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OT: Cook vs Gerrard
Discussion started by Cheslynwolf , 23 July, 2014 16:26
OT: Cook vs Gerrard
Cheslynwolf 23 July, 2014 16:26
So Alistair Cook has had (by his standards) an extremely poor 12 months captaining England and the media & a fair few of the people close to the sport are questioning his position, not only as captain but as opening bat also.

Skip to Gerrard, who makes the decision to quit international football, and there's almost an out cry from fans & media as to who can replace him......

I'm confused, this is the same Gerrard who captained us at 2012 Euro's & the 2014 WC, where we failed catastrophically, has probably had a handful of good games for England, usually against "lesser" opposition and yet theres no pressure from media or associated fans saying we need to change the captain or he should be dropped. Far from it, there's a call to bring him back.....

Is it that the media are on safer grounds criticising Cook coming from a lesser sport rather than Gerrard?



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 23/07/2014 16:28 by Cheslynwolf.

Re: OT: Cook vs Gerrard
Steway 23 July, 2014 20:05
I disagree cheslyn. Gerrard has been a great player for England, he's often been the difference in games and has just had poor teams around him. That's not Gerrard's fault at all. Hypothetical situation. If Fergie took over at Blackpool now, if he didn't win promotion would he be a sh** manager?

Re: OT: Cook vs Gerrard
chicagowolf 24 July, 2014 15:52
Gerrard is a cry baby (as I recall from his near-death Chelsea transfer saga). In his absence England will probably win the 2016 Euros Difference with Cook is that now and again we expect to win at cricket.

Re: OT: Cook vs Gerrard
toomb 24 July, 2014 19:36
I'm not really sure that Gerrard deserved the outcry with his retirement. I think he'd definitely be struggling to be in the team in two years time (and possibly the squad), and I'm struggling to think of how many times he's really made a difference for England



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Re: OT: Cook vs Gerrard
Steway 24 July, 2014 22:02
I'd agree with that Tom, it's the right time for him to retire but to say he wasn't a great player for England is unfair in my opinion.

Re: OT: Cook vs Gerrard
Arthur Tannen 25 July, 2014 08:44
Genuine England greats turn in their graves whenever players like Gerrard are described as England greats. A great club player but bang average at international level, in fact I can't think of a single game against a top nation where he's actually stood out. Germany 13 years ago perhaps? But then again Germany were rubbish back then. I don't buy the excuse he had poor teams around him, if he did I'd have expected him to consistently stand out but he didn't. Of his generation I'd say only Ashley Cole and Paul Scholes were genuine world class players and to be fair none of them were helped by truly clueless managers, I mean we've only recently ditched playing 442 regularly in the last 12 months.

Re: OT: Cook vs Gerrard
toomb 25 July, 2014 09:42
I'd add Rio Ferdinand to the list of world class players, I think for a period he was as good as anyone else in Europe.

I'd be tempted to argue that Gerrard is the best club player of the Premier League era, but he was never able to transfer that onto the international stage. He was the perfect Premier League player - he played with emotion, was physically superb and was pretty decent technically. But for me he never quite had the tactical ability to make that step up. I remember a game when Liverpool were playing Everton, and Gerrard was doing his headless chicken thing that he did so often. Benitez subbed him, the Liverpool fans went mad. But he had no tactical nous, he was running around everywhere trying to do his own thing, disrupting the shape of the team



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Re: OT: Cook vs Gerrard
Lupy 25 July, 2014 12:56
Bring Gerrard to Wolves and he would be the first name on the team-sheet.


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