Johnny_No.5
Player Valuation: £500k
David Moyes is writing in The Times during the Euros.. It's a good read, I advise all Evertonians to read.. If like me you love Moyes, it's a must read.
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Is it a pay wall on the site? Or in the paper?
You need to pay to access The Times online lid.
thebluefox
Player Valuation: £50m
the fifer **** the bed lad
Destroyed here mate.
Johnny_No.5
Player Valuation: £500k
Yeah you do, or you could buy a copy of the Sunday Times..Its a good column.
ToffeeBlueNose
Player Valuation: £30m
i'm not buying a paper for a column ffs.
Johnny_No.5
Player Valuation: £500k
Just buy a copy of The Sunday Times, He mentions stuff about Everton today, said he almost bought Mathieu Valbuena..
Johnny_No.5
Player Valuation: £500k
Its about 4 pages...
thebluefox
Player Valuation: £50m
happy days ,ffs lad i was on the beach with ye little mate at 6,30 looking for red ****e to have off
ToffeeBlueNose
Player Valuation: £30m
why don't you just copy and paste it, good idea eh?
Johnny_No.5
Player Valuation: £500k
AT HOME I’ve still got a team sheet from a game in 2006. I don’t often keep them. This one’s a reminder that, in football, sometimes you need to look again. The match was Scotland Under-21s versus France Under-21s in Aberdeen. I thought I might spot some players but came away thinking: “There wasn’t much there.†France won but none of their youngsters made me think “wowâ€.
Well, on the pitch that night were Lassana Diara, Yohan Gourcuff and a certain Karim Benzema. Samir Nasri and Younes Kaboul were on the bench.
Looking at the players they became, it made me realise that under-21 games perhaps don’t always give you the truest picture.
Benzema’s massive potential was more obvious when he played for Lyons and now, under Jose Mourinho at Real Madrid, he looks to be fulfilling it. There are few better strikers around and tomorrow Benzema is the greatest threat to England. He spearheads a France side whose style is attacking and which contains a level of individual talent beyond England’s. Laurent Blanc, the France coach, has not one or even a couple but a number of individuals who, on their day, can produce the defining moment to beat you.
Supporting Benzema are Nasri and Franck Ribery. Florent Malouda adds experience and the substitutes are also real dangers: Hatem Ben Arfa, Olivier Giroud, Jeremy Menez and a small but exciting winger I once nearly managed to bring to Everton, Mathieu Valbuena.
Even Blanc’s “run-of-the-mill†players are proper talents, such as Yohan Cabaye, who will take every opportunity to move upfield. Cabaye will provide France with a fifth attacker at times and their full-backs — Patrice Evra and Mathieu Debuchy — get forward too. When their positive style is working for them, France look very good — as we saw in a 4-0 hammering of Estonia in their final warm-up game. But against Iceland two weeks ago they weren’t as impressive: Iceland were 2-0 up and the French needed late goals for a 3-2 win. That match prompted doubts for me, showing that, despite being on a 21-match unbeaten run, France are still capable of being unpredictable. Maybe Blanc’s challenge is getting the balance right between Gallic flair and team discipline.
Past great France sides had Thierry Henry and Zinedine Zidane — outstanding individuals who were also outstanding team men. Are the players in this generation the same? Tournaments answer such questions. Up to this point, Blanc has done a tremendous job of bringing back together a team who were so divided at the World Cup. He has left out big players such as Gourcuff to go with a new group and give France what seems to be the ethos of a club side.
He plays 4-2-3-1, a system that will dominate the tournament. I expect most teams to use a variant of it: England’s 4-4-1-1, with the wide players coming infield, is an example. Teams willing to play with two strikers will be few. No side at this level wants to get outnumbered in midfield and, as in the Champions League, control of the ball is generally the key to winning games.
Samir Nasri will play a key role behind Benzema in the France attack
The advantage of 4-2-3-1 is the questions you can ask an opposition defence. The wide players come in and try to go through the middle. The player in the No 10 role looks to play between the opposition’s midfield and back four. The centre-forward tries to open space for the others by stretching the centre-backs and making them play “longerâ€.
France have great players to use in this system: Benzema, a clever runner as the lone striker, Malouda using his savvy at No 10, Ribery and Nasri, great exponents at coming inside from the flanks.
How England deal with this is through organisation and concentration, qualities Roy Hodgson has already successfully instilled. The back four have to keep making the right choices. Against 4-2-3-1, full- backs must decide whether to stay or follow wide attackers inside. If you stay in the middle, teammates get outnumbered. If you come inside, room is left for opposing full-backs to overlap. Glen Johnson and Ashley Cole will have to size up each situation and make the right choice.
Centrally, John Terry and Joleon Lescott need to have an eye out always for Ribery or Nasir coming into their area and be ready to go in one-against-one at times. Communication with their full-backs is essential and if Terry plays on the right, given that Lescott is left-footed, England will be deprived of his understanding with Cole. Roy likes to keep his central midfielders close to his back four. This can help choke the space for Malouda. The drawback with sitting deep in midfield is what happens when you win the ball back? You’re left with a long way to go to the opposition goal.
England will have to do some pressing in forward areas because, okay, you can let opponents play in front of you but it’s important that at some point you win the ball further up the pitch. You sure won’t score if you don’t have the ball. So Steven Gerrard is another player who faces a lot of decisions. He has to judge when to go forward and suddenly press and try to win the ball somewhere that he can hurt the opposition. Against Belgium, doing this led to Danny Welbeck’s goal.
Coaches work on transitions — when they want their team to overturn possession and what positions you want your players in the moment you get the ball back. You establish triggers for when to press. Sometimes it can be when a particular opposing player, who might be weak on the ball or likely to dwell on it, gets possession. Sometimes it’s when the ball is in a particular area. I don’t want to give away trade secrets but I do think there is one position on the opposing team that Roy likes to target. Perhaps it will become obvious the more you watch his England team. A weakness of the French system is a defensive one, out wide. When Ribery and Nasri come inside, there will be gaps on the flanks to exploit if England win the ball. Johnson and Cole could play an important role in starting England attacks.
Up front, Roy’s decision is between Welbeck and Andy Carroll and perhaps Carroll will get the nod. France’s biggest flaw is probably in central defence. Phillipe Mexes has always threatened to become one of the world’s best centre- backs without getting there and he and Adil Rami have struggled for form. Iceland worried them with powerful forwards and scored one goal from a corner, the other from a cross. At Euro 2004, set-pieces produced all three goals when France beat England 2-1 and one could well decide tomorrow’s match. Set-plays could be England’s weapon. Gerrard and Ashley Young provide good delivery and France are not a big side, with only Rami particularly good in the air.
Whatever happens, England need to keep the ball better than they did against Norway and Belgium. I expect defending to be their strong suit and creativity the biggest worry. England’s record in the opening games of tournaments is poor but France have also had some bad results in openers and both teams would take a draw. The rest of the tournament will be fascinated: there’s a lot of the unknown about England and France. Both could be dark horses — but nobody would be that surprised if they went out in the group stages.
Well, on the pitch that night were Lassana Diara, Yohan Gourcuff and a certain Karim Benzema. Samir Nasri and Younes Kaboul were on the bench.
Looking at the players they became, it made me realise that under-21 games perhaps don’t always give you the truest picture.
Benzema’s massive potential was more obvious when he played for Lyons and now, under Jose Mourinho at Real Madrid, he looks to be fulfilling it. There are few better strikers around and tomorrow Benzema is the greatest threat to England. He spearheads a France side whose style is attacking and which contains a level of individual talent beyond England’s. Laurent Blanc, the France coach, has not one or even a couple but a number of individuals who, on their day, can produce the defining moment to beat you.
Supporting Benzema are Nasri and Franck Ribery. Florent Malouda adds experience and the substitutes are also real dangers: Hatem Ben Arfa, Olivier Giroud, Jeremy Menez and a small but exciting winger I once nearly managed to bring to Everton, Mathieu Valbuena.
Even Blanc’s “run-of-the-mill†players are proper talents, such as Yohan Cabaye, who will take every opportunity to move upfield. Cabaye will provide France with a fifth attacker at times and their full-backs — Patrice Evra and Mathieu Debuchy — get forward too. When their positive style is working for them, France look very good — as we saw in a 4-0 hammering of Estonia in their final warm-up game. But against Iceland two weeks ago they weren’t as impressive: Iceland were 2-0 up and the French needed late goals for a 3-2 win. That match prompted doubts for me, showing that, despite being on a 21-match unbeaten run, France are still capable of being unpredictable. Maybe Blanc’s challenge is getting the balance right between Gallic flair and team discipline.
Past great France sides had Thierry Henry and Zinedine Zidane — outstanding individuals who were also outstanding team men. Are the players in this generation the same? Tournaments answer such questions. Up to this point, Blanc has done a tremendous job of bringing back together a team who were so divided at the World Cup. He has left out big players such as Gourcuff to go with a new group and give France what seems to be the ethos of a club side.
He plays 4-2-3-1, a system that will dominate the tournament. I expect most teams to use a variant of it: England’s 4-4-1-1, with the wide players coming infield, is an example. Teams willing to play with two strikers will be few. No side at this level wants to get outnumbered in midfield and, as in the Champions League, control of the ball is generally the key to winning games.
Samir Nasri will play a key role behind Benzema in the France attack
The advantage of 4-2-3-1 is the questions you can ask an opposition defence. The wide players come in and try to go through the middle. The player in the No 10 role looks to play between the opposition’s midfield and back four. The centre-forward tries to open space for the others by stretching the centre-backs and making them play “longerâ€.
France have great players to use in this system: Benzema, a clever runner as the lone striker, Malouda using his savvy at No 10, Ribery and Nasri, great exponents at coming inside from the flanks.
How England deal with this is through organisation and concentration, qualities Roy Hodgson has already successfully instilled. The back four have to keep making the right choices. Against 4-2-3-1, full- backs must decide whether to stay or follow wide attackers inside. If you stay in the middle, teammates get outnumbered. If you come inside, room is left for opposing full-backs to overlap. Glen Johnson and Ashley Cole will have to size up each situation and make the right choice.
Centrally, John Terry and Joleon Lescott need to have an eye out always for Ribery or Nasir coming into their area and be ready to go in one-against-one at times. Communication with their full-backs is essential and if Terry plays on the right, given that Lescott is left-footed, England will be deprived of his understanding with Cole. Roy likes to keep his central midfielders close to his back four. This can help choke the space for Malouda. The drawback with sitting deep in midfield is what happens when you win the ball back? You’re left with a long way to go to the opposition goal.
England will have to do some pressing in forward areas because, okay, you can let opponents play in front of you but it’s important that at some point you win the ball further up the pitch. You sure won’t score if you don’t have the ball. So Steven Gerrard is another player who faces a lot of decisions. He has to judge when to go forward and suddenly press and try to win the ball somewhere that he can hurt the opposition. Against Belgium, doing this led to Danny Welbeck’s goal.
Coaches work on transitions — when they want their team to overturn possession and what positions you want your players in the moment you get the ball back. You establish triggers for when to press. Sometimes it can be when a particular opposing player, who might be weak on the ball or likely to dwell on it, gets possession. Sometimes it’s when the ball is in a particular area. I don’t want to give away trade secrets but I do think there is one position on the opposing team that Roy likes to target. Perhaps it will become obvious the more you watch his England team. A weakness of the French system is a defensive one, out wide. When Ribery and Nasri come inside, there will be gaps on the flanks to exploit if England win the ball. Johnson and Cole could play an important role in starting England attacks.
Up front, Roy’s decision is between Welbeck and Andy Carroll and perhaps Carroll will get the nod. France’s biggest flaw is probably in central defence. Phillipe Mexes has always threatened to become one of the world’s best centre- backs without getting there and he and Adil Rami have struggled for form. Iceland worried them with powerful forwards and scored one goal from a corner, the other from a cross. At Euro 2004, set-pieces produced all three goals when France beat England 2-1 and one could well decide tomorrow’s match. Set-plays could be England’s weapon. Gerrard and Ashley Young provide good delivery and France are not a big side, with only Rami particularly good in the air.
Whatever happens, England need to keep the ball better than they did against Norway and Belgium. I expect defending to be their strong suit and creativity the biggest worry. England’s record in the opening games of tournaments is poor but France have also had some bad results in openers and both teams would take a draw. The rest of the tournament will be fascinated: there’s a lot of the unknown about England and France. Both could be dark horses — but nobody would be that surprised if they went out in the group stages.
Johnny_No.5
Player Valuation: £500k
Yeah didnt think of that.. DUH.. read it now..
Johnny_No.5
Player Valuation: £500k
I'll do it every Sunday..
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