The Key to the England Puzzle

[tommers]

After watching last night's game it occurred to me that the current England team are an enigma. On paper the players are great, but the team seem laboured. They huff and they puff but they very rarely blow anything down.

I was sitting there, wondering how svennis could change this when the answer came to me in a flash of inspiration (well, I saw yet another misplaced pass... another skied shot).

Yes! The answer to all of England's problems (hell, the world's problems) is to get rid of Frank Lampard! The most overrated player in world football! (2nd best player in the world my big fat hairy ones.)

In the final minutes Gerrard showed "Lamps" exactly how to do it. Imagine a rampaging Gerrard with full licence to get to the edge of the opposition penalty area and lash in goal after goal after goal.

Imagine a proper holding player who can supply balls from the centre to both wings and forward to the Gerrard goal machine!

Imagine my joy at finally having a valid reason for my illogical, irrational but extremely emotional hatred of frank!

He ruins the England midfield. He ruins the England team. And he has played like shit for about a year!

Join me my brothers! my sisters! GET FRANK OUT!

 

[Wintermute]

 

[zenie]

What are you on about Lamps is great?

 

[jiggajagga]

Drop Becks, give Gerrard the Captaincy and move him more forward, tell the players that if they can walk off the pitch at the end rather than crawling off with exhaustion they are dropped!
Lets have some blood, snot and passion ffs!

 

[tommers]

What are you on about Lamps is great?

do you have eyes?

 

[JTG]

he's right, fuck him out

 

[zenie]

do you have eyes?

For Chelsea

 

[tommers]

Drop Becks, give Gerrard the Captaincy and move him more forward, tell the players that if they can walk off the pitch at the end rather than crawling off with exhaustion they are dropped!
Lets have some blood, snot and passion ffs!

yep. drop beckham, what did he do apart from set up the first goal? and the goal against paraguay.

keep in lampard. he gave the ball away countless times last night and missed about three sitters.

yeah. i think you're right.

 

[tommers]

For Chelsea

that would explain things.

love is blind.

 

[Sweaty Betty]

do you have eyes?

I said it last night, he may be more concerned with his wife at mo, as she has misbehaved since she tried to set foot on the plane,,,

I think he is very overated as well......

 

[zenie]

that would explain things.

love is blind.

Give him time, he’ll come through.

He is an a bloody good player for us and he can be for England too. In fact he has been in the past?

Don’t start hating players so early man!

 

[tommers]

Give him time, he’ll come through.

He is an a bloody good player for us and he can be for England too. In fact he has been in the past?

Don’t start hating players so early man!

haha! I've hated frank for years!

 

[tommers]

I said it last night, he may be more concerned with his wife at mo, as she has misbehaved since she tried to set foot on the plane,,,

I think he is very overated as well......

good, welcome to the brother (and sister) hood.

 

[Balbi]

gerrard is much better than lampard, drop the cunt and play carrick in holding

 

[ivebeenhigh]

gerrard is much better than lampard, drop the cunt and play carrick in holding

ding ding ding we have the correct answer.

Either that or play Rooney in the Lampard position.

Lampard only gets as many goals as he does for Chelsea as his strikers have been so poor.

 

[tommers]

gerrard is much better than lampard, drop the cunt and play carrick in holding

hark! is that the voice of reason I can hear?!

I spent most of last night shouting at lampard whenever he got the ball. It started as a joke (the two guys next to me found it funny, I could tell) but after about 30 mins I realised that he had done nothing that I couldn't boo. After obsessively watching him for the whole game I can report that he did absolutely nothing good during that match, although he did successsfully complete a couple of three yard sideways passes.

 

[Balbi]

ding ding ding we have the correct answer.

Either that or play Rooney in the Lampard position.

Lampard only gets as many goals as he does for Chelsea as his strikers have been so poor.

are you mental?

england need a tackling midfielder

rooney is not one
lampard isn't one
gerrard isn't one

*remembers when nicky butt was good *

 

[upsidedownwalrus]

I would tend to agree that one of them has to go. Lampard just isn't doing it at the moment. It's a shame Scott Parker is injured though, I think he would have done a much better job than Carrick.

 

[tommers]

are you mental?

england need a tackling midfielder

rooney is not one
lampard isn't one
gerrard isn't one

*remembers when nicky butt was good *

carrick isn't one either.

 

[upsidedownwalrus]

A shame the mighty Hayden Mullins was overlooked

 

[Chorlton]

*remembers when nicky butt was good *

if i can just break from the norm and talk about football for a minute - you raise a good point - nicky butt is one of the few players who *got* SGEs game and revelled in it - is he injured? i think he should have gone tbh - if youse are going to play that turgid horrible game then at least bring players who understand it

 

[tommers]

A shame the mighty Hayden Mullins was overlooked

indeed! are you sure you weren't there last night? this is spooky.

 

[ivebeenhigh]

are you mental?

england need a tackling midfielder

rooney is not one
lampard isn't one
gerrard isn't one

*remembers when nicky butt was good *

Gerrard is better than Carrick in the defensive midfield position if you are playing 4-4-2 as his distribution and awareness if far superior plus he will always get forward and get goals.

 

[upsidedownwalrus]

indeed! are you sure you weren't there last night? this is spooky.

Nah, I was watching here in my front room with a Trinidadian-Canadian friend, who usually doesn't watch football, but made an exception for this game... She was rather pissed off!

 

[tommers]

Gerrard is better than Carrick in the defensive midfield position if you are playing 4-4-2 as his distribution and awareness if far superior plus he will always get forward and get goals.

*shakes head sadly*

you're asking the wrong question.

yes, gerrard is better than carrick at that role. gerrard is better than any other english midfielder at pretty much any role.

what you should be asking is... is playing gerrard in a defensive midfield position completely wasting one of the great football talents of the past thirty years?

then... why does he play there and not forward?

and the answer, as always, is frank lampard.

 

[upsidedownwalrus]

Bollocks i'vebeenhigh, it's plangently obvious that Gerrard is one of the world's best attacking midfielders, as demonstrated by the FA Cup final where he singlehandedly stopped us winning the cup. he has to be unshackled by having a defensive midfielder behind him if England are going to win this thing.

 

[hektik]

i would say that lampard should be dropped and carrick put in instead: it is obvious that lampard and gerrard cannot do the job together.

however, there is a proviso to that: I know that yellow cards get rubbed out at the end of the group stage, but what about suspensions? gerrard is on a yellow: if there is a chance that he could be suspended for the germany/ecuador game, then he should not play against sweden, and we should have lampard and carrick in midfield. if there is no such worry about it, then it should be gerrard/carrick.

 

[tarannau]

carrick isn't one either.

True. He's just a bit lightweight for any holding position. He can pass a bit, but that's not enough to make him a dominating international in this company. Bit slow too and I've not seen him show enough experience or anticipation to make up for that shortfall.

Maybe he could have played an effective role within a team system, but it's too late to try and integrate someone properly now imo. He's not really a proper defensive midfielder in my book.

 

[Donna Ferentes]

Presumably England will, as usual, go out in a tough match against a good team who have got just a little bit more than they have.

 

[Flashman]

Presumably England will, as usual, go out in a tough match against a good team who have got just a little bit more than they have.

As is our wont, I'd never expect anything less.