England V Honduras

[Rob k]

Exactly most foreign players have a totally different work ethic to home grown players, who spend too much time on the lash and spit roasting and looking for the next lame gold digger, I mentioned Scott Sinclair on another thread, 25 year old millionaire, likes being seen out and about but not on football pitches it would appear, played in 17 games in 2 years and although on a season long loan to WBA with an option to buy managed only 6 games all season and the rest of the season in the reserves and let's be honest WBA needed every bit of help they could get last season.

The money these players get certainly does not help, I was watching man city v Chelsea U21 final the other day and was told there were kids playing in that game that were already on 30k a week.

[CIDER NOT CIDRE]

It's amazing how depressing and pessimistic OTIB is!

 

Rooney is not a bad player; he may not always perform for England but quite clearly he is not a bad player plus he does work hard for the team.

The game last night wasn't great, however it was never going to be brilliant with the players thinking about injuries and the world cup starting next week. Furthermore, prior to the thunderstorm we weren't looking bad and should have scored, Sturridge dragged it outside the post. It was always going to be difficult to get going again.

In terms of Adrian Chiles, I'd love to see the people slagging him off have a go at filling whilst the players were off the pitch for just over half an hour when there is nothing planned and it has to be improvised and ad-libbed. Not an easy thing to do at all and I don't think he did badly to be fair to him. 

[Esmond Million's Bung]

It's amazing how depressing and pessimistic OTIB is!

 

Rooney is not a bad player; he may not always perform for England but quite clearly he is not a bad player plus he does work hard for the team.

The game last night wasn't great, however it was never going to be brilliant with the players thinking about injuries and the world cup starting next week. Furthermore, prior to the thunderstorm we weren't looking bad and should have scored, Sturridge dragged it outside the post. It was always going to be difficult to get going again.

In terms of Adrian Chiles, I'd love to see the people slagging him off have a go at filling whilst the players were off the pitch for just over half an hour when there is nothing planned and it has to be improvised and ad-libbed. Not an easy thing to do at all and I don't think he did badly to be fair to him. 

 

I don't think anybody is suggesting what your first sentence is saying isn't true, but this is the world cup and I personally don't think he is actually world class, but depressingly better than anything else we have like so many of the England squad.

[The Bard]

My perspective on Rooney is that he clearly is a great player.  He has been a world class player before now (2004 in Portugal in particular).  However, that must seem so distant to him at the moment.  

I would love to see him rediscover that, but it looks so far off it's virtually impossible.  Chiles asked Dixon and Wright about his form after the game last night and their faces said a million times more than their words.  They can't bring themselves to describe what they can see right in front of them (remember they were pitchside).  Dixon just said he hoped he plays his best in the tournament (well obviously Lee). Their faces told me they thought his form was way off.

 

He looks devoid of confidence and given that we are less dependent than we were on him and have a number of alternative sources of goals and creativity, he will be lucky to survive 60 minutes of the first game playing like that.  He is the experienced pro getting in the way of the development of whichever ones out of Sturridge, Barkley, Lallana, Sterling and Wellbeck he takes the place of.  There is still Lambert (He would've scored that header that Sturridge had) plus 'the Ox' as he is known.  

[The Casual Connoisseur]

Well as I said before, I watched at old trafford in 4 games last season.

That's not on TV, there's a big difference.

I got the chance to see an under achieving, player, lacking in confidence and in no way listening to what he was supposed to do.

He was the target of many a moan and groan as he kept coming so deep that he became no threat.

It seems very natural for him to do this, however his first touch is painful to watch and some of his positioning when balls were played into the box was awful. Everyone wants him to do well, but I'm tired of people licking his ring who don't see him actually play.

There's something missing from his game, and as I said before I believe Van Gaal will break him or remake him, maybe if he scored as many goals as he has had hair transplants we wouldn't be having this discussion.

Things like that just make you wonder about what the hell is going on in the kids head. (Not on his head).

[Will Rollason]

Apart from the Rooney debate, I thought Wiltshire did well in place of Gerrard after a poor game the other day- bright and positive.

It was also plain to see that Barkley has been told NOT to come anywhere near his own pen box and go and do damage in the other half.

As i've said elsewhere i like our combinations in the front four and we would be good on the counter as well especially with Sterling on.

My only real worry is teams targeting Johnson, as Honduras did, but there you go we all knew that was going to happen...

[North London Red]

Let's say we get two decent chances in the game against Italy. Right now, who would you rather they fell to, Rooney or Lambert? I'd have to say Lambert.

As much as I want to see Rooney playing like he did in Euro 2004, the last two world cups have shown that if he's not 100 per cent fit there is very little point picking him. Hopefully he'll be at full fitness next week but to me he looked short of fitness in each of the 3 warm up games.