Rio Ferdinand Named England Captain

[EskWeston 696]

Its dangerous to get stuck in a 4-4-2 rut. different formations and fluidity needs to be experimented with. Every English game used to be played with a 2-3-5 formation until a certain Hungary and Puskas whacked six past us at Wembley.

England need to play like latin, Southern European teams -holding the ball, possession, controlling the tempo/opponents heart rate etc instead of the ''hoof it to Shrek'' tactics when pressurised.

We never seem to create any chances when playing a 4-3-3 - Rooney is arguably one of our best players and he never got a look in! Your right that the style of the way we play is just not right either!

So where does this get changed? At manager/coach level?

[DavidEU 2,023]

So what should the England team be? I quite like the idea of the 4-2-3-1 that Italians like, and Spain have started playing.

We need to play the system and the players that are best for us, and doesn't matter who we leave out as long as its the best possible line up that will win us games. E.g. with Spain playing this system, they can only play one of Torres/Villa, but it works for them. If that means dropping Frank, then so be it. (Although I think he should be playing).

I think Beckham will and should remain in the squad, as he'd be a great option to have on the bench, as proved for the Croatia game. One of the pundits last night reckoned he'd be great alongside Hargreaves in the holding role, so he can play like 'a quarter back' although I disagree with that.

Brown and Barry shouldn't even be in the squad for me but i'd stick with Hargreaves, Bentley and James although when Foster is back playing regularly, he'll be our number one.

[EskWeston 696]

The only formation that suits our players is a 4-4-2. When you play that formation with 2 decent wide men - likely to be Cole and Bently going forward - then we are a better team because we just don't have the forwards who can play alone.

Beckham was past it ages ago! His positional sense is awful and his crosses are not even that good anymore! Waste of space especially considering that you can pretty much gurantee that when the World Cup comes around he will be long gone - probably taken up acting by then!

[pippin 0]

cant believe we are still crap , though thinking about it what the hell are we doing playing friendlies now anyway? the team looked tired beacuase they are ... just played sunday and withchampions leagues fixtures next week you would have though the fa could have organised internationals a bit better ... though as this is the fa i suppose organiastion is a bit much to ask for

[Elliott 7]

I think this friendly was just mainly a courtesy to France. It was a chance for France to try out some players against a supposedly good quality International side. They'll be disappointed on two counts then - 1) England are not a good quality International side, 2) France really struggled to create anything against that poor quality side.

[Laylabelle 9,351]

cant believe we are still crap , though thinking about it what the hell are we doing playing friendlies now anyway? the team looked tired beacuase they are ... just played sunday and withchampions leagues fixtures next week you would have though the fa could have organised internationals a bit better ... though as this is the fa i suppose organiastion is a bit much to ask for

I think when they decided to organise this Friendly they saw it as a warm up for Euros.Though both England and France be through..we kinda ruined it lol