There's Your Karma, Ripe As Peaches

England Comes Through in Typical Underwhelming Fashion

And when we are underwhelming, that means all is right with the world. For if the Three Lions ever manages to play end to end under Sven, the laws of nature would be turned on their head. Then again, we'd also win the World Cup were that to occur, so here's hoping.

In any case, what began as a party was in danger of turning into another case of our men making heavy weather of inferior opponents, as England put forth yet another of the lackluster, nauseating performances that have come to typify the Sven-Goran Eriksson era. After a fairly impressive first half, our boys collapsed. We lacked cohesion, the players began to tire, and Sven displayed his prowess in making the worst subsitutions of all time. As Alan Hansen noted, his moves in the 2002 World Cup were poor and at Euro 2004, they were appalling; against Paraguay, he got it completely wrong again. What're you gonna do? This is par for the course. Though I can't express surprise at our outing, I never believed Sven's woeful selection policy would be exposed so soon.

Michael Owen is the most natural striker in England and has played about an hour of Premiership football this year. To say he is short of match fitness might be the understatement of the year. Even when Rooney is back to speed, Owen is still our number 1 goal-scoring option, so considering his state, it seems only reasonable that there'd be a fitting replacement somewhere on the squad - right?

No. Not when the charge is lead by Braindead Swede.

Say what you will about Tottenham's Jermain Defoe but the striker is the only proper replacement for Michael Owen in the whole of the British Isles. And rather than add a player of his ability to the team for insurance, Eriksson proved himself a true mental defective by severely limiting our strike force with the selections Michael Carrick, Jermaine Jenas, and Owen Hargreaves. I can probably let Carrick and Jenas go [Jenas' dad is from Albuquerque, so I can almost defend that from a biased standpoint]. But adding Hargreaves while Defoe sits at home picking his toenails might be the worst roster decision in the history of English football.

Last week a friend asked me why England fans were so insensed at Hargreaves placement -- he'd seen a couple of our warmup friendlies and determined that we were all crazy. Hargreaves was a good player! He has 30 caps and so what if he didn't surge until the final 12 or so games of Bayern Munich's season? I let the comments go for fear of unleashing rage. It's not like he knew any better. Hargreaves is a nice player and admittedly, our best holding mid, which works nicely with Sven's bullshit method of scoring first and holding on for dear life. But those qualities aren't special enough to warrant Jermain Defoe's absence from the team. And on Saturday, it became abundantly clear that his presence crucially tilted the balance of the squad in the wrong direction.

I'm not laying blame for our second half performance at his feet. He actually played pretty well - but we don't need players to hold. We need players that can score, and England has a strike force of FOUR players due to his presence. That is unacceptable.

Should we play a real team when Hargreaves is inserted while Owen is out of the match, England should do said team a favor and stick the forks in themselves.

That said, a win is still a win and I'm happy for the three points. In 2002, we started out with a ghastly draw, so I suppose, in a way, we're getting off on the right foot. I continue to hold out hope that once we exit the group stage, Rooney's return will energize the lads and create some type of magical jelling power that will have them all playing as a unit from end to end... but that hope is fueled by massive amounts of ale and I need to return to that state of drunkenness to feel better about our chances.

Cheers

PS - For the non-English and generally uninformed, this post is effectively over. For the rest of you, here are some entertaining (and valid) questions posed by my friend Toxic over at his place:

• What does Sven do at half time, are his speeches the verbal equivalent of GHB, is this how he snags the women?
• What's the point of taking Walcott if you don't want to play him and would rather waste Joe Cole's talents putting him inside.
• Why take Jenas if you're sad that Defoe has to leave.
• Why does Ashley Cole always tuck in giving the wide opposition player all the time and space in the world? Why does Ashley Cole cut inside with the ball when everyone and his dog knows he can’t kick it with his right foot ? Why does Ashley Cole always fall over at important times? In fact why Ashley Cole?
• Is Gary Neville less than one dimensional? Or does the fact he can do a whole 3 things with the ball make him 3 dimensional? Because there's the slow everything down back pass, there's the pass to marked man so that he can't possibly keep possession and there's the aimless chip down the line to no one in particular.
• Can David Beckham actually find an England player if it's not a dead ball situation? Actually seeing as it was an own goal can Beckham pass it to an England player full stop. In this situation I’m not counting over hit balls that only skiff the top of Peter Crouch’s head because he’s so tall, yes they found their target but a lot of fucking use they were.
• Will Gerrard ever play for his country the way he does for his club, or is he going to join Barnes, Hansen & Dalglish? Will he realise after the first attempt has flown over or by the intended player that if he takes a bit of power of the “glory/Hollywood ball” he might actually play Owen or Crouch in.
• Was Frank "Man Of The Match" Lampard playing?
• Will England ever score in the second half of a game at a major championship ? Will Sven realise we aren’t an Italian side when we are 0-0 or 5-0 up but especially not when we are winning 1-0?
• Why do England drop so deep when Terry is playing? Does he have no faith that Rio isn’t going to pull the old lazy boy routine?
• Who at FIFA picked an over-officious Mexican to referee between England and a South American country and will he get another game after that pompous display ?
• Can it get better? Well it couldn’t get worse could it ?

Posted at June 12, 2006 11:27 AM

Comments (13): England Comes Through in Typical Underwhelming Fashion

van Cutsem	June 12, 2006 1:20 PM
	I don't think Eriksson's every gotten away from that Italian way of thinking. It is murdering us. This is a now or never type of year and we can ill afford more of this nonsense.

van Cutsem	June 12, 2006 1:30 PM
	Further, proper treatment on Hargreaves. Defoe's presence is far more vital to this team's prospects than a middie who never brings his club level form to the table when playing internationally.

Henry P.	June 12, 2006 3:01 PM
	Hargreaves is great until you take him out of his Bayern Munich uniform. It's a shame for Jermain that H is a Sven favorite.

Gavin Norris

June 12, 2006 5:20 PM

What is so strange about the selection (and abrupt failure) is that this is supposed to be the tournament where Sven leaves his final mark on English football. This is the tournament where he lays it on and shows the world that ousting him is an error, that he still has what it takes to lead a world contender. But instead, his foolhardy move is made worse when it blows up in his face and all he can say (while all smiles) is that he's pleased with the fucking result!!! I'm absolutely livid.

Cozmo

June 12, 2006 6:21 PM

And here I thought it was the Doc Emmett Brown hairstyle that won him the affections of Ulrika, The Dark Lady and Faria. Ether way, that dude knows how to lay some sugar on the females... http://fusion-industries1.tripod.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/imdoc.jpg vs. http://xtramsn.co.nz/homepage2/imageLargeView/0,,5157967,00.jpeg Ladies, you decide... As for Hargraeves, I think he's getting the business from England fans has less to do with his recent form and more because of the Sven hatred. Moreover, what is the point of carrying a Theo Wolcott as your 4th striker if he's not going in there for Owen during the group stage as he comes up the fitness curve? If Sven doesn't think that Wolcott's ready, why is he there in the first place? Defoe should have Wolcott's spot. Isn't that the real issue here?

Cozmo	June 12, 2006 6:24 PM
	PS - Toxic's comments on Gary Neville are comedic gold. PPS - No more Robot from Peter Crouch until England wins the Cup. Damn.

Dustin Kizer	June 12, 2006 7:45 PM
	Well Christ mates, things went wrong for our lads but at least they played with some heart; that's more than can be said for the ghastly display put forth by the US.

Matt Geiger	June 12, 2006 8:39 PM
	Weird, I thought you guys won. England = Red Sox of soccer. You guys could win it all this year and I'd still hear things like "Yes, we won, but it'd been so long since the last one!" yep, the bitter american related it to baseball AND called it soccer. Now, where's my rope?

Shiloh	June 13, 2006 1:33 AM
	You have to expect that Sven will manage like a cunt but the boys will get it together when Rooney returns.

Toxic

June 13, 2006 7:28 AM

Yup Matt we won, and with Sweden drawing it should have been a good opening dy for us but as the great Danny Blanchflower said - "The great fallacy is that the game is first and last about winning. It is nothing of the kind. The game is about glory, it is about doing things in style and with a flourish, about going out and beating the lot, not waiting for them to die of boredom." - we have the players to do this, if Sven picked them and they played like they can, if only our Golden Generation had Scolari or Hiddink in charge. US were very bad, no guile or craft, though up against a very good all round team (wish we had fullbacks like their pair) but it's good to see the US coach lay into his "star" player, we'll never get that from Svennis Cheers Cozmo.

Matt Geiger	June 13, 2006 9:08 AM
	Eh, yall know more than I do but that boredom comment reminded me of Chelsea and Greece. Better luck next match either way.

Matt Geiger	June 13, 2006 9:17 AM
	oh, and if that was the point, then consider myself educated, because I thought it was only people who were not fans of Chelsea and Greece that hated how boring they won. I liked the point about a win that would give you more confidence for the rest of the tournament better, and that was probably the original point so I guess I'll just stick with that.

Rafa	June 13, 2006 11:59 AM
	I see your point on Walcott vs. Hargreaves, Coz, and while it never made sense to take that kid, it made even less not to add a 5th striker. Even if it had been Defoe over Theo, England would still have a four man force and that would be unacceptable. There needed to be a 5th forward and Hargreaves' relationship with Sven stood in the way of that.

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