TWO "RIGHT CHARLIES"

[john68]

WW,
The thing is Bob, Even though the likes of Gerard et alare carrying injuries...why in a football mad nation, full of hundreds of thousands of enthusiastic and football mad kids...havent we been able to produce a single uninjured player that could possibly take his place and do a good job?
...and why, after playing football since he was a young kid, with access to some of the best coaches we have to offer, training and playing almost everyday, can't the likes of the oft quoted as World class, Rooney control a ball that is passed to him. Fitness plays very little part in that.
...and why can't the child prodigy Ashley Young find one of his own team players with a 5 yard pass.

I know I have taken the easy option of picking out rags, but it also applies to just about every other bloody England player.

[Alex Sapphire]

Parker was a fitness doubt going into the tournament. Gerrard has been unfit all season as he has had injury after injury, it has to be hodgson and his staff that are to blame. Playing unfit players in a game that can go 120 mins and not planning for it is the problem.

Also, how do the English leagues have a winter break? I dont see how it is possible with the current amount of games per season. Do the prem not contest the league cup? Do the league reduce the amount of teams? Do we say prem teams only enter later in the FA Cup? Its already a struggle for the top teams to complete the schedule on time as it is with a world cup or euro champs on the horizon. Even the FA Cup final has been moved to accomodate.

I dont see how we can have a winter break?

This is a real issue and its compounded by the "wisdom" that players can't be picked if they're not playing for their teams regularly.
So manager after manager pick players who've played their 50 games, ignore those who've only knocked up 30 (whatvever the standard of their performances) and then complain that their legs have gone. They see the only place they can get the extra energy to be "unproven youth" (Oxlaide Chamberlain) rather than under-used talent (Johnson). That pattern should be looked at

[Ted Hughes]

Parker was a fitness doubt going into the tournament. Gerrard has been unfit all season as he has had injury after injury, it has to be hodgson and his staff that are to blame. Playing unfit players in a game that can go 120 mins and not planning for it is the problem.

Also, how do the English leagues have a winter break? I dont see how it is possible with the current amount of games per season. Do the prem not contest the league cup? Do the league reduce the amount of teams? Do we say prem teams only enter later in the FA Cup? Its already a struggle for the top teams to complete the schedule on time as it is with a world cup or euro champs on the horizon. Even the FA Cup final has been moved to accomodate.

I dont see how we can have a winter break?

This is a real issue and its compounded by the "wisdom" that players can't be picked if they're not playing for their teams regularly.
So manager after manager pick players who've played their 50 games, ignore those who've only knocked up 30 (whatvever the standard of their performances) and then complain that their legs have gone. They see the only place they can get the extra energy to be "unproven youth" (Oxlaide Chamberlain) rather than under-used talent (Johnson). That pattern should be looked at

With someone like Rooney (& the likes of Beckham before him) I think they are put under extra pressure by the press vastly overrating them & they try to live up to it, which makes them worse than they would otherwise be. Even Messi has struggled to live up to his deserved rep when playing for Argentina but he has all that ability to fall back on, even on a bad day. So has Ronaldo.

Rooney hasn't & he's been drinking Guinness & scoffing burgers when he should have been trying to stay sharp. Add the pressure to that & you get a player who can't trap a bag of cement.

[Slim]

I would say removing the League Cup from the top tier might work, it used to be 2nd tier and below, no reason it shouldn't be again....oh wait, money.