Sven was going to get scapegoated WHATEVER he did

because he is leaving (and not English) and the media have to suck up to the players because they want their exclusive interviews etc etc

He probably (in retrospect) should have dropped Beckham & Lampard and played Lennon & Crouch. But if he'd done that and we'd lost people would have slagged him off for leaving "world class" players out.

People said Gerrard & Lampard were restricted by having to play the holding role so Sven put in Hargreaves to allow them to get forward and support Rooney (supposedly playing to their "world class" strengths). They didn't do their jobs properly by doing that but Sven gets the stick for it.

Ultimately the so-called Golden Generation turned out not to be good (or deep) enough.

We all knew months ago that England's first 11 looked great on paper but all the backups were substandard and if we were hit by injuries we were doomed. The reality is once Owen & Rooney got injured it we were basically doomed and NOTHING Sven could have done would have saved us (does anyone REALLY think having the totally uninspiring Defoe or Bent there would have turned us from mediocrities to potential world champions???)

Posted By: mr carra, Jul 3, 10:00:32