England - the future....

[Hoop Blah]

Line up for tomorrow nights game then?

4-2-3-1
Hart
Clyne
Baines
Cahill
Jones
Henderson
Carrick
Sterling
Rooney
Wellbeck/Townsend
Kane

It also sounds like there will be quite a few changes for the Italy game as well, and I'd guess a shift back to the 4-3-3 Hodgson has used previously.

[Chappers93]

Anyone else remember Connor Wickham?

[Sanguine]

Anyone else remember Connor Wickham?

3 goals this season.

He's got 9 in 71 Premier League games for Sunderland. He's no Harry Kane, that's for sure.

[Warfield North Stand]

Going tonight. Can someone tell me if the No alcohol for Euro games still applies? Will determine if I need to visit a pub with kids in tow before the game!

[Ian Royal]

Well you can't really asked for a better debut than that. Welbeck's probably my MotM works hard, won the ball plenty and been one of the main threats.

[Royal Rother]

Gave up at half time. Bored to distraction.

[Royalclapper]

Yep. Barkley looks like another world class youngster who's actually not world class after all.

He hasn't kicked on this season but there's every chance he will still come good.

Obviously our media love to overhype these kids as they burst onto the scene but Barkley has just that bit of x-factor that we don't produce enough of. That flair and creativity is, almost by definition, going to be inconsistent and take longer to develop and make the most of so lets give the kid a break and remember that he's only just turned 21 and hasn't yet played 100 games.

Interesting points are raised when the inevitable England underachievers get found out by good teams. England have looked comfortable so far, but Rooney giving it the 'England displays are frightening' is getting far too carried away, and you're not fooling us Wayne.

Sure I've read some issues you've raised HB regarding the problematic development of the promising youngsters in to top senior players. There could well be a problem with that situation, yet I'm more and more beginning to think that it's actually transforming what are good top league players in to International ones.

They seem to lack something going from their Ivory Towered PL clubs and having the bottle to actually develop themselves into top tier International players. Complacency, outdated coaching methods, motivation, too much money? Could be any of those things and more - I think somewhere along the line it will require somebody who's actually 'got it in them' to inspire our lot out of their overpaid PL comfort zone and into the Gladiator arena of boys-to-men tournament football.

[Ian Royal]

Internationally Rooney is just a flat track bully who can't deliver in big tournaments or against top teams because he thinks he's much better than he is.

I'd be surprised if anyone could show he's got a decent scoring record against the best, like Germany, Spain, France, Italy, Netherlands, Brazil, Argentina etc. What proportion of his goals have come against teams ranked lower than 40th in the World at the time I wonder?

[John Madejski's Wallet]

^^ would be interested in seeing the stats behind this as he has always seemed flat track bully to me

It may just be that's how it seems as he's fine in qualifying and ineffective in tourneys

[just some bloke]

Rooney giving it the 'England displays are frightening' is getting far too carried away

I think it's unlikely many of the squads in the top European national sides can name more than 2 or 3 England players.

Here's Rooney's stats:

http://www.englandstats.com/players.php?pid=1126

Looking at the list, I would argue he has never scored a goal against a top side in a competitive fixture.

[Ian Royal]

oxf*rd it, I'll see what I can do.

I can't say the stats have proved us wrong.

Rooney has scored 1 (ONE) competitive goal against a current FIFA top 10 nation (Uruguay). 5 including friendlies.
He's scored 10 competitive goals if you extend it to the top 25. 17 including friendlies
13 if you take it out to the top 50. 24 including friendlies.

That's out of 33 competitive goals (I'm ignoring the FA Summer tournament thing). Almost two thirds of his competitive goals come against relative minnows.

His record in the Euro Finals is pretty good though. 5 goals in 6 games.

I don't think he has the same sort of issue in the PL does he? He's scored a fair few against challengers like Liverpool, Arsenal, City, Chelsea etc hasn't he?

[Whatevs]

^^ would be interested in seeing the stats behind this as he has always seemed flat track bully to me

It may just be that's how it seems as he's fine in qualifying and ineffective in tourneys

I can't think of a tournament he's been in recently where he hasn't been returning from injury. Getting into the team purely on rep rather than form. He's shit at utd as well for a while after injury.

Rooney >>>>>>> Sturridge

[Royal Rother]

Well yes, at least Rooney is aware of other people on the pitch.

[Sutekh]

Can't really judge on it though overall as you can only score against what's put in front of you and as England's qualifying groups tend to be made up of nothing sides then what you'd tend to call competitive fixtures against the quality sides are few and far between (an even then strictly limited due to England's knack of always losing to them).

[Ian Royal]

Can't really judge on it though overall as you can only score against what's put in front of you and as England's qualifying groups tend to be made up of nothing sides then what you'd tend to call competitive fixtures against the quality sides are few and far between (an even then strictly limited due to England's knack of always losing to them).

Rooney's competitive record against the current top 10 is P7, S1, including the likes of France, Italy, Germany, Uruguay and Portugal. So it's not like he hasn't had the chances to play the top teams competitively. In fact, you could argue the reason he hasn't played more top teams competitively is at least partly down to his inability to score against the ones he has managed to play.

11 - 25th and it's P10, S7, but most of those goals and appearances come against just two teams - Croatia and Switzerland

26th to 50th P19, S5

51st onwards P27, S20

Flat. Track. Bully.


All stats subject to compiling errors.

[Whatevs]

Manchester United striker Wayne Rooney is the ultimate Champions League knockout king, having scored the highest percentage of elite club competition goals at the business end of the tournament.

The 27-year-old has scored 14 of his 27 goals after the group stage, which represents an unrivalled 52 per cent of strikes in the last-16 and beyond.

Barcelona's Lionel Messi ranks second with 46 per cent, while Real Madrid forward Cristiano Ronaldo completes the top three, with 45 per cent of his Champions League goals coming in the knockout stages.

I'd say the lack of goals is due to the lack of quality in the England squad coupled with playing after returning from long injury layoffs (not fully fit). He can clearly score against teams that are much stronger than the current national setup

EDIT: just realised those numbers are a little out of date (Fergie era)

[Sutekh]

Just by way of comparison, does anyone have a goals to games ratio for all England players to date? Be interesting to see the top 20 or so...

[Stranded]

Can't really judge on it though overall as you can only score against what's put in front of you and as England's qualifying groups tend to be made up of nothing sides then what you'd tend to call competitive fixtures against the quality sides are few and far between (an even then strictly limited due to England's knack of always losing to them).

Rooney's competitive record against the current top 10 is P7, S1, including the likes of France, Italy, Germany, Uruguay and Portugal. So it's not like he hasn't had the chances to play the top teams competitively. In fact, you could argue the reason he hasn't played more top teams competitively is at least partly down to his inability to score against the ones he has managed to play.

11 - 25th and it's P10, S7, but most of those goals and appearances come against just two teams - Croatia and Switzerland

26th to 50th P19, S5

51st onwards P27, S20

Flat. Track. Bully.


All stats subject to compiling errors.

Or it shows that England are probably about the 10th to 20th best team in World Football and have been over the whole of his career. Therefore, we are often up against it against the better teams, create less and score less goals. Against teams of our level and weaker understandably we do better score more goals so you would expect our strikers to score more here.

Less a flat track bully more evidence of England's standing in world football.

[Royal Rother]

Sounds about right to me.

[Hoop Blah]

I remember seeing a comparison of friendlies vs competitive goals where Rooney came out reasonably well.

Edit: here it is http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/30020094



Goals against the top sides are obviously harder to come by so it's not surprising he might have a poorer record against them but it's impossible to really compare across eras for a multitude of reasons. What we should do is just give Rooney a bit of credit for being good at scoring the goals he does right now.

http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/ ... ck-7946121