The College Dropout

Yes and Gareth Barry has been as good as anyone. Least alone Frank Lampard.

I'm not dismissing any of them. But none of them are any great shakes either. That's just my point. I would have retired Gerrard/Lampard/Barry etc. long time. Since we haven't and the younger players don't have much experience, I would just pick the best players in the best form come June. That might mean Barry, that might mean Henderson. The general ability levels for England won't be drastic.

At the very highest level Gerrard is poor defensively in that role. He doesn't have the legs and he doesn't have the DM's mindset (as exampled by Villa's counter attack goal). Henderson's never a holding player either. Neither Lampard or Gerrard have ever proven world class for England. Lampard's been to 2 world cups and has never scored a goal. With his legs gone is he going to score now? Once again he's not a DM either. If we are going there to try and control games maybe a Carrik/Gerrard partnership might work. But I doubt it At this rate I truly reckon we will get carved open straight down the middle. IMO I thought our CM's did very well against L'pool and there will be better players England will face in those positios come June.

They play thoroughly different roles for their teams so it's a poor comparison.

In a crap league. At International level, at best, he's run of the mill. based on ability alone there's not much better that we offer. If we bring in alternatives, we have to be content if they are comfortably beaten and we take it as a learning curve. There's no one that plays Barry's role that's any better (who isn't definitely going).

He's not 'run of the mill' though. He's a good player

This is the wrong way to look at it. We should look at what players can offer vs. their limitations rather than just looking at past failures. Lampard and co. where all a part of the midfield that were out passed, out ran, out-thought in that game. If it were up to me, only 1 of those old midfielders would've got any caps after that tournament. But as we've played lads that have gone to 3/4/5 major tournaments and disappointed (Gerrard & Lampard), nobody else should be excluded based on past performances.

Not sure what your point is here? You saying you wouldn't take Barkley/Henderson? We are hardly flushed with options. I'd take both of them over Barry but you seem to say in your next post that he's one of the better players in the division and should go. Obviously we all know this country hypes up players from a young age and very few manage to reach expectations. Nothing new there. My point - there's not point calling a player like Barry crap, then hype up the likes of Henderson in the next sentence (not saying anyone has done exactly that) is counter productive. We need to use less extremes when discussing players. Both will be peripheral if chosen so we might as well go with the younger lad but if we had to rely on one to help get a result in the group stages, it would be Barry over Henderson for me. Henderson's hardly a kid either and is largely dependent on athleticism. I'm not sure how much better he's going to get. FWIW he seems to have it right between the ears.

I think his so called renaissance, and to be fair he has had a good season thus far, is more down to the quality of the Premier League or lack of it than anything else. I always harp on about previous eras when discussing England, and there ain't many that I can think of where Gareth Barry would've been a permanent squad choice. To me he's not much more than a run of the mill player. This part is not true. He's comfortably one of the better CM's in the division.

Earlier on in this thread people were hyping Young as someone with the potential to be a top player. The young kids are cool until we realise that can't mix it with the big boys. The likes of Henderson, Barkley haven't even played at the business end of the Europa yet. Let alone CL. Let alone the WC.

Aye he's a big powerful lad, looked worse than it was.

The Vidic sending off was a tad harsh too

FWIW both are reds.

Pardew's too scared that he'll get into Europe again and lose his job.

Would assume he'll play in the same number 10 role Cabaye has. he doesn't look like as much of an orthodox CM as cabs though, it'd be awfully gung-ho for pards to play this: anita tiote sissoko gouff cabella remy but then he's got a solid, responsible 4 i suppose - i was also wondering if the de jong deal is still a goer the plan might be something like this with anita filling in when one of the other CM's is out: sissoko tiote gouff cabella remy de jong but then i thought "plan" to be honest that 2nd one might be class, free up remy some more that's exactly how we play now except Gouff/Sissoko play deeper than Cabaye's position. Cabaye still puts in a shift but he definitely has less responsibility defensively. Thinking about it now, it may be to avoid injury that we've given him this free role

Eh? He'll just come in for Cabaye. If he's pap HBA will play AM but I doubt that.

He'll play in the same position Cabaye does at the moment.... i.e. off the striker and he's probably better at it than Cabaye is in terms of close control and dribbling but doesn't have the shot Cabaye has. He doesn't have the work rate Cabaye has but with Tiote and Anita behind him i imagine it should be ok. That's if we get him You gotta reckon Pardew loves the fact that his AM is hard working and can put in a tackle.

3rd season out of 4 where we have sold our best player in January?

Surely he must regret leaving us. Making more money in a squad that's challenging for things. I'm not sure it's a given that he'd prefer to be making less money starting for a team with zero intention of winning a competition. The only thing he would miss is the glory of being the main man. You know him well? What else would he miss?

Surely he must regret leaving us. Making more money in a squad that's challenging for things. I'm not sure it's a given that he'd prefer to be making less money starting for a team with zero intention of winning a competition. The only thing he would miss is the glory of being the main man.

Feel kinda sorry for Moyes. Pundits/presenters all day have been saying they need to win. ANything less would be horrendous. Like c'mon.. they would be happy to not concede anymore ground to L'pool after yesterdays result. A draw at Stamford Bridge is never a bad thing.

Feel the same.

Yes, we should have done this a long time ago. Or at least when owld Dykey announced what our "expectations" were for the upcoming tournaments. But just because we didn't do it back then, doesn't mean we shouldn't start now. IMO you can throw one straight into the deep end. But when it's 2/3 they need some time to adapt to international football. Some of these lads haven't even played European football let alone the world cup

I forgot Jonas is a dirty word around these parts. All I'm saying is despite any performance levels Sissoko will start games. I don't think he's been on the bench for a single league match since he joined. And he's had a couple poor spells in that year. He's effectively replaced Jonas in the untouchable group with Cabaye, Tiote, Colo and Krul. Under Pardew these have and will always start. Think it will take a long time for Anita to reach that level in Pardew's eyes.

Sissoko's the new Jonas to Pardew. He's never been as consistently bad as Jonas was last season but he's had rough spells and never been close to getting dropped. Of all the midfielders we know Pardew won't drop Tiote/Cabaye but Sissoko's right next to them. The rest could lose their positions with a slight drop in form.