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While I did not expect us to win the World Cup I thought we may do better,
and I thought we may also play some good football.

In fact in NONE of our games did we play well or look good overall, an OG
win against Paraguay, 2 late goals against T&T, a stupid defensive error
against Sweden and so on.

I think the players gave their all but SVEN GOT THE SELECTIONS TOTALLY
WRONG.

His World Cup squad was awful, with a criminal shortage in the striker
department (in fact the FA should have sacked him the day the squad was
announced and asked Venables or someone else to take over).

Although they are very good players it was obvious that he should have
played 4-4-2 with a holding midfield player (Hargreaves or Carrick), with
LAMPARD OR GERRARD (not both).

The two strikers could have been Owen & Crouch then after Owen's injury
Rooney and Crouch.

Playing with Crouch would allow Rooney to come deep, pick the ball up on
the half way line, and run at the defence causing panic.

Playing him as the lone striker in the last two games was a TERRIBLE
decision. Rooney does not know how to play as a lone striker, and does
not like to play with his back to goal.

His frustration led to the sending off, and after that it was inevitable we
were going to lose.

I suggest Sven keeps a low profile for a while, and maybe even stays out
of England as he will get slaughtered if he comes back.

SVEN got us knocked out the tournament , not Rooney, and not any of the
other players.

Such a waste.

i couldnt agree more with u but i dont think sven is to blame...

i dispute the fact that if we played 4-4-2, we wud av had a better chance of progressing...the first 2 or 3 matches were played 4-4-2 and u have sed urself hw lucky we were with an OG and 2 late goals against trinidad.

i think the only people to blame are the players, especially the big-name players like lampard and becks..
lampard has no excuses becauses he has played 4-5-1 with chelsea all season and scored nearly 20 goals

i hate the fact people are blaming sven...he is simply the quiet manager who picked the team whom we were all largely satisfied with and they let him and us down..except the defence where i think we were superb.

the only criticism of sven is that he brought along with him a school kid in theo walcott who didnt play at all!!! what was the point..

overall, england were simply not good enough along with other big teams like czech republic and holland...but england are surrounded with too much hype due to some individual players

I see where you're coming from Guilbert, and I agree with you that Sven's decisions were wrong. I gave him the benefit of the doubt when the squad was announced. I thought he may have seen something in training -about Theo Wallcott- that we might not know about. Our 'secret weapon' maybe. Unfortunately Theo's inclusion looks like a David Dein idea, not Sven's.

Arsenal have a gem in Theo, and Arsene Wenger must be luaghing his cotton socks off after their most talented youngster gets a taste of World Cup football, as well as training with Champions League regulars for the last 6 weeks! I'm sure the experience of playing against Rio Ferdinand, John Terry and Jamie Carragher on a daily basis is really valuable knowledge for Arsenal.

About the match's though, I thought England played well considering the heat. 110 degree's was the norm, and playing against Paraguay & Equador must have been tough as these teams are always good at keeping possession.

As for the Portugal game, well I won ?50 at least. I bet my father that the ref would send off an english player at the first opportunity. He's Argentinian for a start, and sending off a 'star' always gets his name in the papers. He'll be loved in Argentina of course. Though Rooney stood on Carvalho's nut's, it wasn't a stamp! He may even had stood on the guys nuts on purpose, but it certainly wasn't a stamp in any way. Rooney was pushed, pulled and hacked by 2 players for 5 seconds before the incident. The ref was 5 yards away watching and waiting for a reaction. Unfortunatly he got a reaction & the ref pounced!

I actualy think the ref wasn't too sure Rooneys stamp was an accident or not. He gave the foul but had no intention on giving a red card until Rooney pushed Ronaldo. Only then did he beckon Rooney and produced the card. Watch the video ->

Watch the refs face after the foul, then the reaction after the push. The card was for the push, but the ref will say for the stamp now after seeing the video replay. Whatever the ref just needed the opportunity and he took it.

Lampard has been the worst player for England this tournement and I hope Carrick or Hargreaves gets to play alongside Gerrard in the future. Beckham too didn't play well but he at least contributed in a goal and 2 assists. I think Aaron Lennon did brilliantly but I'm a little sceptical of having 2 forwards and 2 wingers under 5'9''! Owen, Rooney, Lennon and Cole give's us no height up front at all and thats a worry for me. Anyway, Argentina helped us out of another World Cup again!

Looking at the World Cup as a whole, I hope the Germans or French win now. Italy have had the easiest route to the semi's and Portugal were involved with the fiasco against Holland and never looked dangerous against the 10 men of England. The Germans knocked out the best team when they knocked out Argentina, while the French have beaten the 2nd & 3rd best teams in Spain & Brasil.

I'm hoping for a Germany v France final!

I'm inclined to agree with Love_Not-Lust, it's not altogether Sven's fault. England have won nothing for 40 years , regardless of who has been in charge - English or foreign.

I wasn't a big fan of Sven myself but success at club level from English managers was almost non-existent at the time of Sven's appointment, where at least he ahad won trophies in Italy with a relatively unfashionable team. Okay he spent a lot of money in getting those trophies but so did Kevin Keegan at Newcastle and what did he win?

Remember, Terry Venables never had to qualify for anything and when he did with Australia he flopped against Iran after being 2-0 up. Despite his poor club record, Kevin Keegan's name was being shouted from the rooftops when Glenn Hoddle got sacked and look at what happened to Keegan. At least Sven got England to every tournament that he was in charge for.

The problem with England is England themselves and always has been. Every time a tournament comes around England are going to win it before it's even started, immediately putting pressure on themselves. They think they've got a God-given right to win everything and are still living off the back of 1966.

I'm afraid until they lay that ghost to rest and stop thinking that they are going to automatically win everything, then the problem will go on, regardless of who is in charge.

To be honest though, if the english players didn't think they could win, I'd question why they bothered to qualify in the first place.

Svens tactics were wrong, he got paid 25million and England had the best team they've ever had since 1970. Thats coming from footballing coaches and critics across europe, not just england.

You can't really judge Svens success in Italy. With all this match fixing looking like it's true, then we don't know how long this has gone on for do we?

Andy Gray -who's a scot- said that Svens tactics, style of play and substitutions were all wrong in all three major competitions, in which Sven has been involved with England.

None of the English players play the long ball game for their clubs. Not one. Yet Sven puts them together and they play a defensive, long ball style of play. The buck stops with the 4million a year manager in my opinion.

Hi Sam, I agree to a certain extent but previous managers were not on a bad whack but still bombed. Okay, Sven was paid a lot more but at the end of the day, it's not Sven's fault he was paid that amount of money. Sven didn't point a gun to the heads of the FA to pay the kind of money he was on. Even if he demanded it to be appointed as Head Coach, the FA could have still said no.

England don't just believe they are going to win a tournament. They ARE going to win it. At least with the Germans, they admitted before the tournament that the best they could hope for is the quarter-finals and they're the hosts. They have actually exceeded their own expectations.

Yes, the players were playing a different system to what they are used to but they themselves are being paid vast amount of money to perform but didn't. Players of England's calibre should be able to play in positions they don't normally do against the likes of the teams England faced but were still poor.

Thanks for 'listening'.

According to Sven on SKY News it was nothing to do with him.

There were only 2 causes the sending off and the missed penalties.

Rarely hear my Dad swear but he said BOLLOCKS
He rarely hears me swear and I said BOLLOCKS with him.

Disagree. The manager does more than pick a team. He has to bond them into a unit. Our players all play better for their premiership sides than they do for England.

Spain has a similar problem - good players, crap team. The manager is the decisive factor.