Watching the England side- some of their players as one dimensional as they senor players/younger version of the senior sides. Their number 9 only good enough tuh get tap ins or another Andy Carroll waiting to happen. No creativity, except for the United player Cole . And it is amazing the coaches they have working with these youths. Old men like Peter Taylor and Psycho who grew up playing boom kick football. Why they still think these English coaches know how to groom young players into all round players is beyond me.
england does not send their best team to these under 20 tournaments ... i don't know why ... they have much much better players at this level
Look England just send a "bess" squad to the Euro U21 and dey tootz down Israel. That squad fail, this U20 squad fail and they anxious about the senior team qualifying for the WC next year. Ah starting to see more angst filled editorials in the English press about the state of their football. Maybe now they beginning to realize that the shine of the Premier League has been blinding them for too long, their youth development policies are deficient, they are being left behind and they have sacrificed their national teams at the altar of the Premier League.
You all have the teams the wrong way round the U-20 team was supposed to be the 'Bright lights' this year they were as close to full strength as you are ever likely to see England put out at any youth tournament. I think the U-21's were missing about 9 (if you don't count the guys with the Brazil squad) players - none had sustained injuries to exclude them from playin - who could have started in Israel. That is why Pearce was complaining, just takin the Norway loss; Norway had 3 players who played fuh their full national team and were then immediately flown to Israel for the u-21 tournament.
As for the U-20 side, I agree with giggsy that they lacked creativity but if you watched the whole of their three games an not jus the highlights they should have easily beat Iraq and Egypt and won a tight one against Chile. I have never seen more dominant England performances than the First Halves against Iraq and Egypt. They should have been leading both by at least 3 at half-time. Is when they were chasing games needing to get ah result that the lack of creativity really stood out, they only seemed to do one thing (for the most part) play it wide and hope fuh ah good cross to come in. And that hardly happen.
Can't agree on Taylor and Pearce - Taylor was in the same boat as Hart is, joined the squad just before the tournament. I thought he prepared the team excellently, national managers can't teach strikers how to score, wingers how to cross and midfielders how to pass. Pearce results have spoke fuh themselves - 2 finals and a semi final loss on penalties, I think he just lost his motivation after years of having tuh make do with the crumbs thrown his way as he has never had anywhere near a full strength squad to pick from.