Football The 2011/2012 Season Thread

[Calaen]

And you want to turn this around how Calaen.. within a year?

No not with in a year at all, but i'd like to see it starting to be implemented, so that so that it won't be years away every god damn year. You appear to be grasping at straws with regards to putting me down. Wilshere is going to be a starter, and if he is fit he will be playing in there next year. But by your own thinking we might as well not bother taking him because his passing mentality will be wasted. Wayne Rooney cannot play on his own up front on his own having the ball lumped up to him every 5 minutes in the hope he gets it. Bu I guess we've just beaten Spain so we should just play that way forever against every team we play. Big teams don't change their own style when playing against anyone, because they have confidence in their own ability to win the game their own way. All this plan A, plan B bollocks is just another excuse for England when it goes wrong.

 

[Everz]

No, but are WBA entirely made up of English players? No. End of story.

What, so your contradicting yourself now, we tested a tactic and low and fucking behold it worked. What lesson would we have learnt by trying to out football Spain when even our most creative influences weren't there? We'd have learnt that we'd get shit on from a great height and embarassed. Which is anything would have been morale damaging, instead we now have some confidence and belief that we can be resolute, be solid and actually garner a victory over these sides.

My tactic for a football match is DO ANYTHING NEEDED TO WIN.. do you comprehend that? Playing tippy-tappy is all well and good but if you loose then whats the point, you've got nothing to show for it. We did what was solid to beat Spain, you do realise that the same tactic isn't employed in each match don't you?, That versatility and number of option are required dependent upon the opposition?

And if you think Spain looked like scoring then my-oh-my, they were playing tippy-tappy 40 yards out them an ambitious punt or a long shot would come in and it's back to route one. If we had retained possession better then problem would have been solved and not being so wasteful with simple 10 yard passes, but these can be improved in training.

You know what, if this was the quarter-final of the Euros I'd bet my house that you'd be wanking off over a fantastic England performance.

 

[Everz]

No not with in a year at all, but i'd like to see it starting to be implemented, so that so that it won't be years away every god damn year. You appear to be grasping at straws with regards to putting me down. Wilshere is going to be a starter, and if he is fit he will be playing in there next year. But by your own thinking we might as well not bother taking him because his passing mentality will be wasted. Wayne Rooney cannot play on his own up front on his own having the ball lumped up to him every 5 minutes in the hope he gets it. Bu I guess we've just beaten Spain so we should just play that way forever against every team we play. Big teams don't change their own style when playing against anyone, because they have confidence in their own ability to win the game their own way. All this plan A, plan B bollocks is just another excuse for England when it goes wrong.

Oh deary me.. deary fucking me. Rooney won't be available for the group stages, and as noted he is wasted upfront but you seem to be failing to grasp that what was witnessed against Spain is an optional tactic to try and gain a result, I shall repeat.

WHAT WE SAW AGAINST SPAIN WAS AN OPTIONAL TACTIC TO TRY AND GAIN A RESULT.

Do you not get this? We aren't going to play it all the time, we have attacking pace and flair to get results against weaker nations and having a solid defensive tactic for the stronger nations in order to give ourselves the best chance of progress. You cry that theres no Plan A or B.. guess fucking what? Over the past of the qualifyers (Bulgaria, Switzerland etc) and now Spain.. you've seen Plan A or B.

Big teams don't change there style? Really.. I'm pretty sure Spain played counter-attacking and relied on solid defense to win the World Cup? Infact most of there wins were 1-0.. but surely! I mean surely! They pretty much waltzed around everyone?

Confidence in there own game is good, but then your leaving yourselves open to predictability, as Spain have done where now their weaknesses are being shown. Tactically versatility is needed in order to progress.. not mongoloid attack attack attack!

 

[Aoami]

I think you have to remember that that side we put out was a long way from the team likely to start in the euros. That tactic with better players would likely be much more 'appealing' and the overall performance better. I was happy with the victory against Spain, I thought it was a great result.

What worries me is that with a full strength team Capello wouldn't play such tactics and we'd be humilated again like we were against Germany.

 

[soze]

I liked it tbh if England keep playing with that style while getting better on the counter attach they could pull a Greece and win the Euro's. While I do not want my club team sacrificing style for wins i have no issues doing it nationally. Negative football is an Italian speciality so it might be our best bet for getting anywhere.

 

[Everz]

I'd be hoping that he'd be wise enough to realise that such tactics are needed to be employed against a strong footballing side. Football isn't about being appealing.. it's about winning first, then the show afterwards.

 

[Everz]

I liked it tbh if England keep playing with that style while getting better on the counter attach they could pull a Greece and win the Euro's. While I do not want my club team sacrificing style for wins i have no issues doing it nationally. Negative football is an Italian speciality so it might be our best bet for getting anywhere.

How is it negative for using the tools available to you in the most effective way. It's mind boggling.

 

[Calaen]

Big teams don't change there style? Really.. I'm pretty sure Spain played counter-attacking and relied on solid defense to win the World Cup? Infact most of there wins were 1-0.. but surely! I mean surely! They pretty much waltzed around everyone?

Confidence in there own game is good, but then your leaving yourselves open to predictability, as Spain have done where now their weaknesses are being shown. Tactically versatility is needed in order to progress.. not mongoloid attack attack attack!

I think you'll find I already mentioned Spain winning games 1-0 on the way to the world cup, however they did so playing the same brand of football. Their defeat at the WC was 1-0 due to not breaking down the Swiss. It's great you think we learnt something, Me personally didn't learn anything at all, because as I HAVE ALREADY SAID about 4 times everyone in the world already knows if you put 10 people behind the ball you might win a game 1-0 once in a hundred.

Do you mean that attaking flair and prowess we showed against Slovenia, Algeria and the USA in our group in the World Cup? We played no one in qualifying, Wales made us look second rate at Wembley a team we should be playing our attacking game against?

Anyway I'm not engaging with you anymore on this subject, after we finish the championships we can discuss the positives and negatives, until then you continue to think we learnt something and I'll continue to expect more from my international football team.

 

[soze]

How is it negative for using the tools available to you in the most effective way. It's mind boggling.

Yeah I see what you are saying. It is just Barcelona's way of playing is seen as positive and Bolton's under Big Sam was negative hence when England show up and park the bus i call that negative football. I know not every team can play like Barcelona but you cant have a sliding scale of the definition of positive based on the players in a team.

 

[CorNokZ]

My Spanish roommate didn't really bother with the result or the game as a matter of fact. He told me Spain hasn't lost or drew the last 14 matches in competitions. Friendlies are used to test stuff, so no one really bothers with the results. Don't think that because you beat Spain at home you'd be able to do the same to the likes of Holland or Germany. England just doens't do well in the competitions, so if you get to the quarter finals, you should be happy with that result, and to be fair I don't think you have the team to go further than that

 

[Calaen]

How is it negative for using the tools available to you in the most effective way. It's mind boggling.

Maybe we see you moaning about Mick Mcarthy only playing 1 striker every week. Or does your opinion change based on a) did you win b)did you lose.

 

[Keitanz]

And that is why your a silly cunt and one of the reasons why England players couldn't give a flying fuck about the national team.

What sort of moron plays Spain at Spain's game?

These games are preperation for a tournament in which we need to play to our strength, we can't outpass a team, but what we can do is solidly defend and try nab a goal at set pieces. Italy did this and guess fucking what? They went and won the damn thing.

What is it with plastics and there total lack of understanding of tactics?

Oh come on, we looked like little boys against Spain, our entire team apart from Welbeck was hiding in the box for 85 minutes of the game just diving in front of shots and passes in to the box.. we are not going to win any match doing that, I really don't care if that was Spain, changing tactics every game does more harm than good.. we were very very lucky to come away with a win, if we played them 10 times that way, we would win once or twice tops..

We should have at least tried to play football against them, instead of playing worse football than Stoke..

 

[ileks]

My Spanish roommate didn't really bother with the result or the game as a matter of fact. He told me Spain hasn't lost or drew the last 14 matches in competitions. Friendlies are used to test stuff, so no one really bothers with the results. Don't think that because you beat Spain at home you'd be able to do the same to the likes of Holland or Germany. England just doens't do well in the competitions, so if you get to the quarter finals, you should be happy with that result, and to be fair I don't think you have the team to go further than that

What is it with you and telling England fans we're shit/aren't going to win anything? This stereotype that England fans are delusional mongs that believe football is coming home every two years just isn't true anymore. If anything you seem worse with overestimating Denmark.

 

[Everz]

Clearly?

I'm saying we used the friendly to do what it was there.. test a tactic to see if it could nulify an attacking team, and it did just that. That is no indication it will work in a competitive match but it's an option that is now available to us if we so wish to choose it.

I'm not saying this is the tournament tactic as the players that will be there weren't available for choice, what it was however was a grand indication of the versatility that is available to us, we didn't have the creative players such as Rooney, Gerrard, Wiltshere etc so the next best option was to adapt the tactic and grind it out.

This is what we need as we can't go into a tournament assuming that no players will get injured/suspended or that a scenario wouldn't change, the option to know we can resort to that in order to contain an attacking side is a huge step forward.

Calaen, I do give up with you, if you simply can't understand the logistics of using your options and being smart and tactically aware then fuck off, as it's annoying to keep writing the same thing over and over again. This is not the tournament tactic but simply a option we tested that proved to be success, now as stated, analyse the game and show me where exactly we could have got one over Spain in any attacking sense?

Any manager worth his salt will no that his option needs to be there, this is not a lineup for a tournament but it was a versatile tournament-esque victory, that showed the characteristics needed.

 

[Everz]

Oh come on, we looked like little boys against Spain, our entire team apart from Welbeck was hiding in the box for 85 minutes of the game just diving in front of shots and passes in to the box.. we are not going to win any match doing that, I really don't care if that was Spain, changing tactics every game does more harm than good.. we were very very lucky to come away with a win, if we played them 10 times that way, we would win once or twice tops..

We should have at least tried to play football against them, instead of playing worse football than Stoke..

See this is why the likes of Turamber go absolutely batshit against plastics and the sky generation. You do not out football Spain, but you don't seem to have any grasps of tactics and playing to win.

Oh and playing like Stoke, how did 'pool manage to get on against them.. last I heard Stoke were in Europe and 'pool weren't? Play to your strengths you mong.

 

[Everz]

What is it with you and telling England fans we're shit/aren't going to win anything? This stereotype that England fans are delusional mongs that believe football is coming home every two years just isn't true anymore. If anything you seem worse with overestimating Denmark.

Ignore him, it's more fun, bitter swedes eh .

 

[Keitanz]

Couldn't put it much better than Everz there tbh. You will probably see the England you want against Sweden Calaen. Against Spain we got the tactics spot on for once.

Spot on? far from it, they were close to scoring quite a few goals and on a different day they would have gone in.

We shouldn't be changing tactics every match depending on the opposition, it was like the England team were mesmerized by Spain's team and didn't want to play at all, that shouldn't happen, we will not get anywhere in competitive games in the next 4 years if we play like this and change tactics every match.

 

[Keitanz]

See this is why the likes of Turamber go absolutely batshit against plastics and the sky generation. You do not out football Spain, but you don't seem to have any grasps of tactics and playing to win.

Oh and playing like Stoke, how did 'pool manage to get on against them.. last I heard Stoke were in Europe and 'pool weren't? Play to your strengths you mong.

As I said, if we play against them like that in 10 games, we will not win more than 2 of those games, how is that playing to our strengths? did you even watch the game? we were terrible, it doesn't matter if we won, I couldn't care less about the result, as ch3tan said, better things were to be learned if we got hammered, but as usual most England fans only read the result and their heads are stuck up their asses again. lol. LOLZ WE GONNA WIN EURO12

 

[Everz]

What the hell would we have learned if we got hammered.

'Welp lads, looks like Spain are pretty good at playing football.'

You couldn't care less about the result? You want pretty fucking play around football without having the pre-requisite talents in order to do so?

No-one is screaming we will win the Euros, those of us who actually have a footballing brain can see the result for what it is. A tactically brilliant move to show that there is an option against these big sides.

Again, it shows who actually follow football and who actually watches.

I'll say once as I did before. Greece were awful in Euro 2004.. do you think they care? Do they fuck.. they won the damn thing and thats all that matters.

 

[Calaen]

Clearly?

I'm saying we used the friendly to do what it was there.. test a tactic to see if it could nulify an attacking team, and it did just that. That is no indication it will work in a competitive match but it's an option that is now available to us if we so wish to choose it.

We already know it's a fucking option you tool, clubs all over the fucking world do it when they play better opposition. We've hardly stumbled upon something new. If you have to practice having 10 players stood in the final third of your own half, you don't deserve to wni any games. But carry on with the insults and your clearly above avergae football knowledge.

 

[Calaen]

Again, it shows who actually follow football and who actually watches.

I'll say once as I did before. Greece were awful in Euro 2004.. do you think they care? Do they fuck.. they won the damn thing and thats all that matters.

So can you answer my quesiton about you changing your tune every other week depending on whether or not you win using the same tactics?

 

[Everz]

We already no it's a fucking option you tool, clubs all over the fucking world do it when they play better opposition. We've hardly stumbled upon something new. If you have to practice having 10 players stood in the final third of your own half, you don't deserve to wni any games. But carry on with the insults and your clearly above avergae football knowledge.

Alright then genius, what would we have learnt by trying to pass it around Spain then? Learnt that they are great when teams attack them, that they relish the thought of someone trying to do as it plays right into their hands?

Miles above you if you can't comprehend playing with what you have got and actually knowing your opposition.

 

[Everz]

So can you answer my quesiton about you changing your tune every other week depending on whether or not you win using the same tactics?

My stance of Wolves is well noted, I've said before I don't mind losing in that sense if the team actually plays for the shirt but I have no care in which way we win. It's a results business, lovely football doesn't guarantee progress... just ask Blackpool.

 

[Calaen]

Alright then genius, what would we have learnt by trying to pass it around Spain then? Learnt that they are great when teams attack them, that they relish the thought of someone trying to do as it plays right into their hands?

Miles above you if you can't comprehend playing with what you have got and actually knowing your opposition.

You could have played a more direct style of football similar to Ireland. This still gives you a solid defensive base, but when you have the ball instead of just lumping it forward in the hope it hits your lone target, you get it out to the wingers and pace players and let them get at the opponents back four. I'm all for winning over style mate but theres a difference between winning a match with a tactic. And getting a fluke result. Englands result was the latter, and as such I don't think we learnt anything that we didn't already know. We didn't allow ourselves the chance to support Wellbeck nor Bent because we were too far from them. We could have releasde one more player to bridge the gap and we would have taken more away from the game than we have.

 

[Everz]

You could have played a more direct style of football similar to Ireland. This still gives you a solid defensive base, but when you have the ball instead of just lumping it forward in the hope it hits your lone target, you get it out to the wingers and pace players and let them get at the opponents back four. I'm all for winning over style mate but theres a difference between winning a match with a tactic. And getting a fluke result. Englands result was the latter, and as such I don't think we learnt anything that we didn't already know. We didn't allow ourselves the chance to support Wellbeck nor Bent because we were too far from them. We could have releasde one more player to bridge the gap and we would have taken more away from the game than we have.

With what players? We had next to no creativity available to be chosen. A more direct style would have been the more ambitious but not having the players to carry out that would have a totally barren exercise. The problem being is the more you open up the more you play into Spains hands, push someone forward creates a space which they will happily exploit, containment was the name of the game. Getting out to wingers is no problem but what player did we have in the team available for selection with such a solid range of passing able to do that?

You could have gone more attacking but we didn't have any choice of our main attacking threats, so as noted, it would have been an exercise in vain. I'd rather take the positive of a clean sheet, a solid back four, an attacking team contained, than bemoan the fact that we didn't 'have a go.'

 

[Everz]

Lets turn the coin over and look at it from a Spainish point of view.

70% possession, numerous attempts on target.. yet they were beaten. The one level headed spainard I know commented on this by saying that it is more frustration that once Spain come up against a defensive outlay then they don't know what to do.

 

[Calaen]

Will you stop talking about having a fucking go. It's not about that, it's about not trying to discover a way to win!!!!! You can have 10 men behind the ball, but you can also keep fucking posession while doing it. If Spain didn't want to attack us on Saturday they could have kept possession for 90 minutes, even when we play Slovakia we don't control the game at all. The best form of defense is to not give the opposition the ball. We could have practiced that for 45 minutes. As it was we didn't.

 

[Calaen]

Lets turn the coin over and look at it from a Spainish point of view.

70% possession, numerous attempts on target.. yet they were beaten. The one level headed spainard I know commented on this by saying that it is more frustration that once Spain come up against a defensive outlay then they don't know what to do.

Yes but if you give any team that much possession they will win more than they lose, hence their current 93% win ratio in competitive games since the last European Championships. And our own win percentage of about 50%.

 

[Everz]

I've stated possession retention needs massive work, you seem to be focusing on some massive scale rather then me who sees it for what it is, playing that way in order to grind out a result. You can scream friendlys are their to experiment but they are also there for morale boosting and belief.

And England's keep ball is pathetic as agreed, but 45 mins practise against the best pressing the team in the world would have been demoralizing.

 

[Everz]

Yes but if you give any team that much possession they will win more than they lose, hence their current 93% win ratio in competitive games since the last European Championships. And our own win percentage of about 50%.

Possession doesn't mean you win. If we are talking as if this was a tournament then Ramos would have certainly saw red for the amount of mis-timed tackles and body checks he committed. As a one off the correct tactics were used and a win was gained, I fail to see what there is to complain or whinge about here.