Subject: Croatia 1-4 England

I congratulate you on the occasion of victory

Thanks, England actually played well for once.....do not expect it to last. lol

Gerrard will be back soon and the same old dilema will happen...Lampard or Gerrard - lets have both! ;)

england play better with a center mid pairing of gerrard and barry, theo and joe cole on the wings, what we dont need is wes brown in the england team.

thats for sure.

Gerrard IMV doesn't stick to playing in the centre of the pitch, he attacks too much to be what is classed as a central midfielder(in the traditional sense), against Croatia, neither central midfielder attacked too much(How many times did you see Lampard shoot from range, or break into the box?), Walcott was the midfielder used to break and support the strikers with pace, unless Gerrard can control his game, then no matter how good he is, he shouldn't play, as there was a balance to the team against Croatia, that we've not seen for a while.

Also, I thought Lampard had a great game, I'd still like to see Hargreaves come in for Barry when fit, but not for the next game, only once the side against Croatia don't perform, or certain players within it play poorly.

With the Gerrard discussion it also needs to be said, that he chose to have an operation that ruled himself out of contention for England, but to be fit for Liverpool, I don't mind him favouring Liverpool over England, if he feels more passionately about them, than England that's fine, but he shouldn't be playing for England if he feels that way.
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Brown is the best right back we've got at the moment, he's keeping Neville out of the Manu side, and Micah "out of position" Richards will only be useful against lesser sides.

I'll disagree with most things you've said there.

Firstly, let it be known that I am a Lampard-hater. Having said that, I can be objective enough to recognise when he has a good game. I believe that he was our best player on wednesday night. However, I reckon he does break into the box and shoot from range. OK, not as much against Croatia, but is that to do with Walcott getting the job done or orders from Fab Fab? I think he's almost been Auxilliary-Striker Lampard for Chelsea, and at times for England. Who can forget that he was highest shot-taker for England in the last World Cup finals? Who can also forget that he failed to score, including (I think) penalties against portugal? (See, I told you I hated him, and can't resist a dig). OK, this was under a different coach, but I don't think that two competitve games is enough to say that Lamps has curbed that instinct to get in the box. Give it another half dozen games of him doing what a "proper" central midfielder should do and then I might agree with you.

Which brings me onto Gerrard. Whilst Lampard is doing the attacking midfielder bit, I'd rather have Gerrard in the team doing that role. If Lampard truly can rein himself in better than Gerrard then give the job to Lamps. But if Gerrard can get a run in the team and show that he can rein himself in under a new coach, then, again, I'd rather Gerrard than Lamps. He's just more complete apart from his moaning about playing in his preferred positon.

I thought Barry had a pretty poor game on Wednesday. I think that on a single match basis, that Hargreaves is indeed a better option. However, this injury he's got is forever, isn't it? He'll only be available for around 50% of the matches or something, I think I read. In that case, would you want him at a World/Euros Finals in a squad of twenty-whatever? Is he good enough to bring along knowing he'll likely miss more games than he plays? And if the answer to that is "no", aren't we better investing time in Barry to bring his play up? I'd argue that Barry should be picked ahead of Hargreaves unless this injury problem does turn out to be solvable.

Gerrard has his wages paid by liverpool. If you've got to have an operation at some point, of course liverpool are going to choose a period when there are no Liverpool games. I wouldn't blame Gerrard for that one. What's he supposed to do? Tell Rafa that he's not having it because he's playing for England? Liverpool aren't going to wear that, are they?

Apart from the Brown comment. I can't think of a better proper right back. And I'll include Richards in that.

if it wernt for gerrard, we wouldnt have gotten as far as we did in the world cup and euros, lampard relies on the deflected free kicks and shots.

Not entirely Gerrard's fault though, he plays this way week-in-week-out for Liverpool.

I get the impression (watching England's mostly lousy attempts at looking like a team who've actually played together before) that successive England managers have picked the best 11 players in England (moot point), almost regardless of position, then tried to shoe-horn them into a cohesive side whilst not establishing an England system.

I imagine McLarens team talks used to go along the lines of '...just go out and do what you did last Saturday for your clubs lads'. We all know how that worked out...

Well I'll agree with you, Gerrard, as a whole package has more to his game than Lampard, but Lampard has the shirt atm, and shouldn't be replaced, I guess we should be looking at playing Gerrard in friendlies and see how he does.

Lampard for me, has been the first of the two to be able to reign his natural instincts in, and play, in what seemed to be the way the manager wanted them to, so yes, give it a few more games of seeing how he continues to play. (This is if in fact it was how the manager wanted them to play, against poorer sides, he may want them to attack)

Also, I generally don't rate Barry, so I would be looking to get Hargreaves in(Who I rate extremely highly), so I'm a little biased in my choice of who gets to play there, but again, we won with Barry playing, so leave him in for the next game.

On the operation, I'd just like a couple of players to turn around and say no, I'm going to go and play for England, Gerrard is just one of a number of players who seem to take the international break as a way to get a little operation in. It's because of Gerrards position at Liverpool(he's untouchable) that I wanted him to want to play for England.
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Apart from the Brown comment. I can't think of a better proper right back. And I'll include Richards in that.

I remember Hargreaves playing on the right def, and he was good enough to be better than Brown. The guy is what we call in Poland as "orchestra - man", or maybe it'd sound better as "walking orchestra". Right def, right wing, centre midfield...simply great.

Anyway it's funny to read about whether Gerrard or Lampard should be used, or not, in the NT games. Quite funny indeed from someone supporting Poland with Lewandowski, Roger, Majewski, Murawski as only possibilities for the centre. Who the hell are they? Yup, that's what I mean.

I would be very interested to know if other national managers would leave out big names just because they don't fit in the team...we keep telling our English managers to do it, but is it the "known thing" to do?

Anger went out England

What does that even mean?

The players stopped caring?

I'd sooner see Richards at right back: even if he's out of position he's a bit more lively, then Johson, and even Neville, when he's fit, over Brown - Brown gets on my tits; he's a hapless cynical clumper and only in the team due to inexplicably being a Man U regular. If Alan Hutton was English I'd have him in an instant, purely based on what a class act he looked for Scotland last season. Anyway.