Spurge wrote:brite blu sky wrote:If that was motm performance then something somewhere has gone wrong. Directly passed to a Spain player 5 times, twice when there was a simple obvious pass begging that would have released a move. Constantly slow to release the ball, losing the impetous.
Hopeless. Ran around a lot and got a couple of decent challenges in. Far less than Lescott did, it should be pointed out.
If that was what some people call brilliant, I don't know what fucking crap would be!
You clearly don't like the bloke so i suspect it wouldn't matter how he played. I've read enough of your posts to suggest that you know your football so it can only be that you don't like him.
He made a couple of mistakes true, but outweighed heavily by his positive contribution. He had a good game no doubt, he wasn't my motm though - Milner was excellent. Work tate, positional play and ability was top rate.
ITV not surprisinlgy missed his contribution to Englands winner choosing to praise Bent instead. Milners determination and drive to carry the ball down the left flank and with no support, draw the foul and free kick from which he delivered an excellent ball into the box that is a nightmare for defenders to deal with. That typified Milners performance - he could have a very significant impact on the rest of season with City.
Surprisingly I don't dislike Parker at all. Like others though I'd only rate him as a half decent Prem player.
What I do think is that by ramping up the accolades for him and others (read most of the team) the media and england fans are setting themselves up again for a reality check further down the line. Parker is a good example, he just isn't that good and his game is limited.
Watching england play their hearts out v a half hearted Spain it was so obvious that the majority of players are just not that good. But unlike Ireland or to some extent Scotland, England
have to big up their players and encourage some kind of star quality instead of focussing on team qualities.
As a team performance I'm not sure I have seen much worse, players constantly doing stuff that made finding a team mate harder not easier. No appreciation of what was around them as they receive the ball and so no ability to gain any momentum by an early ball.
Walcott - i can't even go there, does this kid realise he is not alone on the pitch? I'd estimate he is about 5years away from having the basic savvy to be in a national team. repeat basic. Should be nowhere, nowhere near the national squad.
Bigging up mediocre players does not make them world class. After 30 odd++ years watching football and the attitude to the national team IMO it seems to me that the main problem is pretending or self deluding that the players are world class.. resulting in players like Walcott and AJ believing it... that is a recipe for lazyness, delusion and failure.
Back to Parker, towards the end, england under constant pressure, Lescott does a neat interjection to rob the ball and stride out of defence to set something going and relieve the pressure, lays it to Parker and continues purposefully to stride forward.. his pass was weighted and on the right side of Parker to get the return. Lescott was in loads of space, no Spanish player had reacted or picked him up.. What does the amazing Parker do ? ignores the obvious simple as fuck ball and turns circles into a mass of trouble and loses the ball right in front of his own area, that now doesn't have one of the CBs in position! something Parker would know very well because he had just seen him running forward looking for the return pass. I don't know if Milner was further out on the wing on Lescott's side but it is very probable. 2 very simple passes to a potential break. or minimum of relieving pressure and giving Spain at least something to think about.
That was the worse incident of many times failing to lay the ball off. That is not amazing, brilliant or anywhere near motm. It is more mediocre, average bordering on poor.