the short term and Henderson (23 in 2014) and Kelly (24 in 2014) are the far better options for the long term.
Frankly I wouldn't have taken the likes of Gerrard and Terry but the youngsters need players to learn from.
Thoughts?
Brazil 2014
posted on 4/6/12
If ever there was an article that veered off topic
posted on 4/6/12
Well at least it went off topic in a good way
posted on 4/6/12
www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-oH-TELcLE
A true teacher!!
posted on 4/6/12
comment by There'sOnlyOneReds (U1721)
posted 17 seconds ago
Well at least it went off topic in a good way
................
A good way to start the Monday.
I haven't even called anyone an idiot yet.
posted on 4/6/12
Well there was a hint of it:-
comment by Vidicschin (U3584)
posted 41 minutes ago
I find I use this one a lot when arguing with TOOR.
"Please try and understand this, before one of us dies"
But yeah, for you, that's great.
posted on 4/6/12
posted on 4/6/12
Only the very slightest of hints though TOOR.
honestlivpool_five_times was tring his best to be silly earlier.
posted on 4/6/12
It seems you got some last night. This is the most logical explanation I can think of. Either that or you're drunk, at the stage of drunkness when you love everybody. The next stage is the 'everybody's a c unt' stage.
posted on 4/6/12
Spot on op!! You are preaching to the converted, it the others that seem to forget how poor we have been with that lot playing for us, time to build for a change:
Jones, Hendo, Micah, Young, Kelly, Carroll, welbeck, Wilshere, Baines these are the future and whilst not all are in the squad the ones we have taken must beneft from being in a tournament environment.
Take Henderson for example (because everyone pretty much has slated the lad); at Sunderland he got nowhere near a big occasion in football terms, yet in his first season with Liverpool he reached wembley 3 times and won a trophy, now he is in a proper tournament as well.
Anyone telling me he wont grow as a player performing on that type of stage? I know hes done U21 but it doesnt compare to the real deal. Now in 2yrs time he is going to be much more prepared for what is coming than he was prior to his LFC move and tournament experience; and that can only benefit England.
posted on 4/6/12
henderson is behind the likes of wilshere and cleverley and they arent there due to injury.
soon mceachren and rodwell will be ahead