the long ball you say....exposed when there's no one like Owen on the end?

Crap..you've never liked the lad but fair enough......but don't slate him for having "done only two good things" and then dissing one of them for being like a "free kick". He made both golas...spread th eball long and short, tackled back, ran and ran. Yer hatred of a guy married to a pop star is making ya bitter old fool man. Snap out of it.

Oh yeah..theNevilles were no worse than WGB. WHen the guy's needed to gee the team up...encourage 'em he's ALWAYS found wanting. I ain't WGB bashing today cos in the 2nd half most of England's players were found wanting but if ya slate the Nevs then ya gotta slate the Captain. I hope to God WGB bangs in some goals before we get knocked out...next week...but IMHO as captain he's toss.

-- Anonymous, June 13, 2000

Answers

Sadly, there is no hiding from the fact that Shearer is a crap captain. He tries to captain by example - i.e. running all over the pitch etc - but I felt more was needed last night. The heads did go down in the last 15 minutes yesterday which is unacceptable. I assume all this talk of Adams replacing Shearer as captain can be jettisoned.

-- Anonymous, June 13, 2000

LR,

I've never seen so much respect to Beckham on this BBS than has been dished out today. I think everyone agrees that he had a good match but what I can't really understand is everyone praising Scholes so much. Admittedly he was excellent going forward and his goal summed his attacking play up. Good runs, good lay offs and generally didn't put a foot wrong. However, it has widely been suggested in the press and on here and just about everywhere that the Portugese midfield were able to run through a masive hole in the midfield.

Paul Ince has been accused of being out of position but when he has two or three positions to cover he's hardly likely to cover them. Scholes is being played as a central midfielder and I thought he was a bit absent when it mattered in defence. You may say that is not his game, so I'll blame Keegan for picking him in there.

I must admit on the subject of Shearer's captaincy I have always had a doubt for England as there are other candidates, not like Newcastle. However, I have never seen trying to gee players up like he did last night. What more could Tony Adams have done, for instance, apart from defending properly of course. Shearer played all over the park last night and ran himself into the ground. Actions speak louder than words, not always true in football, but last night if the rest of them weren't inspired to do that bit more running then they don't deserve to pull on the shirt.

Lets face it last night, England lacked footballing brains.

-- Anonymous, June 13, 2000

Aye..WGB ran around all right. He put himself abouit, but I saw his shoulders and his head drop too manytimes towards the end. Like I saud earlier...I ain't WGB bashing but as a captain...naaaaaaaaa. Maybe not Adams I know.....or Ince, but Ince would haver I think kept the boys' heads up. Would Bryan Robson as captain have sloped shoulders like we saw last night?

-- Anonymous, June 13, 2000

Watched the game last night with one of my manc friends and he is 100% man utd. However he did say that phil neville is pants and shouldnt be playing for england. Shearer as captain, well Ive never agreed with a forward being captain, hes too isolated to influence people around him. The papers are doing the usual blame game today and I agree that shearer should get some stick but I dont believe in all this dropping shearer lark. Without shearer up front there would be no-one to focus on, no-one to hold the ball up and if the defense and midfield play like they did yesterday that means more goals given away!! sorry to ramble AM Come saturday when weve beaten the OAP's from duetscheland everyone will have forgotten portugal!!!

-- Anonymous, June 13, 2000

Bryan Robson being sloping shouldered .... when he was captain in 1986 he was distinctly dislocated shouldered

-- Anonymous, June 13, 2000

Not even getting into the he is crappier than him thingy some of you enjoy, but two points made in this overall discussion. 1. Bringing on younger players, that is what the cricket team used as an excuse for playing the older ones. What happened next? The younger ones started dropping out because they could not see the point of hanging around and waiting. If these youngsters are playing in the premier league they deserve to play for the country. Do not ask who they are I am stating a position against the "they are too young arguement"

2. Awaymag said "Shearer........who else will hold the ball up" or words to that effect. Why do we need it? Who, beside the Jormans use the big man to hold the ball up? We see it week in week out with the arse and NH and last night from the opposition. Ok 4-4-2 may be the formation, but it does not have to be the style!

-- Anonymous, June 13, 2000

When we lose we need scapegoats. Against Argentina in 98 it was easy, it was obvious who was to blame for us only haveing 10 men for an hour of the game :0)

Last night if we'd won 2-0 there'd be no recriminations but we didn't so we need to blame someone.

All the Mags are instinctively going to sand behind their man, just as LR will do with Beckham and Scholes and the Neville sisters.

I think Bobby's comment about Beckham 'only' doing two things is that he is comparing him with the other world class talent Figo, who did do more than two things, and dominated the game. It's a long long time since any England player dominated a game, Shearer did a few times a few years ago, but when did anyone stand out the way Figo and Rui Costa did ?

Picking out Scholes for not tracking is a valid observation, but is a bit unfair on the guy. We'd like our players to be multitalented but if we ask Scholes to defend then it will compromise his attacking. We need players who can excel in their main areas. Shearer is superb at defending the near post at corners but it isn't a reason for picking him to play centre-forward. It's the Ginola thing .... woudl he have scored that wonderful goal at Anfield a few years ago if he'd been backing up Beresford in his own penalty area ?

Nobody excelled, don't try and and single out an individual.

-- Anonymous, June 13, 2000

Problem is that the other teams have forwards with silky skills that can run at people, take them on and get past them, thus relieving the pressure on the defense. I can think of no-one within the current squad that can be described as that(beckham maybe but hes more of a supply line than a finisher and also has a lot of defensive duties). If we did allow beckam to play more forward then who would be the right winger (oh if only dyer were there). Therefore what Im trying to say is that we have to stick to what we know and have the resources for. The time for change was before the tournament (which keegan failed to do) and also after.

-- Anonymous, June 13, 2000

Quite why this needed a brand new thread, I don't know - but anyway...

Beckham simply did not "tackle back" at all. The whole of the 1st half he watched other midfielders do all the running, which to me was the problem from start to finish. Macmanamanananan and Beckham are players you want in the forefront of play, but when there's 5 across the middle from the Portugese occasionally you have to cover - Macmanaman did...Beckham did not. He just can't tackle and he never really looked committed in any of the challenges he eventually put in (late 2nd half). I don't believe he particularly "ran and ran" certainly no more than any of the midfield, and maybe less so.

Contrary to your opinion, I don't particularly hate Beckham - I've long since gotten over his petulant play and on field arrogance (as my use of his name testifies...never used to call him by his given title, remember? BTW - we had a deal that you'd lay off Shearer and I'd call DB by his name...forgotten?). His personal life is just that, personal. I've far more important people to hate than an overrated footballer.

As for "dissing" one of his two contributions, clearly I didn't. As I said, it was a great cross, but he was given time and space to deliver it like a free kick (the ball was dead, defender stood and watched...you can't argue that), so any fair professional should be able to get the target. Besides which, I don't know how I can be criticised for complementing the two pieces of good play he made.

As for Shearer's captaincy, well I've never been a great believer that an armband makes any difference on the field. The only time a skipper is called into action is to call the coin toss, shake hands with the ref and jump in to cool others down when they get a bit shirty with the men in black (which he did yesterday). If it's geeing up the team to get motivated when the collective back is against the wall then I would ask who else was doing the same? Wise? Scholes? Adams? Beckham? The team collectively gave up - what more motivation should a player need to give 110% when wearing the colours of their team? Kop out, mate.

-- Anonymous, June 13, 2000

Bobby...that's garbage...I defy anyone but you on here to say Beckham didn't tackle back . It's one of his qualities.....but since you think he has only one anyway what am I to expect from ya :-)

-- Anonymous, June 13, 2000

We did have a deal...but it didn't involve NOT callimg him by the initials WGB...I just said I would slate the bloke...and I haven't.

BTW..You DO hate Bex...it's obvious

-- Anonymous, June 13, 2000

Only as obvious as your arguments :-)

-- Anonymous, June 13, 2000

It's all about confusing the opposition :-)

-- Anonymous, June 13, 2000

Unlike Beckham who was tiresomely predictable.

-- Anonymous, June 13, 2000

Beckham is has the best static ball delivery around at the moment. Free kicks, corners (usually) and generally his crosses from out wide.

His dribble through against Real Madrid was outstanding, both in execution and rarity. The concern most people have is that they have never seen that before. Being good at set pieces is vital, but it doesn't make you a world class player. Beckham fits the Man U style which oes with them dominating games and keeping the ball moving. England don't have the class to dominate games so it doesn't suit his style. If the rest of the England midfield was Petit, Vieiri and Zidane then Beckham would look brilliant as he'd have the time and space.

As I said earlier the whole midfield was awol for lots of periods when the Portugese had the ball. This is because of the team picked. Someone said to me today taht it was the correct team to play Germany but the wrong one to play Portugal, which sounds fairly reasonable. We need people to stop Costa and Figo, and we just didn't play with that in mind.

Beckham played no better nor worse than the rest of the team. Unfair to single him out, but similarly disengenious (?) to say he was blameless.

-- Anonymous, June 13, 2000

Macbeth...you'd be surprised at the number of "clued-up" United fans that have never put Beckham in that "World Class" category. ......we just happen to think he's very good. Good at tracking back, good at passing, good at free kicks. When he scored that goal against Real, we all nearly fell out of our seats at what he did...cos it was a rare sight....beating two men etc.

-- Anonymous, June 14, 2000