Originally posted by Senza Mama:
Great game last night. England can blame many things, the referee, the sandy penalty spot, the heat. Me? I blame the coach. Defending for 80 minutes with 8 or 9 players behind the ball and your forwards 60 yards away is just not England's game. It's alright for Italy who are brought up playing like that but England's natural game is going forward with passion and aggression. Also David Beckham was the worst player on the pitch by a country mile but Eriksson didn't have the cojones to bring him off. Sorry, but under Eriksson England won't win anything.
Have to agree with you there. Of course I do blame the ref, because if it wasn't for his decision we would almost certainly have won. However, it shouldn't have to have come down to that. Like you say, Eriksson just encourages us to sit on the lead and not attack. Yes we got to the quarter final but with the players we have we could have gone a lot further with a different manager.
