Nosher, I agree in general with most of your post, except for the two points below. I'm not trying to start a row, just giving my opinion
Rooney is a central attacking player. Playing him on the left AND expecting him to defend is ridiculous, there are other players in the squad who could have filled this role far more effectively. My point is, if the tactics and gameplan mean someone else plays in his usual role, why play him at all? Have him on the bench and play a left sided wide player on the left....
Italy's second goal was started down the left, admittedly Rooney wasn't playing there then but Welbeck was and he had pushed forward. A ridiculous situation.
I could agree with this statement if Pirlo was an unknown quantity. We were knocked out of the Euro's 2 years ago because Pirlo controlled the midfield (yes I know we lost on penalties), he was given so much space on Saturday it was embarrassing, and guess what, he controlled the midfield.....
If you have two sitting midfielders, Gerard and Henderson, you have them to cover in front of the back four, including wide, what we didn't do was protect Baines, if our left back gets isolated someone from the back four has to cover behind, the left sitting midfielder should either drop into the back four or go across to help. This with the centre backs problems of dropping deeper because of the threat of Pirlos passing ability to Ballotelli stymied our defensive shape. For the players and coaches knowledge especially Gerard who tactically was shocking.
We want Rooney to be a threat, not defending and I think that if you play him in that role, in that formation then you will get what we had against Italy.
The fact that we never solved the problem all game says too much of our tactical awareness and the unwillingness to drop or sub our so called established players.
When we gave up possession, the attacking midfielder should have sat on Pirlo and disrupted their passing in that area, we didn't do it, our game plan is for counter attacking style, (because we can't keep the ball) and we needed to smother the ability of their playmaker, once again the tactical awareness and game management was extremely poor.
If you look at all the papers and the media, there is a call for Rooney, to be played in the number ten role against Uruguay. What was wrong with Stirling? I would have thought that the reason that the positions played against Italy was that Rooney would track and work back more than Stirling, so why change because of the media!
I have said for years that English managers are more or less puppets of the media and the pressure is too much for the FA to ignore and persuade the incumbents to play the. Fashionable favourites rather than merit.
I do not not have an agenda, because I support a League 2 club. But to have the squad made up from a few top clubs in the premiership is an insult to all the upcoming starlets who are in the u21s, u20s, etc. if Stirling played for say Sunderland, would he be in the full squad or in the u21s?
With the high temperatures and humidity, our 'best team' will be still feeling the effects of the Italy game. Unfortunately there will be too many that will have to play another ninety minutes in a must win game and because that every game is the same there will be too many of them that will tire after an hour. That will influence the outcome even if we beat Uruguay of the Costa Rica game and subsequent games if we progress.
As you can see, I love football, and I can take apart tactics and formations, shapes and that in football you never stop learning.
Modern tactics are constantly changing and any good manager, can get his players to change tactically during a match. If you have watched Liverpool this season, the reason they didn't win the premiership, was because they had game plan A, then when an opposition stopped them and countered they had nothing to answer it and couldn't adapt. They had a great season because they had players scoring for fun and out scored the opposition in most games, but the defensive inconsistencies cost them. They still over attacked even under pressure.
Keep the World Cup discussion going, loved Mexico, their tactics were perfect against the hosts.
