Can't sleep so.. England Combined XI

Current and "Golden Generation" (2002-2010)

3-5-2 of:
----------------Seaman-‐-------------
---Stones---Terry---Ferdinand
--------Scholes----Gerrard-------
Beckham---Lampard---Saka
-----------Owen------Kane---------

Subs:
David James
Kyle Walker
Ashley Cole
Joe Cole
Peter Crouch

*Didn't include Rooney, as he made watching England a snorefest.

 

No way can you exclude prime Rooney bud! He was electric in his younger years for England. Give it a couple of years and Bellingham will be in there. Assuming its just best players in each position and not actually a viable system that is

 

All depends what formation you wanna play

I’ll go classic 4-4-2

Seaman

Walker
Terry
Ferdinand
Cole

Beckham
Scholes
Gerrard
Sterling

Kane
Rooney

Subs: Hart, Stones, Lampard, Trippier, Owen,

 

Tut missed Owen Hargreaves and some of the current lot that don’t play for their clubs but get picked for England.
With Rooney it was a bore fest ?with the exception of a few games in the past 20 years when has it been anything else ? Especially Southgate’s plodders half of which you have to Google as never heard of em.

 

Gazza, Shearer or Lineker not even making subs bench

 

Aye, and where's Stanley Matthews? I'm too old and daft to read the OP properly too.

 

No Carlton Palmer or David Nugent?

 

Chuckle…Oops….good point well made, I could edit it but folk already know I’m a bit thick ….what makes it worse, on the “who would you have a go on” thread, I’ve made some sarcastic comment about not understanding the thread

 

I'm just thinking it's a travesty England never won owt past the Last 16 with the old lot. We had Gerrard, Scholes and Lampard whilst Spain won everything with Xavi and Iniesta. I think it just proves you have to have a good manager, not just a "big name". Which is why i like Southgate

 

Hate that term "Golden Generation", l followed them home and away between 98-07, they were more the "tournament failures". This current generation are the Golden one, what they have done in 2 of the last 3 tournaments far outweighs anything since 1966 but we play it down. We're a strange nation, still building up the 1990 semi.

 

Isn't the golden generation the one we had between 1977 and 1986? English clubs dominated European competition during that time at club level. It must mean we had the best players available before the influx of foreign players.

 

No, they called Scholes, Beckham, Lampard etc the golden generation for some strange reason.

 

Southgate's team has been by far the most successful since 66.
90 and 96 were also great but we failed to qualify for the world cup in 94.

The golden generation had nothing golden about them. Good players in the league but our England performances during that period were awful.

A combination of that team and what we have now would simply be what we have now.

 

Maybe Xavi, Iniesta and Busquets were just MUCH better players than those 3? Scholes maybe excepted.

 

In his early years, yes. Between maybe 2004-2007. After that it became evident his form at Man Utd was largely down to the help of his actual world class team mates. He didn't have that with England. The snorefest view stems from him being way too hyped up by the media, then consistently ending up looking like a lost lamb on the Wembley pitch. Our strikeforce should've been Defoe and Crouch. My opinion, of course

 

Agreed, they were better players, but when you have those 3 in the same side you expect better than the Quarter Finals. We've done it twice now with arguably lesser players in Henderson, Phillips and maybe Mount

 

Ashley Cole is probably our best player in the last 25 years. Consistently shut down the best wingers he played against - Ronaldo said he was his toughest opponent.

For the balance of the side you need a grafter next to either Gerrard, Lampard or Scholes.

Up top it depends on what formation you play. Owen was better with a big man next to him and was most successful with Heskey. Kane is the opposite - better in a 4-3-3 or a 4-2-3-1 with runners going past him to drop deep.

If you put a gun to my head I would go......

Seaman

Walker
Terry
Ferdinand
Cole

Rice
Gerrard

Saka
Rooney
Sterling

Kane

Interesting that three of the back four are from the Sven/Capello era. But then we were always very defensively sound back then - we struggled to break teams down because they didn't have the balls to play a grafter in midfield and then shoehorned Scholes or Gerrard out left.

 

Rooney only had scored 14 goals in 40 games up to the end of 2007, then proceeded to get 39 more 80 games so his goal scoring record per game went up quite a bit. Including 18 at Wembley.

I think you're vastly underestimating Rooneys talent here.

 

It's just my opinion, it's not gospel. Maybe others could see more in his game than i could. I just don't think he was all that. Compared to Owen and Kane, for me, he was overused and overhyped to a point he knew he was the "star act" so he was undroppable. Also, he completely vanished in big games. Didn't he only get 1 goal at a major tournament?

 

He scored 4 times in Euro 2004.