What went wrong with England?

First topic message reminder :

How has our WC turned into such a nightmare?

I believe not having Ashley Cole in the squad left us with no alternatives to Baines who has looked poor all tournament.

The central defence looked very poor. Jagielka is just not good enough at this level and also he was coming back from injury. I believe JT should have been in the squad.

Tactical decisions cost us. At half-time when we were 1-1 with Italy why not substitute Rooney for Milner who offers more protection on the flank? It was so obvious Italy if they did score, and they did would make it happen down rooney's wing as he just was not protecting Baines.

Why did steven gerrard play the full 90mins in both games?? he hasn't got the legs to do that and we really could have used someone like OX or Wilshire coming on.

I also think it was a horrible decision to play sterling on the wing in the 2nd game so that we could accomodate rooney in the middle. Sterling was the best layer on the pitch in the first game behind the striker so why move him? It cost us against Uruguay as Sterling looked poor on the wing.

Things do not look good for the England national team for Euro 2016 as we look to have gone backwards.

A loss to Costa Rica would mean 3 defeats in 3 games and would signal just how bad we are.

I'm not saying they are getting paid the same, I'm saying that money isn't an issue as all professional players are wealthy at the World Cup.
The fact that England are highly paid doesn't mean they are the best players and can't guarantee you success. Just because your players are highly paid, doesn't mean you can "expect" better from them or "expect" them to get out of the group.

Derby, apologies, it wasn't you who used "expect" it was someone else.

You've completely missed my point SR

England shouldn't have a guarantee of anything, but to try and say we shouldn't be expecting us to do better than Costa Rica is ridiculous.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2014/06/24/world_cup_economics_costa_rica_is_a_financial_underdog_against_england.html

The amount of money there shows that England should be showing better results. There's a reason the saying is 'you get what you pay for'

Why should England do better than Costa Rica?
England didn't exactly breeze through Qualifying.
Population of country, GDP and how much you pay your players doesn't mean you should beat a team.

super_realist wrote:

jbeadlesbigrighthand wrote:

super_realist wrote:Very few expected them to progress, and they didn't. Why the inquest?

The Premier League is the richest in the world and our players are incredibly highly paid, yet we didn't expect to get out of a group that included a very average Italian team, a one-man Uruguay and Costa Rica. And it's not just that we didn't qualify. We came bottom of our group and never looked like winning any of our games.

Surely that does deserve an inquest?  Why have England never been competitive at the top level? Even when we had our Golden Generation, filled with talent, we achieved nothing. Why is that?

I'm afraid that's just arrogance.
The amount of money you get paid is only a product of what someone is prepared to pay you. It isn't a definitive measure of quality.
Furthermore, to say Italy are average, is to overlook that England are worse than average, whilst it is a little bit naive to suggest that England ought to get the better of a South American team like Uruguay (one man or not, especially when England are a "no man" team) or underestimate Costa Rica.

England don't have a right to anything, just the same as any other team that failed to get the the group.

Teams have proven it isn't the sum of your alleged "talent" in terms of the individuals or over-hype players recieve from our sycophantic press, but rather how you perform as a team, hence why countries like Costa Rica, Greece and America have shown to be better than how they look on paper as individuals.

I think you misunderstood my point. I wasn't arguing that our players are the best in the world on the basis of their salaries. I was arguing that with all the money in English football we should be able to do better. I don't think it's arrogant to suggest that.

I wasn't denying that England were worse than Uruguay, Italy or Costa Rica. I was using the quality of those teams to contextualise just how poor England were.

I also agree with you that teams can be more than the sum of their parts. However, I think England's Golden Generation provides a clear example of a team that was much less than the sum of its parts. I think that's fairly typical for English teams, and I think it's because of a fundamental flaw in our footballing psyche - we value 'heart' over talent and intelligence. We therefore struggle to fill particular positions, and the square pegs we choose to put into round holes lack the ability to adapt.

Well, yes, you should do better, but then so should dozens of other countries.
There seems to be an assumption that it's only England that underachieve. It happens to tons of countries, and England are no more a special case than any other.

Derbymanc wrote:The biggest issue we had was our 2 biggest players (Rooney and Gerrard) just underperformed. Ask any fans of the clubs they play for and they'll tell you that the pair of them could do a lot better.

Did Rooney and Gerrard really "underperform" in the world cup? They played pretty much how I expected them to play like. Neither are the players they were a decade back and were never going to be major stars of the tournament.

When we created the sport we sort of are.

I'll give you a tip SR,

This is a forum mainly populated by English fans, on a football forum that is currently talking about how England has done, go on a Spanish/Italian etc etc forum and they'll be having the same discussion. Your hate for the English fans is blinding you to this fact.

Everyone has stated there is no guarantees in football (hence why we all love it,)

You are now clutching at so many straws you probably can't grab hold of anything else. If you don't think as fans we shouldn't expect are team to beat Costa Rica due to money issues then I suggest you stay away when some of the higher end premier teams get beat by lower division teams.

Yes I would say that Rooney and Gerrard underperformed. Rooney was abysmal in the first game (bar the pass,) I didn't really notice Gerrard at all and he seemed to keep trying to ping the hollywood pass.

To be honest against Uruguay I thought the whole team looked like a bunch of glory hunters playing with each of them wanting to be the one to score the goal rather than playing as a team.

With the exception of a few teams like Andorra, San Marino, Faroes, Gibraltar it's very arrogant to expect to beat anyone in International Football.

No it's not, it's what being a fan is about. If you can't see that then I can only say I feel sorry for you as you'll never know the excitement/passion that most of us feel about our sport and teams in particular.

I accept your excitement, just not unrealistic expectation based on questionable reasoning.
That was a very tough group, and it was naive to expect to beat anyone in that group.

Then I pity you.

Every team in that group should have expected to beat the other, it was a very close group and could have gone either way.

Next you'll be saying you don't believe in shock results   

super_realist wrote:Well, yes, you should do better, but then so should dozens of other countries.
There seems to be an assumption that it's only England that underachieve. It happens to tons of countries, and England are no more a special case than any other.

Who said England are a special case? And what does it mean to England if other teams also underachieve? I simply cannot understand the logic of your post.

Why on earth would we not want to consider why England habitually underachieve in international football? (And by underachieve, I mean against the resources available, rather than the quality of players). Should we just say "well, we're just not very good" and then forget about it? Why would we not want our national team to improve?

And this sort of analysis is not unique to England. Look at Holland. The fact they've never won a World Cup is a huge issue. Do they say - "well, we may have underachieved given the players we've had available, but we're only a small country, so in truth we've been punching above our weight"?

If every team should expect to beat the other, and it could have gone "either way", then there shouldn't be the slightest surprise, consternation or indignation when one of the teams comes bottom of the group. Someone had to.

Are you always this obnoxious??? or just a typical English hater???

Read the posts your replying to, JBBRH has summed it up perfectly. You seem to have got a rod up your butt, since being shown that cheaters can prosper and that the Costa Rican players are paid nowhere near what the english players are paid, are that they're even paid well at all.

I'm done with you and you can join the same list as CS, I cannot stand Xenophobes (think that's the right word)

I'm not xenophobic at all, just realisitic about England, you could apply what I've said to tons of teams.

The question is not why England underachieve, but if they do. Who set's par?

Then why is you only ever discuss England?

@JBBRH

What would be your way forward now to try and maximise the potential that is there.

I've said it elsewhere (I think), but until after the Euro's we should keep Roy and see how we do there.

I would also change the team to include a mixture of Premier league and Championship players in the squad, hopefully to try and show the players that they have to play their best or they'll be losing out to players a division below (there are some very good players in the championship too.)

Derbymanc wrote:Yes I would say that Rooney and Gerrard underperformed. Rooney was abysmal in the first game (bar the pass,) I didn't really notice Gerrard at all and he seemed to keep trying to ping the hollywood pass.

To be honest against Uruguay I thought the whole team looked like a bunch of glory hunters playing with each of them wanting to be the one to score the goal rather than playing as a team.

I wasn’t expecting much from Rooney or Gerrard.
Rooney offers a great work rate now but he isn’t able to torment defenders like he could a decade ago. His first touch is worse than ever and while he occasionally can produce a bit of magic, he often spends large periods of games doing little of value. With all that considered, the tournament summed up the current Rooney - lots of effort, occasional bits of quality and large periods of ineffectiveness.
Gerrard again, while he had a decent season at Liverpool, he is hardly the dominating figure he has been before. Seeing him struggle was no real surprise.
When I think of players who badly underperformed in this WC so far, I think more of guys like Toure or Costa than of Rooney or Gerrard.

Derbymanc wrote:@JBBRH

What would be your way forward now to try and maximise the potential that is there.

That is a much better question.

I've learned not to expect too much from England at all   but I thought their showing would be a bit better, espcially Rooney.

Although the pressure they feel must be immense I still think we can do better and as someone alluded to I think we desire heart more than actual skill.

'Keep XYZ in the squad as they'll run around all game'??? while I must admit to using this myself before    I must admit that in the cold light of day I think WHAT!!!!!!! I used to do that but I couldn't get off the school B team

super_realist wrote:With the exception of a few teams like Andorra, San Marino, Faroes, Gibraltar it's very arrogant to expect to beat anyone in International Football.

 
You must be arrogant then, as you 'expect' Scotland to beat ROI.

Derbymanc wrote:@JBBRH

What would be your way forward now to try and maximise the potential that is there.

I've said it elsewhere (I think), but until after the Euro's we should keep Roy and see how we do there.

I would also change the team to include a mixture of Premier league and Championship players in the squad, hopefully to try and show the players that they have to play their best or they'll be losing out to players a division below (there are some very good players in the championship too.)

I'm not sure there's any way to answer that question without sounding incredibly pompous. Oh well.

Firstly, I don't think Roy's a great manager - the 4-2-3-1 morphing into 4-2-4 being a case in point. That said, I don't see an obviously better option.

I guess in order to move the team forward, Roy needs to look at our team and assess its strengths and weaknesses and see how the weaknesses can be addressed.

I'd rather Roy tried to lay the foundations for future success, rather than patching up a team to do a moderate job in the interim. By that, I mean he should be identifying players who can fit into a successful game plan and giving them a run in the team.

I think the key problem England have is that we can't dictate games and we're incredibly poor in moving the ball from defence through midfield: we simply lack certain types of players - intelligent midfielders and skillful centrebacks as two obvious examples.

Bearing in mind his remit, Hodgson can't change the English footballing psyche - that's the FAs job, and they haven't shown that they are up to the task. What he can do is identify players who can fill problem positions for England in the future and work with them to ensure they become the players England need - working with their clubs to ensure they get good experience in those desired roles. Barkley has been mooted as a number 10, but can he develop the positional awareness, or will he become another Steven Gerrard - a highlight reel player, but more a luxury than a player you build a team around.

Hodgson's been lauded for giving opportunities to youth, but I'm not sure I agree with that when you look at who he has brought in and what he's done with them. Wellbeck will never be a top international CF. Given that's his best position, I can't see how he can be international quality as an outside forward. Jordan Henderson is young-ish, but seems to just be there to prop up Steven Gerrard, who looks like he's been allowed to continue a year too long. I think Hodgson should be thinking about who he will build a team around over the next few years.

Said 100 times better than I could have said it JB   

Seems obvious to me. The players aren't good enough.

Our players never venture outside of the UK. Look at how they play in the EPL with an open mind and you will see they are just average, with the exception of maybe Sturridge and the old Rooney. We are devoid of tactics and patience in build up. We have Hodgson.

CM's and AM's in this country are poor. With the money all the players get football is just a hobby to them.

Josiah Maiestas wrote:Our players never venture outside of the UK. Look at how they play in the EPL with an open mind and you will see they are just average, with the exception of maybe Sturridge and the old Rooney. We are devoid of tactics and patience in build up. We have Hodgson.

CM's and AM's in this country are poor. With the money all the players get football is just a hobby to them.

+1

Its time EPL governing body bring some cap to footballers earning, its ridiculous they get 20x my lifetime salary in a year [My Salary is one of the highest paid in my industry]

Masseur?

DirectView2 wrote:

Josiah Maiestas wrote:Our players never venture outside of the UK. Look at how they play in the EPL with an open mind and you will see they are just average, with the exception of maybe Sturridge and the old Rooney. We are devoid of tactics and patience in build up. We have Hodgson.

CM's and AM's in this country are poor. With the money all the players get football is just a hobby to them.

+1

Its time EPL governing body bring some cap to footballers earning, its ridiculous they get 20x my lifetime salary in a year [My Salary is one of the highest paid in my industry]

What has salary got to do with anything?

I hate the salary argument. I doubt Suarez will be playing for minimum wage at Barca.

Until we all stop watching football, footballers salary will continue to go through the roof. It's supply and demand.

GSC wrote:I hate the salary argument. I doubt Suarez will be playing for minimum wage at Barca.

Maybe young Footballers shouldn't be earning shed loads of cash. I unfortunately don't know what it's like, but I would imagine it's a distraction.

I think most people would welcome the distraction of being overpaid.

Stella wrote:

GSC wrote:I hate the salary argument. I doubt Suarez will be playing for minimum wage at Barca.

Maybe young Footballers shouldn't be earning shed loads of cash. I unfortunately don't know what it's like, but I would imagine it's a distraction.

The point about salaries being that it doesn't affect the teams that actually challenge in tournaments who are also paid handsomely. To use it as an argument for England's consistently average tournament results would be a terrible excuse.

More pertinent is the degree to which many players are over-hyped in this country. Swap Shaw's, Lallana's, Chamberlain's, Sturridge's, Hart's nationality for Finnish, Swiss, Croatian etc instead of English, and would anyone rate them very highly in this country? Not particularly.  Doubt many would even have heard of them.

England are at a push in the top half of teams in a tournament and there's nothing particularly wrong with being at that level. Averaging the last 16 is precisely where they ought to be and are.

super_realist wrote:

Stella wrote:

GSC wrote:I hate the salary argument. I doubt Suarez will be playing for minimum wage at Barca.

Maybe young Footballers shouldn't be earning shed loads of cash. I unfortunately don't know what it's like, but I would imagine it's a distraction.

The point about salaries being that it doesn't affect the teams that actually challenge in tournaments who are also paid handsomely. To use it as an argument for England's consistently average tournament results would be a terrible excuse.

More pertinent is the degree to which many players are over-hyped in this country. Swap Shaw's, Lallana's, Chamberlain's, Sturridge's, Hart's nationality for Finnish, Swiss, Croatian etc instead of English, and would anyone rate them very highly in this country? Not particularly.  Doubt many would even have heard of them.

England are at a push in the top half of teams in a tournament and there's nothing particularly wrong with being at that level.

Oh yes, salary and us being not good enough in a tournament are just a coincidence.

Hart and to an extent Sturridge I disagree with on that.

Stella wrote:

super_realist wrote:

Stella wrote:

GSC wrote:I hate the salary argument. I doubt Suarez will be playing for minimum wage at Barca.

Maybe young Footballers shouldn't be earning shed loads of cash. I unfortunately don't know what it's like, but I would imagine it's a distraction.

The point about salaries being that it doesn't affect the teams that actually challenge in tournaments who are also paid handsomely. To use it as an argument for England's consistently average tournament results would be a terrible excuse.

More pertinent is the degree to which many players are over-hyped in this country. Swap Shaw's, Lallana's, Chamberlain's, Sturridge's, Hart's nationality for Finnish, Swiss, Croatian etc instead of English, and would anyone rate them very highly in this country? Not particularly.  Doubt many would even have heard of them.

England are at a push in the top half of teams in a tournament and there's nothing particularly wrong with being at that level.

Oh yes, salary and us being not good enough in a tournament are just a coincidence.

They aren't not good enough for the tournament because they are paid too much. Come on.

super_realist wrote:

Stella wrote:

super_realist wrote:

Stella wrote:

GSC wrote:I hate the salary argument. I doubt Suarez will be playing for minimum wage at Barca.

Maybe young Footballers shouldn't be earning shed loads of cash. I unfortunately don't know what it's like, but I would imagine it's a distraction.

The point about salaries being that it doesn't affect the teams that actually challenge in tournaments who are also paid handsomely. To use it as an argument for England's consistently average tournament results would be a terrible excuse.

More pertinent is the degree to which many players are over-hyped in this country. Swap Shaw's, Lallana's, Chamberlain's, Sturridge's, Hart's nationality for Finnish, Swiss, Croatian etc instead of English, and would anyone rate them very highly in this country? Not particularly.  Doubt many would even have heard of them.

England are at a push in the top half of teams in a tournament and there's nothing particularly wrong with being at that level.

Oh yes, salary and us being not good enough in a tournament are just a coincidence.

They aren't not good enough for the tournament because they are paid too much. Come on.  

I was agreeing with you. I must admit, my last comment did read a little sarcastic.

I think the link with the salaries might be that once the youngsters are paid these massive amounts, they start to sit on their laurels and maybe feel that they've 'earned' their place and that's that.

You see many other countries that pay a lot less (Costa Rica) for one and they performed out of their skins, the mindset could be 'this is my chance to show the world what i'm worth' whereas our players is 'i'm paid 60k a week I know what I'm worth'

super_realist wrote:

Stella wrote:

GSC wrote:I hate the salary argument. I doubt Suarez will be playing for minimum wage at Barca.

Maybe young Footballers shouldn't be earning shed loads of cash. I unfortunately don't know what it's like, but I would imagine it's a distraction.

The point about salaries being that it doesn't affect the teams that actually challenge in tournaments who are also paid handsomely. To use it as an argument for England's consistently average tournament results would be a terrible excuse.

More pertinent is the degree to which many players are over-hyped in this country. Swap Shaw's, Lallana's, Chamberlain's, Sturridge's, Hart's nationality for Finnish, Swiss, Croatian etc instead of English, and would anyone rate them very highly in this country? Not particularly.  Doubt many would even have heard of them.

England are at a push in the top half of teams in a tournament and there's nothing particularly wrong with being at that level. Averaging the last 16 is precisely where they ought to be and are.

I actually think Sturridge is somewhat under-rated in this country. If he was Brazilian and had the season he had, the hype around him would be far stronger.
Most other English players do get over-rated I agree though. Shaw and Lallana getting picked constantly in fans PL Team of the Season was purely based on their nationality and watching adverts/promotions of Rooney being placed alongside Ronaldo and Messi is simply embarrassing.

What was the reason for Honduras, Australia, Iran, Japan etc not showing such vigour as Costa Rica?

There is always one team (Greece, South Korea, Sweden, Denmark etc) that turns up at a tournament and does better than expected, it isn't necessarily due to them being paid less and showing more hunger than the more likely teams. It just happens every World Cup/Euro's, you can't really pin it on one particular reason.

I'm sure the youngsters in Germany, Argentina, Brazil and Holland playing for top teams in Europe are not resting on their laurels because they are paid "too much".

I can see how it might take your eye off the ball a bit and for a short period of time (e.g. McIlroy) but you either want to do well, and are good enough to do well, or you aren't. Not necessarily a product of how much you are paid as there is plenty players not paid highly who do very well as well as badly, and vice versa.

In England's case, I'm sure they wanted to do well, but are just a very very average tournament nation, averaging the last 16, is simply their level. No shame in that.

Very true Benson, hilarious when they have Rooney on say the front cover of a FIFA game taking priority of Ronaldo and Messi, also hilarious that his like feature in TV adverts with them.

Go to another country and there is no sign of them in such promotional material.

Sturridges and Hart's adverts are amongst the very worst though. A bit like getting Fred West to advertise Garden Paving.

super_realist wrote:Very true Benson, hilarious when they have Rooney on say the front cover of a FIFA game taking priority of Ronaldo and Messi, also hilarious that his like feature in TV adverts with them.

Go to another country and there is no sign of them in such promotional material.

Sturridges and Hart's adverts are amongst the very worst though. A bit like getting Fred West to advertise Garden Paving.

Hart's shampoo adverts are cheesy as hell.
The Subway adverts with Sturridge are just stupid. According to the advert, Sturridge appears to have been brought up in 60's Britain and idolised a player whose prime was 2-3 decades before he was born. 
  

With the Samsung advert, you see Ronaldo and Messi. Then you see Rooney and think "Mmmm..not sure what he's doing alongside those two" and then you see Victor Moses and you're like "WTF?!!"

     

I think being paid huge sums of money does have an impact on performance but given many of the top teams are filled with filthy rich individuals that narrows the impact somewhat.

I remember hearing a boxer once say something similiar to this... what hunger do I have to wake at 4am in the morning when I'm sitting in my mansion wearing silk pajamas?


The one thing I hate though is how people are so obtuse in their observations. Jordan Henderson for instance. Apparently he had the best pass completion rate of any England player in years or something.. >90%.

Sound good? well on the face sure but you only have to dig a little deeper to see its a worthless stat.

Its like saying some joe took 14 kicks 10metres out in front of the posts in rugby and slotted them all for 100% accuracy and then saying he's better than a kicker firing over 12 of 14 from 40 metres out on the angle purely because his average is higher.

Even Gary Lineker lauded him. Its a total farce.

Henderson spent much of that game with his back to the Italian goal passing inbetween himself, Gerrard and the centre backs. Thats not passing skill when its a simple pass. He never drove forward, never tried to pass into centre midfield and to his link men upfront, maybe that wasn't his job but no wonder his passing rate was high.

Since Scholes left in 04 England haven't had a midfielder who could pick a pass and was comfortable driving forward.

I started watching England in the 80s and then they had chaps like Hoddle, Robson, Waddle, Gascoigne, Wilkins etc... all of which were far superior in their passing game to today's crop and all could compete on a level playing field with the game's elite. Those chaps didn't spend their entire years are clubs aged 8. Half of them were picked up aged 13-14 and had no FA endorsed coaching until then.

Funny that todays class are probably the first to graduate from Uefa qualified academies probably from aged 7-8 yet their ball skills are dire.

Its fine having athlete's who can run at defenders but if they can't deliver a telling cross or a final pass then its likely to end like it always did for England in 2014.... a whimper.

Literally what are they teaching at these academies because skills have dropped not just to their rivals but to previous eras which is loco given the investments apparent skilled based approach they have.

People joke that the 70s-80s teams were long ball sides with little skill but lots of agression. Thats simply untrue, those guys would have run circles around these chaps today even the Beckham era sides (as long as we take general fitness out of the equation and sports science progression).

Thats why England are now a poor mid 20 ranked side now (in reality) like Scotland in the 90s but not why they went out.

Perhaps Hodgson wanted to let the players have a go but it was a joke... like Tottenham under Christian Gross, 4 forwards, huge gaps in midfield allowing the opposition to dominate. and leaving England with one strategy.... have lone players attack from deep and try and take on 3-4 defenders on their own. Fine if you're Messi, not so great the other 700 players who were at this world cup.

DirectView2 wrote:

Josiah Maiestas wrote:Our players never venture outside of the UK. Look at how they play in the EPL with an open mind and you will see they are just average, with the exception of maybe Sturridge and the old Rooney. We are devoid of tactics and patience in build up. We have Hodgson.

CM's and AM's in this country are poor. With the money all the players get football is just a hobby to them.

+1

Its time EPL governing body bring some cap to footballers earning, its ridiculous they get 20x my lifetime salary in a year [My Salary is one of the highest paid in my industry]

Wages are on a supply and demand basis. There is high demand for football in this country so the players get paid loads. If you don't like it, stop watching. Simple. I don't see anything wrong with footballers wages. If they get that much then good luck to them. I don't find it ridiculous at all just because some people earn more than you.

Comparing football wages to other jobs is a bit ludicrous. If any other job had thousands of people watching it each week, had sponsorships, had people paying £40 a month to watch it on tv then other jobs sector would have huge wages.

The only way you could do something about wages would be to go down the NFL route and give each team the same amount of money to spend on wages but in a pyramid league system it would be unlikely.

Derbymanc wrote:I think the link with the salaries might be that once the youngsters are paid these massive amounts, they start to sit on their laurels and maybe feel that they've 'earned' their place and that's that.'

This always makes me laugh. I have heard plenty of people saying exactly the same in the past few weeks.

The next thing people say is there are too many foreigners, young players don't get a chance and there should be guaranteed places for English players.

So do people want to mollycoddle' young players or not?

But the 70s and 80s England team didn't win nothing either? In fact looking at it - '74 failed to qualify
'78 - failed to qualify
'82 second round
'86 quarter final.

did not qualify for Euro 72 & 80, group stages 80 & 88...

sportform wrote:

Derbymanc wrote:I think the link with the salaries might be that once the youngsters are paid these massive amounts, they start to sit on their laurels and maybe feel that they've 'earned' their place and that's that.'

This always makes me laugh. I have heard plenty of people saying exactly the same in the past few weeks.

The next thing people say is there are too many foreigners, young players don't get a chance and there should be guaranteed places for English players.

So do people want to mollycoddle' young players or not?

So do you agree with the post or not, and if not why not???

I've heard a lot of people the last few weeks just spout stuff with no reasons behind it, just an excuse to moan or try and laugh at other people.

@Raf

A lot of people have more problems with the fact that lately it seems that players aren't playing their hearts out for the country.

There's lots of little things of why we're not doing so well but one of the main things is that we're not (and haven't been for a while) as good as we're often made out to be. Our younger players seem to be happy to coast through for their sponsorships/wages without really trying to better themselves or fight for something (eg Tom Ince - Not an International I know but how many of us would give up the chance to Play for Inter to instead play for Hull).

Wages will forever be brought up as not many of us can imagine being paid that much to do something we love (we forget that some of these players don't like football and for them it is a job.)
Same as heart, we cherish our respected clubs (International and Domestic) not realising that the geezer your screaming your lungs out for one minute, isn't that bothered about the crest on his chest.