Wilshire and Young provide the only bright sparks

Haha yeah I love a good debate, and you’ve got my number on 3 points there.

You’re dead right about Rooney. United of late have been playing a sort of 4-2-3-1 with Rooney dropping into that attacking midfielder role behind Hernandez, and it’s suited them both well. He does play better there, and with the lacking of creativity in Man Utd’s centre mid he could be dropped back further to play the Scholes role.

Although I still disagree about Wilsheres current ability, I do feel very strongly that he should be going to the U21 championships this month. To have tournament experience along side the potential future England squad i would be invaluable to him. The German side that destroyed us in the final 4 years ago was mostly the same team that destroyed us in the seniors last year. “It was boys against men, and the boys won” was a perfect phrase I heard last year. They played together as a whole team and are much better for it. That’s what we need and I’m so annoyed that Wenger whinged his way into Pearce’s head! Glad Henderson is going though.

Which brings me nicely onto him! lol. He’s not as good as Wilshere but he does have the potential to be a very good player. I hope he does sign for Liverpool, get him playing with better players and give him the experience of European football. I’m far from a Liverpool fan, but it is fantastic to see a top 6 club buying young, English talent; Carroll, Henderson, Phil Jones. Hopefully Dalglish can help develop these potentials into international standard players. Hopefully…

Martin

Bacon, you have me bang to rights about the left foot comment I was in the middle of a heated ‘discussion’ about the match with an arsenal fan who told me Wilshere doesn’t like to go onto his left foot, and I bowed to his (not so) superior knowledge of his teams players, and the penalty saying he went down easily was part of the rant with said arsenal fan, if it had been at the other end I don’t think I would have had grounds to complain.

But that said I stand by most of what I said, his performance was poor, although the whole team played poorly he was one of the worst, his distribution was poor and he lost the ball repeatedly.

As for Rooney, he has had some world class periods, last season as you say, both for Man Utd and for England in the World Cup qualifiers. But following that, the World cup proper and the majority of this season, to describe him as average would have been generous, the 09/10 Prem league season was the only season he has weighed in with 20 plus goals which I think it is fair to say for a striker to be world class he should be doing every season, his next best seasons tally is 16 but he has generally averaged 12 or 13, I personally think that Rooney would be better suited as an attacking midfielder possibly at the front of a diamond, he has played some of his best football when playing behind the likes of Hernandez and Berbatov and his hold up play and distribution could put a great many ‘playmakers’ to shame.

I feel that part of our problem is that we are lacking truly world class players in many positions for England.

I agree that we have some good youngsters coming through, but worry that often they are rushed through into the senior team too soon, we’ll have to see.

Graham, I wasn’t meaning you particularly when I said over hyping but your post was the straw that broke the camel’s back following a raft of ‘Wilshere worship’ on various websites, he really wasn’t very good, he wasn’t even the best England player, that was Young by a country mile, why he wasn’t in the starting XI is beyond me but Capello’s team selections are a whole different rant lol.

I don’t think he is the best we have by far, I would rate Jordan Henderson above him, he scores more goals, is a much better tackler when required, is as good a distributor of the ball and his disciplinary record is much better showing he has a better more mature temperament for the game yes he is older than Wilshere and hopefully Wilshere will grow in maturity and temperament over the coming years but as they stand I’d have Henderson in the team before Wilshere any day of the week (no I’m not a Sunderland fan by the way)
If we had the, fully fit, world class ‘adult’ players to allow it I’d have them both in the U21s until they were both too old for U21 football so they could gain the experience and maturity to make the move to the full senior squad, rather than have so many of our young promising talents pulled into the senior team as soon as the break into their club teams and show some potential.

thanks for the posts guys, nothing better than a good ‘discussion’ is nice to have responses to posts and no doubt latest comments will induce more opinion, looking forward to it,

matt

I think yoiu make a fair point about ‘over hyping’ players Matt, but I don’t think I did.

I said, “Jack Wilshire showed that he could be a mainstay of the England team for many years to come. He wasn’t at his very best but he showed some great skill, vision and awareness and remarkably for an English midfielder, he passed the ball with a fair amount of regularity to another player wearing an England shirt. He also played a huge part in both England goals and would have created the winner if Darren Bent had the same boots on that he wears when playing for his club.”

He wasn’t at his best, but I do think that when you look around, he is the best we have by far.

Bacon, again I agree with most of what you say but I’m not quite so optimistic about the youingsters coming through. I hope you’re right!

Come on Matt, although I agree we should not overhype him, he clearly is our best midfielder at the moment, he’s strong and confident and playes with the maturity of a seasoned international.

He didn’t go down easily for the penalty, djourou made a ridiculously stupid challenge and clearly caught both feet. And as for your ‘his lack of confidence in his ability to finish it on his left foot’ comment, have you never seen him play before? he is left footed!

Look at Rooney, 10 years ago we were shouting the warning to not overhype him, look at him now. Last season and the end of this he proved to be a world class player. Potential world class players do not need protection, they will not buckle under that expectation, they thrive on it and Wilshere appears to be doing the same.

Its easy to be pessimistic after another poor performance, but lets look to the future and realise we have some very good youngsters coming through and I can’t wait to see us in a few years with Wilshere at the heart of it.

What is with everyone raving about Wilshere? he has looked on some occasions like he may have the making of a ‘decent’ midfielder, but his performance on Saturday was as woeful as the rest of the team, apart from one ‘good’ ball to Bent (I say good but it only got to Bent because the defender tripped over his own feet) his poor distribution and giving away of the ball was rivalled only by that of Parker. He had a good run at the box but went down very easily to ‘earn’ the penalty, probably due to his lack of confidence in his ability to finish it on his left foot. Like I said he may have the makings of a decent midfielder but hailing him as the saviour of English football and saying he could be the mainstay of the England team for years to come is premature to say the least, yet again we are over hyping, and therefore over pressuring a young player and his performance on Saturday showed it, he was trying to do too much rather than doing what he normally does well. Fingers crossed Capello makes better team selections and substitutions for the Montenegro match otherwise failure to qualify for the ‘Euro’s’ again may be a very real possibilty.

What is with everyone raving about Wilshere? he has looked on some occasions like he may have the making of a ‘decent’ midfielder, but his performance on Saturday was as woeful as the rest of the team, apart from one ‘good’ ball to Bent (I say good but it only got to Bent because the defender tripped over his own feet) his poor distribution and giving away of the ball was rivalled only by that of Parker. He had a good run at the box but went down very easily to ‘earn’ the penalty, probably due to his lack of confidence in his ability to finish it on his left foot. Like I said he may have the makings of a decent midfielder but hailing him as the saviour of English football and saying he could be the mainstay of the England team for years to come is premature to say the least, yet again we are over hyping, and therefore over pressuring a young player and his performance on Saturday showed it, he was trying to do too much rather than doing what he normally does well. Fingers crossed Capello makes better team selections and substitutions for the Montenegro match otherwise failure to qualify for the ‘Euro’s’ again may be a very real possibilty.

Come on Matt, although I agree we should not overhype him, he clearly is our best midfielder at the moment, he’s strong and confident and playes with the maturity of a seasoned international.

He didn’t go down easily for the penalty, djourou made a ridiculously stupid challenge and clearly caught both feet. And as for your ‘his lack of confidence in his ability to finish it on his left foot’ comment, have you never seen him play before? he is left footed!

Look at Rooney, 10 years ago we were shouting the warning to not overhype him, look at him now. Last season and the end of this he proved to be a world class player. Potential world class players do not need protection, they will not buckle under that expectation, they thrive on it and Wilshere appears to be doing the same.

Its easy to be pessimistic after another poor performance, but lets look to the future and realise we have some very good youngsters coming through and I can’t wait to see us in a few years with Wilshere at the heart of it.

I think yoiu make a fair point about ‘over hyping’ players Matt, but I don’t think I did.

I said, “Jack Wilshire showed that he could be a mainstay of the England team for many years to come. He wasn’t at his very best but he showed some great skill, vision and awareness and remarkably for an English midfielder, he passed the ball with a fair amount of regularity to another player wearing an England shirt. He also played a huge part in both England goals and would have created the winner if Darren Bent had the same boots on that he wears when playing for his club.”

He wasn’t at his best, but I do think that when you look around, he is the best we have by far.

Bacon, again I agree with most of what you say but I’m not quite so optimistic about the youingsters coming through. I hope you’re right!

Bacon, you have me bang to rights about the left foot comment I was in the middle of a heated ‘discussion’ about the match with an arsenal fan who told me Wilshere doesn’t like to go onto his left foot, and I bowed to his (not so) superior knowledge of his teams players, and the penalty saying he went down easily was part of the rant with said arsenal fan, if it had been at the other end I don’t think I would have had grounds to complain.

But that said I stand by most of what I said, his performance was poor, although the whole team played poorly he was one of the worst, his distribution was poor and he lost the ball repeatedly.

As for Rooney, he has had some world class periods, last season as you say, both for Man Utd and for England in the World Cup qualifiers. But following that, the World cup proper and the majority of this season, to describe him as average would have been generous, the 09/10 Prem league season was the only season he has weighed in with 20 plus goals which I think it is fair to say for a striker to be world class he should be doing every season, his next best seasons tally is 16 but he has generally averaged 12 or 13, I personally think that Rooney would be better suited as an attacking midfielder possibly at the front of a diamond, he has played some of his best football when playing behind the likes of Hernandez and Berbatov and his hold up play and distribution could put a great many ‘playmakers’ to shame.

I feel that part of our problem is that we are lacking truly world class players in many positions for England.

I agree that we have some good youngsters coming through, but worry that often they are rushed through into the senior team too soon, we’ll have to see.

Graham, I wasn’t meaning you particularly when I said over hyping but your post was the straw that broke the camel’s back following a raft of ‘Wilshere worship’ on various websites, he really wasn’t very good, he wasn’t even the best England player, that was Young by a country mile, why he wasn’t in the starting XI is beyond me but Capello’s team selections are a whole different rant lol.

I don’t think he is the best we have by far, I would rate Jordan Henderson above him, he scores more goals, is a much better tackler when required, is as good a distributor of the ball and his disciplinary record is much better showing he has a better more mature temperament for the game yes he is older than Wilshere and hopefully Wilshere will grow in maturity and temperament over the coming years but as they stand I’d have Henderson in the team before Wilshere any day of the week (no I’m not a Sunderland fan by the way)
If we had the, fully fit, world class ‘adult’ players to allow it I’d have them both in the U21s until they were both too old for U21 football so they could gain the experience and maturity to make the move to the full senior squad, rather than have so many of our young promising talents pulled into the senior team as soon as the break into their club teams and show some potential.

thanks for the posts guys, nothing better than a good ‘discussion’ is nice to have responses to posts and no doubt latest comments will induce more opinion, looking forward to it,

matt

Haha yeah I love a good debate, and you’ve got my number on 3 points there.

You’re dead right about Rooney. United of late have been playing a sort of 4-2-3-1 with Rooney dropping into that attacking midfielder role behind Hernandez, and it’s suited them both well. He does play better there, and with the lacking of creativity in Man Utd’s centre mid he could be dropped back further to play the Scholes role.

Although I still disagree about Wilsheres current ability, I do feel very strongly that he should be going to the U21 championships this month. To have tournament experience along side the potential future England squad i would be invaluable to him. The German side that destroyed us in the final 4 years ago was mostly the same team that destroyed us in the seniors last year. “It was boys against men, and the boys won” was a perfect phrase I heard last year. They played together as a whole team and are much better for it. That’s what we need and I’m so annoyed that Wenger whinged his way into Pearce’s head! Glad Henderson is going though.

Which brings me nicely onto him! lol. He’s not as good as Wilshere but he does have the potential to be a very good player. I hope he does sign for Liverpool, get him playing with better players and give him the experience of European football. I’m far from a Liverpool fan, but it is fantastic to see a top 6 club buying young, English talent; Carroll, Henderson, Phil Jones. Hopefully Dalglish can help develop these potentials into international standard players. Hopefully…

Martin