<World Cup rant> Sven Goran Eriksson: Swede fer brains or Messiah ?

‘Some people believe football is a matter of life and death. I’m very disappointed with that attitude. I can assure you it is much, much more important than that.’ – said Bill Shankly in the late 60’s. Of course it’s not, but once every four years it can almost feel that way.

Dear Mr Eriksson,

I believe everyone deserves the opportunity to be wrong. Once. Thankfully the way the World Cup Group stage works, it seems FIFA agree with that philosophy. You, Sir, have had that one chance. A one-one draw in a match we should have had comfortably won by half time is not, repeat not, acceptable.

Today your tactics were dreadful. No, they were abysmal. I accept a couple of the England players aren’t there because of long-term injuries, there are players not yet fully recovered from injury and you were forced to select second/third choice players (Danny Clueless Mills). But riddle me this:

What is the fucking point of selecting for your squad some of the very best midfielders in the world as well as extremely fast * but diminutive* strikers and then have our clod hopping defence lump the damn ball into the pockets of 6’+ Swedish defenders – our friggin midfield spent most of the game staring at clouds before trying to retrieve the ball from those Swedish defenders.

Why, after this long in charge, is there as much balance, as much shape, as much fluidity, as much sense of working as a collective to a flexible game plan as there was in the darkest days of Graeme Taylor’s tenure. The team today was lost – it wasn’t even football dammit.

So you like the early ball over the defenders shoulders for the nippy forwards to run onto. Great. We know that, the Swede’s know that, the whole damn friggin planet knows that. Is there a Plan B ? No, there bloody isn’t. It’s a one-trick team and everyone knows the damn trick !!!

I might be wrong but I think it was the 61st minute before Seaman finally rolled the damn ball out: Isn’t the idea to keep possession and then try to do something with it, what about exploiting those huge holes down the right that we by-passed for most of the match, what on earth did you say, or more exactly, not say at half time, how about working the ball in from wide to try and give the forwards some angles to play with…I dunno…It’s what you didn’t do at half time that, in some ways, worries me the most – didn’t you have a clue about how to remedy things ???/

I’ve always had my doubts about your tactical savvy. One chance, that’s it. You’ve had that chance. Sort it out and quick, Mr Eriksson or be gone – let the team play to its strengths, any strengths will do at this stage. They deserve better, the country deserves better, football deserves better and I’m about to burst a blood vessel. Thank you.

I thought Mills was good, single bad mistake excepting. Better than anyone else at right back anyway. Vassell was excellent and even Emile ‘Why A Footballer?’ Heskey improved once he was pushed up front.

I thought England were bereft of ideas. When we had the ball in defence, we waited and looked puzzled. No creativity. No other player making space. I really don’t think we have the bus fare mentally for international football.

Lot of wasting. Wasting the ball and wasting time Dancing around defenders and then immediately giving ball away - partially the fault of whoever had ball for keeping it too long and then panicking, partly fault of forwards and midfielders who didn’t bother to get into space early, or at all. And defenders wasting so much bloody time. You can’t waste time at this level, especially not when you’re hunting a goal.

Don’t play Emile on the left. And if Vassell is doing well, don’t take the bugger off! Change to 4-3-3 instead - move Emile off and bring Uncle Teddy on, or move Emile to centre forward.

I don’t understand why they weren’t giving it in from wide, and why the only people who pushed forward were Ashley Cole and Danny Mills.
I blame the band playing the national anthems. On Friday, they played the last line of the Marseillaise twice, prompting confusion and panic in the French line-up. You could see Thierry Henry, brows knotted, wondering whether there was some strange möbius time loop operating in the stadium. They were still thinking “what the fuck went on there then” until Papa Diop scored, then they spent the rest of the game thinking “what the fuck went on there then” about the goal.

Same thing today. The band played two verses of God Save The Queen instead of one, and our chaps were confused by it.

It’s a plot. A dastardly plot.

Here’s Matt’s player ratings:

Seaman: 8. Did everything he had to. Couple of good saves, always looked calm under pressure (unlike the rest of the team).

Mills: 7. One bad error which he nearly got away with, but more attack-minded and defensively sounder than any other possible right back we have. Temper not a problem, tried hard. Apart from that error he could have been England’s man of the match.

Campbell: 6. Good simple goal, decent defensively but not great since none of the defence seemed to grasp the concept of marking players receiving knock-downs.

Ferdinand: 6. Same as Campbell. Played safely but also failed to understand that you don’t just mark the player on the ball.

Cole: 5. As usual, better attacking than defending. Could have cost England the game. Should NOT be England’s left back, but should play left midfield ahead of Bridge.

Beckham: 5. Good corner, anonymous otherwise. Still gaining match fitness I assume (and being saved for Argentina), so I didn’t expect his usual 100% performance.

Scholes: 4. Was he playing? Not an orthodox central midfielder, but couldn’t break forward or the midfield would have been overrun even more. He is not right for that role.

Hargreaves: 5. Okay. Squad player. No big mistakes but hardly commanded midfield.

Heskey: first half 3, second half 7. HE IS NOT A MIDFIELDER. No ball control whatsoever. Better as a target man to scare small defenders, as he showed once Vassell went off. Should only be played as such from now on.

Owen: 4. One of his poorest games for England. As anonymous as Scholes, if only because the midfield seemed bloody-mindedly determined to play crosses in (great idea when you have two small front men) rather than through balls. Not his fault, but maybe Vassell and Heskey would have had more impact if we’re persisting with this tactic.

Vassell: 8. Very, very good. Pacy, tricky and hardworking. Deserves his place in the starting XI. Not sure about combining him with Owen, though.

Subs:

Dyer: 5. Obviously not match practised. Faded quickly.

Cole: 6. Surprisingly involved in tackling back (impressive) but failed to turn the game.

Very disappointing. We were all over them in the first twenty minutes and the game was ours for the taking.

It seems to me that Swedish (and other Scandiwegian) football is ideally suited to negating England ie big pacy defenders used to the long ball, and we played to their strengths.

I totally agree about the paucity of tactical thinking and I thought he was wrong to bring off Vassell who looked our most dangerous striker. I would have liked to have seen something of Teddy as well as he has the guile to unlock defenses.

My team for Argentina:

Seaman

Mills Ferdinand Southgate Bridge

Beckham Hargreves Scholes Either one of the coles

Owen Vassell.
Might show a bit more creativity. We desperately miss Gerrard.

My ideal line-up from now:

Seaman: goalkeeper

Mills: right-back
Campbell: central defence
Ferdinand: central defence
Bridge: left-back

Beckham: right midfield
Hargreaves: central midfield
Joe Cole: central midfield
Ashley Cole: left midfield

Darius Vassell: forward
Michael Owen: forward

It’s odd, but I’d actually consider dropping Owen and playing Heskey as the physical presence for Vassell to play off. As my mate said, ‘you can’t drop Owen!’, so I’m too scared to go through with that idea. Cole is a better attacker than defender, so I’d play him and Bridge on the left to overlap. Hargreaves isn’t great but he’s better than Butt in midfield. Scholes is a good player but not in an orthodox 4-4-2, so he’d be my first sub. Heskey would come on to replace whichever of the two strikers isn’t playing well.

Don’t worry you can still beat Nigeria, they are not that good.
P.S: Mister Blatter fuck you, next time have the decency of staging the world cup in the western hemisphere, in that why you won’t make us watch a game at 2:30 A.M.

For the the first time in 40 years I can watch world class soccer at anything other than such gawdforsaken hours. So, blow it out your arse mate. :smiley:

People are so predictable.

One game against a hard team which we didn’t lose and you’re criticising him.

Have some faith or shut up until we are actually out of the world cup. It is not sensible at all to rant until we’re out.

People are so predictable.

One game against a hard team which we didn’t lose and you’re criticising him.

Have some faith or shut up until we are actually out of the world cup. It is not sensible at all to rant until we’re out.

I’m not going to mark the players out of ten for their performances because I don’t think they were allowed to play football – IMHO, it’s hardly the midfield’s fault Eriksson employed the tactics he did.

As to the best team for the next game, I half expect him to start with a 3-5-2 formation, if only to undermine opposition planning (both in the immediate Argentina game and also apropos Nigeria). But Eriksson probably doesn’t think that way – and I don’t think he’s ever played that formation - so (to start with):

Seaman
London_Calling
Judas
Ferdinand
A.Cole

Beckham
Butt
Scholes
Dyer

Vassell
Owen

  • potential for injuries and lack of match fitness presumably mean all substitutions would affect the midfield, unless something unforeseen occurs.
    Personally, I’d be tempted with:

Seaman

Judas
Ferdinand
Southgate

Beckham
Butt (primarily holding)
Scholes
Hargreaves (primarily holding)
Dyer (then later A.Cole)

Vassell
Owen

  • additional midfield options after 60/70 minutes J.Cole and Uncle Teddy.

I quite like the 3-5-2, since Butt and Hargreaves defending would allow Scholes to push forward – but I don’t like leaving Beckham exposed on the right. He can’t push up as much as I’d like, and recovering from injury his ability to track back would be questionable.

I wouldn’t be worried by covering Beckham as he’s likely to only last 70-ish minutes anyway and during that time should be okay – conventional cover would be primarily Hargreaves but all part of a ‘drifting’ defence including one central defender and Butt/Scholes.

3-5-2 appears to play to our strengths, solves the right back problem (well, I think it’s a problem!), makes the left side more balanced and adds fluidity across the field and into the channels. Why aren’t I the manager !

Same reason I’m not: we’re just too damn good.

Damn, where’s my Championship Manager?

Following on from Tansu’s point about Anthems, anyone noticed the ‘official’ England band (in the crowd) aren’t playing ‘The Great Escape’ ?

Bring it on, I say ! And don’t forget ‘Colonel Bogey’…they’ll love that in Japan.

Ehem!

So London, should I take your point to be that we Swedes are of the same superior intelligence as the Brits and that the Messiah is as stupid as Eriksson or the other way around? :wink:

Obviously we were at least smart enough to send ‘Svennis’ to a place and position where he could help us in better ways than he did back home. :smiley:

Sparc

You beat me to it Sparc!

Swede fer brains or Messiah ? I reckon it’s the same thing so the title makes little sense to me.

Piece of s… game though. Both teams have good defense but do we have attacking power enough to get Argentina in trouble?

Well, it’s a combination of things. Firstly, an old England manager was referred to as a turnip (Graeme Taylor) and Swede is a not dissimilar vegetable.

Then there’s the pun on the shit for brains thing.

Then there’s the pun on his nationality.

Nothing offensive intended towards the Vikings. And besides, some of my best conquests have been in a near vegetative state :smiley:

I learn something everyday on this board. Vegetable huh!? Waddyaknow…

With the Nigerians never really looking likely to score it’s difficult to judge what state Argentina’s defence is in. As for Argentina, their midfield is superb ( as you would expect with Veron being allowed to play to his strengths) but they had great difficulty finishing off the chances that were created. That offers some hope to England and Sweden.