Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Croatia 2 - England 0


Beverley born Paul Robinson was unfortunately left embarrassed as England crashed to a dismal defeat against Croatia in the Euro 2008 qualifier in Zagreb. Scrap the wingback system. Neville got lots of crosses in, Cole didn't. We don't need 3 at the back - they didn't even mark up properly when crosses came in.

Rooney is going to come deep to try and set things up, so we don't need Lampard, Carrick and Parker getting in his way. Play him in midfield and have two out and out strikers up front - Crouch/Ashton/Beattie & Johnson/Defoe/Bent/Walcott probably. Play Carrick/Hargreaves behind Rooney to feed the ball forward and do the defensive work for him so he doesn't tire himself out chasing the ball all over the pitch as he likes to do.

Get Downing back on the left wing. He didn't play well on Saturday, but he wasn't given the ball, and had Gerrard coming over to the left to get in the way. Before Saturday he'd had a couple of good games for England and always looks to cross. The more crosses, the more chances to score we'll have - simple.

Gerrard on the right would be okay as long as he sticks to that position and doesn't go charging all over the place. This is how Benetiz gets the best out of him, to channel him into doing specific things instead of trying to do everything. Wright-Phillips or Lennon on the bench are good impact players to bring on, and Gerrard could swap to a central position, if required.

I'm still not particularly impressed by John Terry as a player, let alone captain. King's always been solid for England.

Robinson was a tad unlucky with the miskick, and he made about 10 saves so we can let him off. We were losing at that point and would have lost anyway.

No huge personnel changes, but we need to rethink the midfield to create more chances. Tonight we had the Rooney shot that went over, and his 20-yard shot from the free kick lay-off - that was it. Hopefully England will learn from their mistakes quickly before the next round of qualification games, goodness should I become England manager, no it is just an opinion!

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