International Friendlies before Brazil 2014

vagi

Germany have been laughable, no idea how they havent been destroyed 4-1.

Argentina being crap as usual.

Sturridge 1-0. Finally


Lallana at LW is fantastic. Really playing as well as he does for Southampton. Would start him next friendly(if there is)

Lallana is a wonderful little player

England have 3 more friendlies before the WC, btw

Nice nice. Enough time to get the best team on paper.

Thiago Ruined Marchisio lmao

FT England 1-0 Denmark

Meh. A lot of work still to be done.

RealGunner wrote:MOTM performance by Ozil apparently. Germans pls confirm

I cannot confirm.

I don't know if I'm a little biased, but Sterling was MOTM for me. Always looking to get on the ball and go forward with it, to get something done.

Rooney and Wilshere were pretty disappointing...

Glad Sturridge scored. Agree on Sterling for MOTM.

Fußball wrote:

RealGunner wrote:MOTM performance by Ozil apparently. Germans pls confirm

I cannot confirm.

In fact he received boos from the crowd. lol

Wilshere was out of the game after that knock. No idea why he played for that long. Wasn't even running well. Rooney was piss poor.

Can't decide on the best player since there aren't any clear ones. Sterling, Gerrard, Lallana, Cahill and Sturridge played well. I'd give it to Lallana as he really changed the game after coming on.

RealGunner wrote:MOTM performance by Ozil apparently. Germans pls confirm

No way. He did only 2 good thing the whole game, one of them being an absolutely gorgeous pass to Götze(?) who almost scored.  Rest of the game he, like most of the germans tbf, were pretty average..

Ganso wrote:Germany have been laughable, no idea how they havent been destroyed 4-1.

Argentina being crap as usual.

And we being s##t at finishing as a usual

I thought Gerrard's role was a big positive for England, playing the same role as for Liverpool, only getting a little higher up at times, but that was probably because Denmark were pretty bad apart from the accidental counter attack. If and probably when Gerrard will play the same role in Brazil, that's half of the team solved, back four with Gerrard in front of them and then some combination of attacking players in front of them.

Full-backs may be a bit of an issue, I'm not sure... none of them truly convinced me, actually Cole perhaps the most, although none were bad, either.

Sturridge should start and on this evidence Sterling, too, but Rooney really was disappointing. Way too stationary and no clever ideas or decisive attempts from him, either. England looked better with Welbeck up there with Sturridge than Rooney.

Art Morte wrote:I thought Gerrard's role was a big positive for England, playing the same role as for Liverpool, only getting a little higher up at times, but that was probably because Denmark were pretty bad apart from the accidental counter attack. If and probably when Gerrard will play the same role in Brazil, that's half of the team solved, back four with Gerrard in front of them and then some combination of attacking players in front of them.

Full-backs may be a bit of an issue, I'm not sure... none of them truly convinced me, actually Cole perhaps the most, although none were bad, either.

Sturridge should start and on this evidence Sterling, too, but Rooney really was disappointing. Way too stationary and no clever ideas or decisive attempts from him, either. England looked better with Welbeck up there with Sturridge than Rooney.

Agreed.

Spain are ridiculous. They actually look far better than they did in 2010.

From the reports I've seen, Sterling was voted MotM at the stadium. I didn't watch it myself though so can't comment on performances. Statistics suggested Henderson had a very solid performance as well, but as we all know statistics aren't everything.

Assuming Wilshere is fit and a lock to start ahead of Gerrard, who is in the running for the final midfield place? Barkley, Lampard, Henderson, Cleverley, and Lallana?

Awful from USA today. They looked flat, disinterested, fragmented and just soooo slow in everything they did. Lot of players played their way out of the WC squad today. Chief among them for me is Edgar Castillo. Dude should never be called up again after jogging back while Yarmalenko was putting Ukraine up 1-0.

I think Brooks looked really nervous and this WC is defo too soon for him. Gooch looked ok though at least.

Jones looked really lethargic and was central to how slow the midfield moved. Kjestan wasn't much better tbh though. Bedoya was rather good at least. Might've done enough to get in. Liked what I saw from Shea when he came in.

Up top, Jozy confirmed what we've known all season: He's jut not got any mojo atm. Obviously Johansson looked leagues better, but that tends to happen when you're scoring for fun in the Eredivisie. This just made me wish Jozy had stayed another year at AZ. The chemistry between these 2 could've been so much better if he had. Beyond that, Deuce was once again awful. Seattle have got to be sweating bullets by now.

Ganso wrote:Germany have been laughable, no idea how they havent been destroyed 4-1.

That's because Manuel Neuer was the best German player on the pitch

Good game from Spain. Passing seemed more fluid than usual and the pressing was ok too. They just need to press more consistently and more higher up the pitch. Thiago, Pedro, Iniesta, Alonso and Silva all performed impressively. The way Thiago plays, I can see him taking Xavi's spot. Thiago doesn't dictate like Xavi,  but with all the central players Spain have that might not be necessary. Instead he offers more all around the pitch, he's a better dribbler and a bit more agile.

If Löw just said "do what Pep tells you to do for Bayern" Germany would do infinitely better.

Schweinsteiger, Lahm, Kroos, Özil, Götze in midfield = 48 % possession. Löw.

Was nice to see some good ol NT football

Nerman

Argentina

Spain -Italy was a borefest.GK mistake decided the match which can be described as one of the most boring game of the night. Buffon shouldve used the legs to save that shot ,instead he tried to grab. Italy really needs GK competition.Thiago was pretty good , so was Iniesta..italy barely tested spain GK's though.

Art Morte wrote:I thought Gerrard's role was a big positive for England, playing the same role as for Liverpool, only getting a little higher up at times, but that was probably because Denmark were pretty bad apart from the accidental counter attack. If and probably when Gerrard will play the same role in Brazil, that's half of the team solved, back four with Gerrard in front of them and then some combination of attacking players in front of them.

Full-backs may be a bit of an issue, I'm not sure... none of them truly convinced me, actually Cole perhaps the most, although none were bad, either.

Sturridge should start and on this evidence Sterling, too, but Rooney really was disappointing. Way too stationary and no clever ideas or decisive attempts from him, either. England looked better with Welbeck up there with Sturridge than Rooney.

Gerrard has been playing that role since Euro12. He has gotten very good at it, specially with Rodgers playing him there too now. He is locked in that position.

RedOranje wrote:From the reports I've seen, Sterling was voted MotM at the stadium.  I didn't watch it myself though so can't comment on performances.  Statistics suggested Henderson had a very solid performance as well, but as we all know statistics aren't everything.

Assuming Wilshere is fit and a lock to start ahead of Gerrard, who is in the running for the final midfield place? Barkley, Lampard, Henderson, Cleverley, and Lallana?

It will be a direct competition between Henderson, Barkley, Barry, Lallana, Milner and Cleverley.

Cleverley won't go, Barry has been great this season but not sure he will go either. Barkley won't go. It will come down to Henderson and Lallana. Unless Roy prefers Oxlade in CM rather than RW/LW. Then it will be those 3.

Surely if Barry is considered (not saying he will be, mind) it will be as back-up/competition to Gerrard in that deeper role. He's not played in a more attacking role in years. And will Lallana be considered for a central role or will Roy stick with his previous pattern of using him as a wide player?