Soccer • Football • Voetbal • Fútbol • Calcio • Futebol - 2012-2013 Thread (Including EURO2012) - Page 81

We've been organised and committed even if the players aren't very good. Hodgson is getting the best out of a very average side and I hope he keeps his job. We need a mid season break especially the seasons before tournaments.

Rooney was actually quite good. He was involved in everything but --other than welbeck who did not have a great game-- he isn't surrounded by much.

Actually truth be told it looked like this:

Milner - awful.
Parker - worse than awful.
Gerrard - sub par
Welbeck - sub par
Walcott - awful
Young - decent defending but almost non existent on offense
Lescott - fantastic
Cole - sub par
Johnson - very good
Terry - very good (and this pains me to admit)
Rooney - Good
Hart - Good during the game but poor on pks.
Henderson - gone missing
Carroll - was better than one might have expected, but it did not yield anything.

Should aslo add that Hodgson was shown to be the manager he is - not particularly creative or useful. He was about as good as he was at Liverpool.

I feel the main problem was the the midfield was non-existent and Rooney left his legs at home. The defense played simply AMAZING, they prevented it from being 26-0.

Yes. Defense was good but midfield was very poor. Parker was really poor and his replacement may have been worse. The best English player was Lescott. Truth be told, both England and Italy are mediocre sides that should be sliced apart by any of the other three.

 

I think it's hard to pick out of the back 4 who was the best, (not counting Cole's penalty miss). They all played fantastically well. Such a shame that we have no good midfielders and the attack is lame as ever.

Not really - It was easy. Lescott was perfect and Terry got caught out a few times. Lescott was the best player on the fireld for England.

Think Lescott and Johnson were the best English players on the pitch, not sure which I thought was better of the two.

Not sure what Hodgson should have done differently tonight apart from start Carroll.

England lost this game before the Euro began. Should never have picked Hodgson. Should never have picked the midfield they did, Picking on Rooney, Walcott, Welbeck, Young or Carroll with a midfeilf that really just cannot pass the ball is riduclous. The only player that belonged was Gerrard and he couldn't win all the games by himself. Oh, and Hodgson, he was responsible for the stupid team selection.

Interesting comments about Parker. What did I miss? He didnt seem any worse than a 6 to me. I thought there were worse performers.

Both teams didn't play well but Italy did play better. We had possession, aggression, and team work locked down better than the brits. Italy failed to reach the back of the net. effing Mario and offsides, WTF!?!?
I didn't want it to go into PK's. I was nervous as fuck in a British pub. Thank God we have Buffon.
I still feel as if we can beat Germany.

L'Italia sempre fino alla fine!

A little bit more sober. Pirlo was class. But frankly, for those who are criticizing Hodgson, who pray tell would he pick for England who would've done better?

There aren't that many players coming up unless he wants to field a U23 reserve squad out there. This isn't Spain or Germany - whoever ended up on the pitch are the players that are on the pitch. All those "great" players in the Premiership are foreign.

And I think Hodgson saw what he had to work with in the time he had, and gambled on a specific (uninspiring) game plan.

IMHO Parker, with the exception of possibly Milner, was the worst player on either team. Did he complete a single pass? Did he make a tackle? Did he do anything offensively or defensively that made a difference? He routinely gave the ball away and did nothing to even test the Italian midfield. I am thoroughly convinced that he is the most overrated player in Englnad. They say Parker is injured, maybe he is, but he was clearly awful. Go watch the game again if you can. You will see that Ashley Young often ends up having to play defense and ran miles to shut stuff down and challenge--Parker should have been playing like that. If he is injured then, he didn't belong in the game.

Hodgson got a ridiculous pass in the first three games because he made a few good substitutions. Blah. Blah. Blah. Why would anyone have picked him.

BBBWAAAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA


Warning: Spoiler! (Click to show)

That was a great PK but the Germans are the ones who are really laughing. They get to play the winner. LOL