At least England made the tournament this time!
Tactical naivety, misuse and poor deployment of players, and general not giving a shit-ness from the players aren't exactly new things for England. It's what I expect to see at this point because that's all I've seen. Perhaps some of you expect more logic and reason, but I think that the majority of you are in the same boat. It's funny cuz most of the board follows the EPL and may be even has an EPL team. Many of the players on the teams we follow are on this team (unless they play for West Ham). While I do, like many of you, find the exit quite humorous, it is reflective of how the seasons go in England.
I strongly dislike Spurs, but they do have a strong core of English talent. Kane was unbelievable this year and Alli had flashes of astonishing brilliance. No, this is not to re-hash Spurs' demise, finishing below Arsenal, but more to speak that they had nothing left. Those players were great this season, but ran out of steam towards the end. Even without Kane's deployment as a dead ball kick taker, he just wasn't the same influential player this tournament. England advanced, but there were plenty of cracks. Alli was just not good. I don't think the fullbacks were terrible nor do I think Hodgson had much of an option besides Dier. It's not about Spurs' players laying an egg so much as the EPL season has taken a toll on these guys. It's hard to play at such a high level for so long. And Spurs did play at a high level.
England suffered really because of circumstances. Wilshere is their best passing midfielder, but the years off have clearly made him rusty and he clearly didn't have the best of tournaments. Rooney, while may be one of England's best overall players still, is not the player he once was and is hard to fit into any system. Sturridge just came back from injury and Vardy, despite having a career year, probably doesn't fit that great into England...wait nevermind, let's not pretend like Roy had a great plan.
I don't think that the players should be condemned for a systematic issue (though I do think they could have given more of a damn/shown more urgency). England's inability to make things work has long been an issue even as the turnstile of managers has gone round and round. Fatigue following a long and competitive EPL season is natural. There were a lot of potentially influential players coming off injury. Losing to Iceland stinks, but I can't say I didn't see it coming. All of this said, I'm laughing like all of you.
I don't know what England should do going forward. The issues that I see with England are systematic. I feel that there's way too much emphasis on the physical and athletic part of the game and not enough on the technical. That includes the thinking side of things. There are too many guys that are there because they can tackle or because they can run. I think that England has a national identity crisis of what it wants to be. If they just want good tacklers who can run and run and run, then sure that's an identity, but you're not going to compete with the best in the world. Either lower your expectations or raise your standards for what the players should bring technically. Heck, If this is the kind of team you want, then this is the result you're going to get.
We joked about BREXIT earlier, but the fact that it happened puts the fractured nature of English society on full display. I'm not saying that athleticism and strength tackling aren't important, they definitely are, but I don't think that skill, passing, and the like should come at its expense. It's not mutually exclusive either. The challenge is to develop both. England needs to accept that.
I see the what the national identity should be as a USMNT problem too, btw.
Sorry for a serious post about this. Let's go back to laughing?