Massa wrote:The attacking attractive football is mostly down to the players from other countries you'd have to say. Only technical Englishmen are Wilshere & Scholes IMO
Definitely agree with this, think I've said something similar myself, although I would put Rooney in that little list on a good day.
However, although intricate build-up play might be an issue as there are little to no technically gifted English players, the bare basics of keeping the ball (the stuff that my five-a-side team can do!) should be second nature to
any professional. If the Ukranian national team can string 10 passes together, so can 11 players from the Prem.
On the game:
We have a good defence and a strong, positionally aware, combatitive midfiled in Parker and Gerrard... I can't help but think better wingers would have opened up a whole new dimension to our game.
ManUre beat us on numerous occasions over the years as the poorer of the two footballing teams. They beat us with two solid rows of four, a strong defence, and devastating counter-attacking wing play! Why couldn't we do the same?
We had enough in our defence and the deeper Gerrard and Parker to do a good defensive job, but you can't win games if you're camped in your own half... better wing-play would have given us an attacking threat, relieved the defence, stretched the game (the way England like it... when there's no cohesion in the game and everything's chaotic), and gave us the slight possibility to actually being able to take the game to an oponent.
Woy should have chosen wingers who were forward thinking, pacey and confident. Milner and Young were f**king awful everytime they played... and I don't want to hear anything about how well Milner defended, because that's not what he's there for. Modern team defending is about pressing, so really any winger with stamina, a willingness to run back, and half-decent positional awareness can do his defensive duties. Ox and Theo should have started all day long!
I hate to say it but even Lennon would have been a massive player for us, and Adam Johnson, of course! Anyone with a brain can see how overrated Ashley Young is, how Milner
isn't even a winger, and how Downing should probably be playing Championship football. England's four best wingers are Ox, Theo, Johnson and Lennon... all young, fearless, attacking and pacey.
Can we hope for anything more in Woy's next tournament incharge? We know his tactics. We know he prefers to remain hard to be through disciplined team play rather than go at games. Did he just make poor player choices on the wings and would actually have prefered our wingers to play as reliable outlets and actually create something? Or did he indeed intend to bore the f**k out of everyone and play conservative wingers that offered more in defence than attack?