Incoherent Thoughts from England 2-0 USA

May 29th, 2008 | by: Daryl | View Comments

Hmm.

- We won, which is obviously a good thing. But it was only half convincing. For example…

- Nice to see England at least try and keep possession of the ball and play short passes. But there were still far too many long balls. Playing long diagonal balls for David Beckham to challenge for in the air is not a good tactic.

- Wembley is impressive. And 71,000+ for a friendly is impressive too. And some England fans are impressively rich. I saw one guy get one of the famous 8 GBP hamburgers, ear half of it, and throw the other half on the floor.

- Wayne Rooney looked tired. But I still love the idea of having him play as a support striker at all times.

- USA were rubbish. They are a lot better than what we saw last night. They missed Landon Donovan a lot.

- Freddy Adu came on late and was awful. He took one free kick from wide on the right using his left, and instead of crossing into the box he rolled is straight out for an England goal kick

- Gareth Barry is the English Andrea Pirlo.

- David Bentley is overrated. He’s good, but he’s not going to offer anything too special. I’d rather see Beckham, Lennon, Young, Walcott and probably a few other play on the right.

- Wes Brown offers nowt going forward. I know he crossed for Ronaldo to score in the CL Final, but that was an exception, not the norm. Last night was the norm.

- I’m a bit worried by seeing Steven Gerrard play left mid again. Has the legendary left sided problem returned? Stevie G played well out there, but I’m hoping it was a one-off.

- John Terry was excellent. He defended solidly (mostly) and scored a great header. And he did all that while wearing the England armband. But that doesn’t change my feelings about his suitability for the permanent captaincy. He’s just not the man. And here’s a further argument why not: Chelsea need a leader like Terry, a tough guy who’s all about commitment. But England don’t. England’s a team makes bad decisions, so they need a leader with a level head. Nice to see Terry bounce back from the CL Final disaster though.

- Though I’m sure Beckham, Gerrard, Lampard, Terry, Rooney etcetera sell more tickets, I’m actually a lot more excited to see the largely untried likes of Young, Walcott, Agbonlahor, Ashton…

… and looks like that will happen against Trinidad & Tobago on Saturday. Capello has let seven of the nine players involved in the Champions League Final skip the trip.

Missing from the plane to Trinidad will be:

Wayne Rooney, Owen Hargreaves, Wes Brown, Ashley Cole, Frank Lampard, Joe Cole.