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Post by Panda on Feb 22, 2007 14:28:10 GMT 1
Does he have to play right wing though? I think he's better as a controlling midfielder. Play him instead of Lampard, although I would pick Carrick ahead of him. Carrick was even worse than Lampard against Spain... and when was the last time Lampard actually played well for England I'm not defending Lampard, I'm just pointing out how crap Carrick is. I wouldn't play either of them.
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Post by Maximo Mark on Feb 22, 2007 17:24:10 GMT 1
So we have every corner hitting the first defender to look forward to, oh what joy, then he will be anonymous for 85 minutes, get one free kick, score a goal, and everyone will proclaim him our saviour. #panic# He can do that and get sent off and he'd still be better than Lampard and Carrick!
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Post by Maximo Mark on Feb 22, 2007 17:25:08 GMT 1
Play him instead of Lampard, no way! Unless Gerrard can play on the right? You would play Lampard? LOL
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Post by Maximo Mark on Feb 22, 2007 17:28:01 GMT 1
and when was the last time Lampard actually played well for England I'm not defending Lampard, I'm just pointing out how crap Carrick is. I wouldn't play either of them. It's fairly obvious what the midfield should be Beckham-Gerrard-Hargreaves-Cole/Downing Carrick has never played well for England. Lampard hasn't had a good game for us since Euro 2004 and it's painfully obvious he can't play with Gerrard! Wright-Phillips is nothing like international quality.
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Post by Razzle Dazzle on Feb 22, 2007 17:41:23 GMT 1
if only kim kallstrom was english!
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Post by Panda on Feb 22, 2007 17:51:27 GMT 1
It's fairly obvious what the midfield should be Beckham-Gerrard-Hargreaves-Cole/Downing Agreed. Joe Cole is still first choice on the left, but in his absence, Downing is the best we have (until he moves to Spurs, dies on his arse and Adam Johnson turns out to be even better than Downing). Hargreaves showed in the World Cup what he can do when played in the right position. Gerrard gets the nod in a straight battle against Lampard. Beckham is the man in form and purely on that, he should play. SWP still has the potential to be a key player in the future but he desperately needs a new club next season so he can get regular first team football and regain some of the confidence he's lost sat on the bench at Chelsea.
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Post by Razzle Dazzle on Feb 22, 2007 22:16:54 GMT 1
i was taking what you said seriously for a second till you mentioned Adam Johnson
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Post by Admin on Feb 23, 2007 11:43:41 GMT 1
I find it bizarre that we'd leave out Lampard though, look at what he does at Chelsea, he's a world class player. I do wish we had joe cole back on the left, downing frustrates me because he never goes past a man, and if defenders know that, they will just force him inside and a backwards pass.
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Post by Razzle Dazzle on Feb 23, 2007 12:33:20 GMT 1
lampard has a unique partnership with makelele at chelsea, 90% of what lampard does well is because of makalele and his covering play and he supplies lampard to feet with 10 yard balls so he can turn and shoot due to makalele breaking up attacks teams are caught short giving lampard room to use his best asset, shooting from distance, also at chelsea he takes most of the free kicks, penalties and corners so he is going to get at least 10 or so right in a season.
but england dont play through lampard and however good our other midfielder is they will never be good enough to feed lampard unselfishly all game.
lampard cant tackle and does not burst a gut getting back and is probablies a worse passer of the ball thats why most people would pick gerrard ahead of lampard, they have similar scoring records despite gerrards lack of set plays compared to lampard. lampard can only play one position while gerrard can slot in at least 3
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Post by Razzle Dazzle on Feb 23, 2007 12:38:37 GMT 1
not to mention lampards form for england over the last 2 years is the worst of any current regular player and his whole game went to pot in the world cup, was like playing with 10 men half the time. so with gerrard and lampard so obviously not being able to both play in their best positions in a 4-4-2 i would choose gerrard ahead of him.
another thing that p*sses everyone off, even though lampard always gets the nod to play in his best position yet plays w**k and NEVER gets subbed!
if he gets dropped maybe that will spur him on to put a bit more effort in.
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Post by Zodiac on Feb 24, 2007 13:47:51 GMT 1
To be honest Lampard has hardly been that awful, certainly not in comparison to many of his compatriots who have been equally ineffectual and have yet somehow escaped criticism. He's still an absolutely top class player. Both him and Gerrard like to get forward too much though and so I doubt they'll ever establish that good a partnership. McLaren should use friendlies to experiment with the midfield, but like his predecessor he doesn't seem too interested in doing that.
Furthermore, I still don't understand the clamour for Beckham's return. He's played precious few games this season and suddenly he puts in an inspirational performance and he apparently merits a place in the side again. Have we forgotten that for the past four years he's hardly ever done the same in an England shirt?
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Post by Panda on Feb 24, 2007 14:01:13 GMT 1
i was taking what you said seriously for a second till you mentioned Adam Johnson You wait and see. I'm not saying he's better than Downing now but he has the potential to be.
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Post by Panda on Feb 24, 2007 14:13:58 GMT 1
Furthermore, I still don't understand the clamour for Beckham's return. He's played precious few games this season and suddenly he puts in an inspirational performance and he apparently merits a place in the side again. Have we forgotten that for the past four years he's hardly ever done the same in an England shirt? The man's in form and when he's in form he's capable of producing special performances. When was the last time we saw a special performance from ANYONE in an England shirt?
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Post by Maximo Mark on Feb 24, 2007 16:18:28 GMT 1
Rooney against Croatia, Euro 2004
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Post by Maximo Mark on Feb 24, 2007 16:19:46 GMT 1
Furthermore, I still don't understand the clamour for Beckham's return. He's played precious few games this season and suddenly he puts in an inspirational performance and he apparently merits a place in the side again. Have we forgotten that for the past four years he's hardly ever done the same in an England shirt? It's one more inspirational performance more than any of our other right-wingers though.
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Post by Zodiac on Feb 24, 2007 20:30:56 GMT 1
The man's in form and when he's in form he's capable of producing special performances. When was the last time we saw a special performance from ANYONE in an England shirt? Everyone's capable of producing special performances for their club. It's a pity we saw precious few "special performances" from Beckham when he was wearing the national shirt...
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Post by Maximo Mark on Feb 26, 2007 11:47:42 GMT 1
But those few are still more than anyone else in the current side has produced!
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Tom
Member
*Of Royal Blood*
Posts: 15,419
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Post by Tom on Mar 2, 2007 14:44:17 GMT 1
Although it was expected Beckham should never have been droped from the squad in the first place. He's a better asset than SWP who just isnt the same player having spent so long on the Chelsea bench. I'm a Beckham fan and think he's singlehandedly saved England on numerous occasions (I also read his autobiography on holiday last summer) but I wasnt clamouring for his return, he wasnt even playing for Real Madrid until recently, and I didnt think we'd be struggling this much without him. I do think that when we play well he doesnt stand out as much as others. But when we're struggling he's the perfect man for the job imo.
Daz is spot on with his comments on Lampard. I've said this before at the start of the season but Sidwell/Harper for Reading is like Gerrard/Lampard for England. They rarely played well in the Championship together because they both wanted to get forward and support the attack, and although both can tackle that wasnt the main part of their game. Neither wanted to do the dirty work ie playing the anchor man winning tackles all games, and when one did it stifled their game. But since becoming a more open team this season in the Premiership (and 2nd half of last season) they've learnt how to play alongside each other. Basically they swap it in turns to go forward. Our success last season was largely down to having an attacking midfielder (Harper) and a defensive midfielder (Gunnarsson) who complemented each other extremely well and brought the best out of Harper. Basically Hargreaves is a must in midfield for England and it should be Gerrard alongside him. As mentioned before Lampard may play well for Chelsea, but he never looks the same player for his country.
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Post by Razzle Dazzle on Mar 2, 2007 23:21:31 GMT 1
look at le tissier and gazza
le tisser is the best ever english goal scoring midfielder but england managers (wrongly in my view) took a stand that him and gazza cant play in the same team, they were given little chance to prove the coach wrong.
but gerrard and lampard have been playing together for 5 year and it just does not work.
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Post by Panda on Mar 5, 2007 18:47:10 GMT 1
Well the debate's over for now as Beckham's been ruled out for 4 weeks with a knee injury suffered at the weekend.
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