The problem is Roy, not Roo

After a typical England deflating defeat, the skeptics and social media trolls were straight on the case, looking where to point the blame..most of the blame, went unfairly on Wayne Rooney.

Needs to be played as a striker, now

Before I lay my case for Rooney let me state the facts, Wayne Rooney is not a left midfielder, he is not an attacking midfielder and he is certainly not a ‘midfielder’ in any sense. You play him in either his best position, the number 9 role, or the number 10 role, where he is lethal in both. He IS our best player, so why play our best player out of position to suit Daniel Sturridge. Ask any defender in world football who they would rather not see in the number 9 role against them, the majority would say Wayne Rooney. That says it all to me.

Last night after the game I saw a lot of tweets saying ‘Henderson and Welbeck awful’. I do not know what game these people were watching, as these two were our best two players as well as Sterling. I’ve learned that there are two types of people who watch football, the one’s that only judge players by what they do with the ball, and there’s the people like myself who judge on ALL ROUND performance, movement off the ball as well as work rate and knowing what to do without the ball. Henderson completely outshone Gerrard in the midfield yet the so called pundits gave him no credit whatsoever, and to make it worse, Hodgson subbed both Welbeck and Henderson. Ridiculous.

Tactically, the whole system was wrong. Don’t blame Rooney, blame Hodgson. All game we sat off Italy and allowed Pirlo and De Rossi to dictate the game, even when we were losing we didn’t seem to want to but any sort of pressure on the Italians, and because of that we did not deserve to win and we were punished. That’s the managers fault completely, not the players. It was so similar to two years ago at the Euro’s and for Gerrard and Hodgson to come out and say we pushed and pushed is an insult to the fans in my opinion.

I also seen a lot of praise for Ross Barkley, and yes he played well and I would start him next game, but for the whole 20 minutes he was on, he made Rooney look bad due to the fact he did not do the job of the number 10 role, the role he was playing. Barkley was too high up near the front man and didn’t drop back to get the ball, which meant Rooney had to do all the work, as usual. I like Barkley, but he needs to learn fast how to play the number 10 role, and not leave all the work to the number 9.

There were a few positives, Sterling, Henderson and Welbeck all looked good, but let’s not get carried away, changes must be made for the Uruguay game. Here is the team I’d play:

 

                                                         HART

 

JOHNSON                         CAHILL                        JAGIELKA                    SHAW

                 

                                  HENDERSON                  GERRARD

           

         STERLING                          BARKLEY               WELBECK

 

                                                       ROONEY

 

As you can see I have dropped Baines and Sturridge. Baines is not the same player as he is for Everton, for me Ashley Cole should be there no doubt about it. But I think Luke Shaw is better defensively than Baines, which is why I have him ahead of the Evertonian. The Rooney/Sturridge battle for the number 9 role will cause many arguments, but no doubt about it, Rooney is our best player, play him in his best position and he might actually be able to do something. I know this won’t be the team, Hodgson will no doubt bottle it and stick with the same 11, hopefully we can progress, but playing Rooney in that midfield 3 is asking for trouble really.

 

World Cup Countdown…2 days to go!

Only 2 days to go until the 2014 FIFA World Cup gets underway. Today, we’ll be looking at Group C and Group D.

GROUP C                                    GROUP D

COLUMBIA                               ENGLAND

GREECE                                      ITALY

IVORY COAST                        COSTA RICA

JAPAN                                         URUGUAY 

 

OPENING FIXTURES

GROUP C- COLUMBIA V GREECE   (SATURDAY 5PM)

GROUP C- IVORY COAST V JAPAN   (SUNDAY 2AM)

GROUP D- ENGLAND V ITALY   (SATURDAY 11PM)

GROUP D- COSTA RICA V URUGUAY   (SATURDAY 8PM)

 

TEAMS

COLUMBIA– Columbia suffered the biggest blow possible to them in the build up to the World Cup, with star player Falcao ruled out. There only chance really in having a decent tournament have surely been blown now. They will still expect to progress to the last 16 where they will face probably England or Italy, and then you would expect that to be the end of them. A player to watch though is midfielder James Rodriguez.

IVORY COAST– No doubt the strongest of the African teams represented in Brazil. They have a plethora of stars within their squad. The Toure brothers, Drogba, Tiote and Bony will all be hoping to contribute to a successful tournament for the Ivorians. They should comfortably progress to the last 16 where like their counterparts Columbia, should face either England or Italy, or indeed Uruguay depending on outcome of Group D. I expect a quarter final spot for them would be classed as a success.

JAPAN– Nobody will expect anything from Japan in this group, which could help take a bit of the pressure off them. Star player Shinji Kagawa has had a poor season at Manchester United and will not exactly be coming into this World Cup with much confidence. Unfortunately I think 3rd place in the group will be the best result for the Japanese this time out.

GREECE- Greece, the 2004 European championship winners and 12th ranked team in the world, enter this World Cup on good form having won 6 of their last 7 qualifiers only conceding 2 goals in the process. They face a battle to progress but they will certainly be hoping to cause an upset.

ITALY- The Italians are always a threat. no matter what for they are in when it comes to the major tournaments you always have to be wary. Losing Montolivo is a big blow, but they will be looking at Balotelli and De Rossi for big performances, especially in the early stages. Andrea Pirlo is obviously a big player for the 2006 winners, and teams will have to make sure they keep him quiet. What would be deemed as success for Italy? Surely they will be looking to minimum quarter finals, but anything beyond that would be a bonus in my opinion.

COSTA RICA– Costa Rica have seemed to have been forgotten about in this group. big outsiders to qualify out of the group, but you never know, an early goal against one of the big boys could cause a scare. I don’t expect this to happen though, and I can’t see anything other than 4th place in the group.

URUGUAY– Uruguay will be heavily relying on one man, Luis Suarez. If he is contained then they should not cause any major problems. Conditions will be on their side but they have a very ageing squad, and defensively they look very weak. The game against England could be a big game in terms of who will qualify and who won’t. Both sides are weak at the back so it could be a goal fest.

ENGLAND– England, the masters in failure and disappointment. Promise so much yet deliver seemingly nothing. This is a huge tournament for them, a lot of young players called into the squad, which could work, but also could not. England SHOULD progress through the group stage and if they do that will certainly be a relief to Roy Hodgson. Wayne Rooney is coming under a lot of scrutiny and a lot are questioning whether he should start against Italy on Saturday. If he does, he needs to offer a lot more than he has been recently, both for club and country. So what are their chances? as a patriotic fan you always want to win but I would be very surprised if they get past the quarter finals where they will probably meet Brazil or Spain.

So that’f Group C and D looked at. Both quite open groups, check out my predictions on Thursday afternoon where you can have a look at what I think will happen over the next couple of weeks in Brazil. Tomorrow I’ll be previewing Group E and F.