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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Salty25" data-source="post: 230539" data-attributes="member: 185281">Having given time for the dust to settle, here are my views of England’s performance and other issues of this World Cup.Squad selection:One feels that the writing was on the wall when he only selected four strikers. Did he not see that there was a good probability that either Owen or Rooney would not be fit? And since his so Italian in his approach, why did he not select five strikers, namely Owen, Rooney, Crouch, Defoe, and Bent, just as Lippi selected five strikers; Del Piero, Toni, Gilardino, Iaquinta, Inzaghi. Bringing Walcott was, quite simply as waste, just as bring Jermaine Jenas was.442 or 451 versus Portugal:Owen’s injury, and Sven self-inflicted lack of back-up appeared to force England into playing 451, but then again, in a World Cup surely you must take the chance, and for me Crouch should have partnered Rooney, England could have been 2-0 up at half-time, and then take off Rooney and guard the lead, just as we guarded with 10 MEAN for nearly an hour. As Sven has said before, you worry about one game at-a-time, so why was he worried about the semi then? No good if you don’t get there.The performances of France, Italy, and Germany have shown that attacking football leads to success, and the 451 did not facilitate such aggressive playBeckham vs Lennon:I think Beckham wasn’t as good as his been in the past, and quite simply that’s because he isn’t as good as before. Don’t get me wrong, I have much admiration for the way he came back to defence, and the fact remains is that he scored/assisted in most of England’s goals, but was he playing at the expense of Lennon, who when he did come, provided a far more aggressive threat to the oppositions box, and provided Lampard with an reasonable chance that he didn’t put away.Rooney & Ronaldo:I won’t dwell on this, but what I will say is that, although for me he did not mean to stamp on Carvalho, he DID push Ronaldo, BUT Ronaldo was clearly provoking him. I say yellow cards to both Rooney and Ronaldo. End of discussion.Lampard vs Hargreaves:If only the World Cup had come a summer earlier. He looked unimaginative and off the mark, and I feel it may well cost him his place of McLaren does have some balls – we can but hope! If Lampard were to be dropped, the only replacement must surely be Hargreaves, who was England’s man of the tournament, almost ever-present in the heat of the action, he made us all eat our words.Refereeing at this World Cup:As we saw against Netherlands, and again versus England and France, Portugal have single-handily demonstrated that diving and intimidating of officials DOES get you somewhere, although I do qualify that by saying that Maniche was the Portugese player who did play, and must surely be respected for not becoming involved.I think it is time for the authorities, FIFA, UEFA, the FA etc etc to set out to change this mentality of unsportsmanlike behaviour.Video officials WILL NOT do this. I believe that by introducing video, it makes the on-pitch referee point-less, and could well reduce the game to technical ‘calls’. Also, it appears to be that the rules would be made to accept that diving as an accepted part of the game, and that is not desirable. Instead, I propose that, just as we have a disciplinary panel for the Premiership, their power should be extended so that they can retrospectively review player’s behaviour, especially in respect of ‘simulation’ and if a player is found to repeatedly attempt to deceive the ref, or intimidate the ref, lengthy bans, injunction with heavy fines should be introduced. The aim would be to change the mentality of players, and prevent them from thinking they could get away with it. I want such players to be made villains by their own fans, team mates, and manager.Euro 2008:I think that despite the disappointment of this World Cup, England still has a very good chance at Euro 2008; much of the squad will still be the same, and by then with more experience, and as the progress of Italy and France have shown, experience counts for a lot. With the news that Beckham is to step down as captain, this is McLaren’s opportunity to blood Lennon into the team, so that by the final tournament, Lennon is extremely comfortable with in the first team. Here’s my hoped/predicted starting XI for Euro 2008:--------------------Robinson------------------------Neville---------Terry-------Ferdinand----------A. Cole-------------------Hargreaves-----------------------Lennon----------------------------------------J. Cole---------------------Gerrard-------------------------------------------------------Rooney------------------------------Owen/Crouch--------------------------</blockquote>

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