England 0-0 Algeria – A night of frustration in Cape Town.
Posted on June 19th, 2010 | 45 Comments |
To put it blunty, England must win their remaining game against current group leaders Slovenia to progrees to the next stage of the tournament, and judging by the insipid performance on offer against Algeria last night, that looks like it could be far far away from being a formality.
I apologise in advance if this turns into a bit of a rant, but aside from a few shots at goal and a couple of brief glimpses of quality from England, there really wasn’t too much to talk about. In fact the only highlight we have really is that there weren’t any, not ones to savour anyway. In fact arguably two of the biggest talking points happened after the game had finished, but I will go into that a bit later on in the article.
This was supposed to be a game, THE game, where England bounced from an initially disappointing draw against the USA and show just why we are ranked as third favourites to win the tournament. The operative word there being ‘supposed’ as the England players appeared to have completely misread the script.
This is not to discredit Algeria, who looked sharp on the ball, closed us down and made us have to work for anything that we were to get out of the game. We didn’t work hard enough though, and in all honesty we very rarely troubled the Algerian goalkeeper.
The majority of the nation looked on in horror as a bunch of players who play week in week out in the best league in the world struggled to string two passes together, and in fact at times they struggled to string just one pass together. I have seen England sides that have been technically inferior to this current crap crop, yet I am struggling to remember an England side that played with as little heart and determination as what was on offer last night.
That, for me, is one of the most disappointing things about the 0-0 draw last night. The fact that we never really looked bothered, never really put them under any sustained pressure, never really asked any questions of them. A 0-0 draw is not a bad result if you can walk away feeling unlucky not to have won the game, although unfortunately England fans won’t be able to do that.
Calamity ‘keeper Robert Green was replaced by calamity ‘keeper David James, whilst Jamie Carragher stood in for the injured Ledley King in defence. Gareth Barry played in the holding midfield role, which forced captain Steven Gerrard out of position as he was sentenced to toil away on the left wing. A mish-mash of players and star names, shoe-horned into a starting eleven with no sign of Capello’s team ethic being evident in the selection.
As we all know, it was a dour game that ended without many positives to talk about, but after the game had finished there was plenty of controversy to be had. After such an awful performance, the England team found themselves boo’d off by the English support in the stand, a move which Wayne Rooney criticised. Apparently it is fine for him to criticise people, but the England team should be above it. Wrong.
Rooney will do well to remember that he is not in the playground anymore, and he can’t just spit the dummy out if things don’t go his way. He, and the rest of the team, should not be above criticism just because they have found themselves in such a priveleged position in life.
The majority of travelling fans who will have made the 6,000 mile journey to South Africa, will have done so at their own expense. Many will have had to save up for months to afford it, some will have got into debt to go and cheer on the lads, and for Rooney not to expect any condemnation of that “performance” is naive at best. They have paid their money, a lot of money, and they have a right to their opinion. If you don’t like it, Mr Rooney, then you and your buddies should pull your collective fingers out of your arses and earn some support, it works both ways. Give the fans something to cheer about!
Rant over, but perhaps the most worrying event after the game wasn’t ‘Wazzock’ spouting his gob off, it was the fact that an England fan managed to break through security at the ground and end up in the changing room where he apparently confronted David Beckham. Perhaps that fan was confused, as I can think of a few people I would have liked to get my hands on ahead of Beckham after last nights “performance”.
The inquest regarding both incidents will roll on, and the inquest into such a lack-lustre display will roll on until Wednesday when we face Slovenia. England’s impotency as a team now means that we enter the knockout stages of the tournament a game before we should have done, and we now face the very real possibility of going out of the World Cup.
It’s not all over though, and there is still hope. Qualification is still in our own hands, although admittedly our own hands appear to be somewhat ham-fisted as we fight our way through a group that should have held no fear for us. Things could be worse though…
We could be France!
NUFCBlog Author: toonsy
toonsy has written 643 articles on this blog.
them bloody vuvuzela’s & that daft ball are going to cost us the world cup if we’re not careful..