Englands World Cup chances just got worse

Aldini98

Nope its just another example of his idiocy. Won a league In Serie A with Lazio when the rest of the league didn't pay the bribes
Was delighted when Engerland got him. Look at the major championships with Engerland.

(1) World Cup 2002, drawing 1-1 with Brazil, conceed a freak goal, Brazil go down to 10 men and STILL he doesn't go for it.
(2) Euro 2004, one nil up after 3 minutes, Rooney gets injured so preceeds to haul off all attacking midfield options and try and hang on for 87 minutes - tosser.
(3) World Cup 2006, doesn't seem to know what formation to play and neither do the players.


Add that to the fact he is MONTY BURNS

RE*AC*TOR

Its a completely nuts decision at this late stage.

He hasn't a clue what he's doing. Carragher is a great defender. But he is completely unproven as a holding midfielder. Utter madness.

eirebhoy

I think playing Carragher in the holding role is another case of Sven just picking his best (well, what he see's as best) players and building a formation to suit. It's like, Carragher is a better centre half than Carrick is holding midfielder so he has to pick Carragher.

PHB

Why the **** isn't Carrick playing?

Why the hell doesn't the England press jump up and down on him? It's not like their not prone to do that? Surely there must be somebody in the English press who thinks like every single Irish person seems to.

Dont be at yourself

Carragher often played as a holding midfielder under Houllier though. He's not exactly shoe-horning him in. Carrick may be a better option, but we wont know unless he tries it, will we?

PHB

Definally, let's play Beckham there, oh no wait, that didn't work, let's play Rio there, oh no wait, that didn't work, Just play a damm midfielder there, he won't do a fantastic job, but he'll do enough to make it possible to win the world cup.

Dont be at yourself

Right, but it's only in the last 2 seasons that Carragher has played as a central defender. Before then, he often played in a defensive midfield role. It's not like throwing him in the deep end, he knows how to play the position. And hey, it's a friendly - so why play Carrick? We know he can play there. Is it not better to go into the World Cup knowing how good your cover is?

Vokes

Carragher hasn't played in midfield in yonks. He was playing at right-back and left-back for a long while before CB.

Can't understand why Carrick isn't starting. Madness!

PHB

Right, but it's only in the last 2 seasons that Carragher has played as a central defender.

I was fairly sure that he played RB before that, except for the odd odd time of playing DMC. I'm not sure though.
Even if he has played there before, so has Rio and so did Beckham. It doesn't mean that they are anywhere near good enough for it. It just means they can do a temporary job there on the odd occasion.

Is it not better to go into the World Cup knowing how good your cover is?

I'd say it is. It would be better to know how good your team is first.
Why play Carrick?
I don't know, why play anyone you are sure to start? To get them working together as a team.

Carragher is a class CB, and a fairly ****ing good RB and LB, unfortunately, he has come into the England frame at the time when there is without a doubt an embarassment of riches in defense.

p.pete

Yup, carragher was quite good at the defensive side of being a fullback. At that stage in his career though I thought his distribution was terrible, it's better now that he tries to do less with the ball - simple passes.

There's a good chance that he'll be excellent at breaking up oppositions play in the midfield postion but if he starts getting creative with the ball after he's won it then they'd be better off without him.

Jimboo_Jones

irish1 wrote:

I'm laughing because I posted the team has said will start here: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2054928376&page=8 and people shot it down.

I reckon Gerrard will sit back and Lampard will do the attacking, great midfield.

humm the bbc radio today seem to think that England are going to play 5 in midfield, which I think would work

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/world_cup_2006/teams/trinidad_and_tobago/5024798.stm

lampard seems to favour this as well.

ahh I see - you posted a couple of formations the above was in reference to the fist one that you posted on that page

therecklessone

PHB wrote:

I'd say it is. It would be better to know how good your team is first.
Why play Carrick?
I don't know, why play anyone you are sure to start? To get them working together as a team.

Lad, I think a few of you have missed the point here. He's not playing Carragher as an experiment, he's playing him because he'll be playing in the starting XI against Paraguay.

the randy Swede aka tweedledum wrote:

The Swede had said he would select his best available team, which will also be the likely line-up for their opening World Cup group game against Paraguay on 10 June.

Eriksson said: "It's a good opportunity for them to play 90 minutes and it will be what I think is the strongest team.

"We have decided exactly what to do but I'm not going to tell you until Tuesday."

Its clear to me that Eriksson doesn't rate Carrick highly enough to play the holding role (why else would he try Ledley King in that position against Argentina in Geneva?) but if thats the case why bring him in the squad at all? Surely Scott Parker or Phil Neville would have been a better option? I'll admit Carrick's passing was a bit wayward against Belarus, but no more so than his last three m,onths at Spurs in the league, so what's changed?

IMHO, a CB playing the holding role will be crucified by the better players. Look at King against Riquelme in Geneva, subbed for Ashley Cole to allow England revert to 4-4-2 and win the game having been 2-1 down.

mchurl

therecklessone wrote:

IMHO, a CB playing the holding role will be crucified by the better players. Look at King against Riquelme in Geneva, subbed for Ashley Cole to allow England revert to 4-4-2 and win the game having been 2-1 down.

A centre back simply will not succeed in the holding role imo. They dont have the football to play there, as proved by Man Utd playing Rio there and it not being a success, and isnt he supposed to be the great ball playing centre back of English football?

mike65

Carra played defensive midfielder as an under 21 international as well, he's mr versaitle - LB, RB, CB and HM which is proberly why he has'nt got much recognition at senior level.

Mike.

WhiteWashMan

they may as well just play 3 centre backs, instead of this bizarre 'defender in front of the other 2 defenders' formation.

i simply refuse to believe this is svens strongest team. i refuse!

madness!