Delusions of Grandeur

Riscardo

Personnal I think it's because England are not good enough.

But watching the ROI/ Cyprus game it was all "we" as in the ROI should be beating minnows like Cyprus, blah, blah. But as a neutral Cyprus were a better team.

Sometimes you have to admit a few foibles ... or is that me?

Chris_from_Sidcup

They may well have been the better team on the night but ROI should still be beating Cyprus. They got battered away and drew at home. Most of the Ireland side is made up of premiership players, and they should be good enough to beat Cyprus.

Riscardo

[cite]Posted By: Chris_from_Sidcup[/cite]They may well have been the better team on the night but ROI should still be beating Cyprus. They got battered away and drew at home. Most of the Ireland side is made up of premiership players, and they should be good enough to beat Cyprus.

Why should they be beating Cyprus? A god given right. Cyprus have better players than ROI. It seemed that way to me.

leftbehind

I think Toshack was correct in what he said about the Welsh team.
And i think that applies to the like s of England and ROI as well

Barn Door Varney

The players that McClaren put out last night were more than good enough to beat russia the problem is they didn't perform like they do for there clubs.

Steven Gerrard was a prime example. How can a player be so immense for his club yet so annonamous for his country?

Needed a "Beckham verses Greece type" performance from someone last night but no-one delivered.

Rothko

Russia were unlucky at Wembley if we're being honest

T

Russia struggled to deal with Heskey at Wembley yet we go into this game without Crouch leading the line... as Rooney comes back in. We have some great individuals but we haven't had a good 'team' for a while. Sometimes good players can't play together - Owen & Rooney for me are getting close to the whole Gerrard Lampard thing. Yep great flick on from Owen for Rooneys stunning goal... but Owen did not have a shot all game.

Some of the smaller nations have a better team players that complement one another, they have less 'stars' and less egos to manage to fit into a system. Chelsea won the league twice by having the best team not the best set of individuals, while we were better when we had a team over and above a group of more talented individual players who took us down.

As for Gerrard, i've said for a while he's the new John Barnes...

razil

very true about Rooney/Owen, not sure if Crouch is much better though, do they have any partnership stats to compare?

T

These were taken from the times back in September after the Israel game... Does suggest that Owen likes playing in a traditional little & large partnership...

Owen/Crouch 446min, 5 goals, average 89.2 minutes per goal
Owen/Darius Vassell 361min, 4 goals, average 90.25
Owen/Heskey 907min, 10 goals, average 90.7
Owen/Andrew Cole 382min, 3 goals, average 127.3
Owen/Jermain Defoe 287min, 2 goals, average 143.5
Owen/Alan Shearer 1,141min, 6 goals, average 190.1
Owen/Rooney 1,206min, 6 goals, average 201
Owen/Robbie Fowler 169min, 0 goals
Owen/Alan Smith 517min, 0 goal

bingaddick

Bloody interesting. For a true comparison though, shouldn't you look at the goals of both partners. Owen may have scored 10 goals with Heskey but between them they only got say 12 whereas the combined total for say Rooney might be better?

Chris_from_Sidcup

[quote][cite]Posted By: Riscardo[/cite][quote][cite]Posted By: Chris_from_Sidcup[/cite]They may well have been the better team on the night but ROI should still be beating Cyprus. They got battered away and drew at home. Most of the Ireland side is made up of premiership players, and they should be good enough to beat Cyprus.[/quote]

Why should they be beating Cyprus? A god given right. Cyprus have better players than ROI. It seemed that way to me.[/quote]


I disagree. Cyprus may have played better as a team but I'd say that to a man the ROI have better players than Cyprus hence they should be beating them. I've not seen the Cyprus squad but do any of their players play for top clubs?

T

You're right bing but all i could find was this which suggests that the performance is better than those stats is the following -

http://betting.betfair.com/football/internationals/crouching-tiger-hidden-striker.html

I'm not sure how accurate it is however as i thought we kept getting told that Rooney hadn't scored for 3 years...

Barn Door Varney

[cite]Posted By: T[/cite]You're right bing but all i could find was this which suggests that the performance is better than those stats is the following -

http://betting.betfair.com/football/internationals/crouching-tiger-hidden-striker.html

I'm not sure how accurate it is however as i thought we kept getting told that Rooney hadn't scored for 3 years...

Rooney hadn't scored a goal in a competitive game for 3 years. He'd scored in frendlies.