I hope everybody who criticised Steven Gerrard in midweek for England saw him today against Newcastle in the Premier League.Just shows how good he is in a decent team

If there are any Newcastle fans out there,please keep booing him it does wonders for his performance.

I think you are missing the point John. We all know how good Gerrard is for Liverpool. International football is a different animal. Liverpool v Newcastle is not the ideal place to find sublety. Gerrard might be Roy of the Rovers for Liverpool but he couldn't do it for England. It requires a different approach.

It would only be fair to start criticizing players after everything else (i.e. the FA, the Coach, the Coach choice process, etc.) has been figured out. Ask yourself, if Steven Gerrard played for some of the pther big national teams like Italy, Germany, France, Holland, etc. wouldn't he have a similar form to the one he has at Liverpool? I think YES!

Mmmmmmmmm difficult one this John.
Gerrard is top dog for Liverpool, everyone massages his ego... Youre the king Stevie G.
But with England, David Beckham has been top dog for a number of years and can Gerrards ego take it??... NO.

So what WAS the problem between Gerrard & Beckham that was SO obvious to those who coach the sport.

Steve is a CLUB player and NOT the finished article at International level

Agreed.

This proverb applies well to Gerrard`s case in Liverpool:

In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is King...

If he keeps producing it for Liverpool that is fine by me.After all it shows what he is capable of in a good team with a good coach/manager and good players around him.This has been proven with the teams record in Europe in the last few seasons.

After all you would expect all the Englsh top four to beat the national side if they ever came face to face,impossible of course, but just a comparison.

This is not the case in the best national sides Brazil,Italy etc as their domestic teams play a very similar style as their national side.

This doesnt happen in England as most domestic sides just want to stay in the Premier League and stay on the gravy train in the process and this means when some players are out of their depth internationally.Mainly because their managers feel the best way of staying in the EPL is to play direct and physical and this doesnt help at international level where it is a totally different game.

You could also say this applies to Lampard,Terry and Rooney too and not just Gerrard.

Most of the top english aren't as direct as that. They are direct at times, and below these teams the play is generally very direct.

The other thing is that they all, practically play 442, but the variations only apply because of the technical quality of foreign players, and the limited tactical knowledge of the enlgish coach, hence foreigners at 3 of the top 4 clubs, and the other is an experienced scotsman, who failed with a new system a few years back.

Enlgish players for these clubs do play a different system, and are successful in europe, so the problem is really the style that's forced by 16 other teams, and an extremely biased and idiotic media influence.

Tony,very well said.
I also accept what coachkev has said about Gerrard not being international class but a club player instead.If you read my comments earlier I think club football in most of Europe is a standard or two above international football,especially in England.
Yes I can understand what you mean kev,but a player who has played in 2 of the last 3 european cup finals,and captained the winners in 1 of them must be at least half decent with the right influences around him.Players,coaches etc.

You said it John...... the right players etc.
Its the SAME old lament.
Players are selected for England playing a certain, dynamic and power driven way, fast paced, aggressive, passionate etc, and then AS SOON AS THEY PUT AN ENGLAND SHIRT ON...they are asked to play slow, composed, deliberate, 'PROFESSIONALLY'.

Gerrard has been humilated by McClaren selecting John Terry as the captain when Gerrard virtually single handed, did a 'Beckham Against Greece' job when winning the Champions League.

Then he has to suffer playing alongside 'UP MYSELF' Lampard who is a good professional midfield player but NOT world class... sorry.

Then he has to watch as McClaren basically reminded everyone me of the Britisn Prime Minster Neville Chamberlain's disastrous trust of Hitler before World War 2 began.

How COULD we have ALL been SO blind to a man who COULD NOT lose??.
Win and he's one of the BEST England managers ever...
Lose and I walk off with £2.5 million thank you very much.

The little gnome Sven put it right when asked what the next England manager has to do....

"Win EVERY match - have NO private life whatsoever - Don't earn too much money - do THAT and you're PERFECT"

Ah Kev, I'm beginning to understand all of this now.

Gerrard threw the game by over-hitting passes to Beckham to make Beckham look bad. So it didn't have anything to do with the fact that Beckham was a yard slow as he isn't match fit on account of the fact that he's only played about 20 minutes of football in the last six months.

And now to top it all off McLaren deliberately picked the wrong team to throw the match so that he could walk away with £2.5M.

And here was me thinking it was all down to the fact that england are pure and utter shyte, and have been for several years now.