Ted Hughes wrote:Alioune DVToure wrote:Ted Hughes wrote:Alioune DVToure wrote:He could also guarantee a last-eight finish, just for old time's sake. Maybe even beat Germany 5-1 at some point. If the Walcott decision was his biggest mistake, I think that amounts to a pretty good five or six years in charge.
I recon it was one of many.
No real tactics & press friendly team selections. He had a decent group of players to pick from too.
Decent midfielders, who couldn't play together. The rest of the team was no better than now, I would argue. In fact, we're probably better in some areas - CB (in terms of depth at least) and GK. We also have two good full-backs on each side to choose from. We just lack an incisive, high-tempo-yet-ball-retaining midfielder and a second top-level striker. But we had neither of those in 2006 either.
Ferdinand at his peak was much better than Ferdinand now, as was Ashley Cole in those days, also John Terry, De Foe, Joe Cole & Michael Owen.
Beckham, Lampard, Gerrard, Hargreaves at their peak in midfield. backed up by the likes of Lennon, Scott Parker, Crouch, Sol Campbell.
Add Rooney to that & it's probably, man for man, the best England squad to travel since 1970, & I would argue; miles better than the last Dutch squad which reached the World Cup final. Strength, skill, pace, intelligence, set piece specialists, goalscorers in all areas, European experience, trophy winners galore; that squad lacks nothing, just a system & the right kind of influence.
All it needed was Jose Mourinho in charge, not Sven.
I know what you're getting at but would still argue with some of your points. Owen was a crock by then, and already a fading force. The way his knee bent after about half an hour of action proved just this. Crouch is arguably a better, more rounded player now than he was then and now he can't get near the squad. Defoe has never quite been good enough and, as I said, we were wanting for a top-drawer keeper.I don't think Ashley Cole's any better or worse now than he was then. I'm pretty sure Scott Parker wasn't even in the squad.
What Sven should've done, but never had the balls to do, was shunt Gerrard out wide or put Lampard on the bench, allowing Joe Cole to get on the ball in the middle of the park. Then again, Mourinho did the same thing to Joe Cole at Chelsea. I don't care what anyone says about Joe Cole never having lived up to his talent or having been over-rated. For a while at least, he was the answer. England's most naturally-gifted player since Gazza.
