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2ND DEC 2008
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After Saturday’s disappointment in Tel Aviv surely England would give the fans something to cheer about? Eventually the answer was yes as the team ran out three nil winners over minnows Andorra.
However many fans will still not be happy with the performance as England failed to play with any real rhythm or flow. How can this team still be favourites to triumph at Euro 2008 when we can’t even break down a team of landscape gardening and sheep sheering part-timers? Fair enough, they did try to make it difficult by putting eleven men behind the ball for near enough the whole game but still we are talking bout a group of world class players struggling to perform against a second-rate outfit.
But why are we struggling so much lately? We’ve got players like Lampard that at club level are putting in top performances week in week out, yet when it comes to international duty just are not doing it at the moment. And Wayne Rooney hasn’t scored a competitive goal for England since Euro 2004 –this certainly isn’t the goal scoring form of a player with his ability. What is going wrong? Is it the players? The staff? Or perhaps the pressure from the media? It’s difficult to put your finger on it but one thing’s for sure, this needs to be rectified sooner rather then later.
England will almost certainly qualify for the European Championship as the only difficult games remaining are Russia away and Croatia at home. But if we are to stand a chance of winning in Austria/Switzerland we must start to perform now!
It seems to me that the team steps out on the field lacking confidence and the only way that will come is if we start to win games whilst playing well. I don’t expect us to be winning every game four or five nil, and most supporters don’t. But what we do expect is to be winning games against poor opposition comfortably- it shouldn’t get to the point where fans are getting nervous about whether we can beat Andorra- and let’s face it after 50 minutes in Barcelona that’s what we were all thinking.
The only positive to take is that we’ve had one of our worst spells ever yet still look like we will qualify for the tournament. And ultimately that is all that matters. Hopefully we can start playing to our potential though, because if we do this we are able to beat the France’s, Germany’s and Portugal’s of this world, and will have a real chance at winning Euro 2008.
So lets all get behind McLaren and the boys, and just pray that another ’94 isn’t on the cards!
Provided by Liam Newman (United Kingdom) |
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