England suffer from Jagielka's limitations

I feel that he is best winning the ball and giving it off to a midfielder. With England the other night and often with Everton, no midfielder came. This is either their fault or a tactical issue. You can't blame a centre half for not being a playmaker. And you certainly can't blame him for a team's inability to score a goal.

You could play a midfielder at centre half, of course, like Carrick the other week. What happened there?

What I saw, granted only the first half as I was bored off my tits, he passed it more than he usually did with us and his passes nearly always found their men.

He doesn't deserve to be the scapegoat for an England team that lacked creativity and had no-one dropping in the hole to protect and also to pick the ball up.

Where a team is well organised, moves are stifled in midfield or at source, and long balls are routinely dealt with. Seeing defenders turned towards their own goal, desperately trying to make a tackle, is not comforting.

I never enjoyed Moyes labelling Jags the best "recovery defender" in England. I'd rather a player like Beckenbaeur or Moore or Sammer etc. than the usual "British" centre-back. For me, Heitinga is a much better player than Jags, but doesn't get the attention because he's not as good at the last-gasp desperate stuff.

Just my tuppence's worth!

He gave the ball away on numerous occasions causing fear in his own defence (never a good thing).

I would be surprised if Woy starts him again, but you never know.

Jags and Lescott spent most of the game passing to each other whilst waiting for the midfield to wake up and take the ball forward. If anyone is to blame for the performance it is the manager who (following the mistakes of his predecessors) is convinced Stevie Me Laa and Lumpen Lamps can play in the same team. The latter was anonymous for huge parts of the game and the former looks increasingly past his prime I'm pleased to say ( as per his usual poor tackle which got him sent off).

He and Lescott had no options all evening. Where was someone in the Carrick role to come and collect the ball?

The defence coped with a non existent midfield and a strike force would rarely made a shot and any midfielder who did rarely hit the target.

Did Jagielka cover himself in glory? May be not so much but then non of the team did. On a different night an differebt ref the result could have been very different

That was a great post, couldn't agree more.

I have been saying this for years, Jags and his limited ability and style invites pressure. Heitinga plays a high line and marks zonally instead on rushing to the ball like a school boy. I have never rated Jagielka as a footballer. The fact that Jags is first choice when fit says a lot about the style of football wants to play.

When Rodwell first came through, I hoped he could play that position. But my hopes turned out to be unfounded!

An awful lot of successful central defensive partnerships have relied on at least one of them having the pace to get back at an attacker who has broken through. The ideal may be two quick ball-players but they are pretty rare. Two relatively slow ball-players would end up getting shredded in most games in the EPL, no matter how good their reading of the game may be (looking to play offside high up the pitch would be a definite no-no).

Jags has his limitations but he is not the terrible player that some make out. He has more pace than JH and is probably a more robust tackler (we have all seen Johnny H not come away with the ball in tackles were he really should have). I too would like to see JH starting more games as I think he offers something that neither Jags and Buzz do, but I am not bothered to see any two out of the three of them on the team-sheet.

The role of prompter that Jags was asked to play for England isn't his forte, and it would have been far better if one of our much vaunted central midfielders had taken the initiative for distributing the ball.

And Jags didn't actually struggle, he's too good for that.

Any manager/coach who expects him to carry the ball forward and put in a killer pass has obviously never seen him play. This manager/coach should be examining the quality of his midfield*, whose job that normally is.

Leon Osman, anyone?

* wasn't it established about 6 years ago that Lampard and Gerrard in the same team meant midfield incompetence?

I found a link to watch the game. Jags' problem was the same as the rest of the backline. The other guys running free thru the mid-field. How the fuck was it the Everton guy's fault?

I'm a fan of Sabotage Times. Read it regularly. Not just the sports. All of it. Good fun stuff. Much of it well-written. Was disappointed reading this hack blame somebody "journalism".

Strange thing is, I don't know having Rooney would have made things any better.

Yes he's not the best with the ball at his feet and neither is Lescott. But Ukraine exposed that by letting the pair of them have the ball. It was down to Hodgson and his coaches to out-tactic them and they didn't have the ability to.

The truth is that it was a poor piece of journalism from Sabotage TImes. Jags was obviously instructed by Hodgson NOT lump it long, so he gave it short. Gerrard and Lampard didn't do enough to collect it from him, which was the original idea, I'm sure. Or maybe our central midfielders were expecting to be able to receive the ball comfortably in, er, midfield, but were thwarted by Ukraine's tactics. Anyway, I bet Hodgson gave Jags the thumbs up at the end. He did what was asked of him. He's not really an international level player but he put in a decent performance, nowt wrong with it at all. The problem lay elsewhere.

In answer to Roman's questions: I don't think leadership was an issue at all. I didn't notice him shouting at people telling them where to go, but I don't think it's reasonable to expect him to be the fulcrum of the side and organise everyone. Although, having said that, Terry probably would have done.

If Scott Parker had been sitting in front of the back four then Jags would have come out of the game smelling of roses. Same with Baines: for England, he always gets stuck with a selfish numbskull ahead of him in left midfield, which means he can't play his normal game.

We have been carried by our heroic defenders for many seasons and thats why they get picked as players of the year.
Both Jags and Baines are the only players of English nationality on our books who are international standard.
Heitinga is one of the worst Dutch internationals I have ever seen and does himself no favours by regularly giving away dangerous free kicks because of poor tackling.

When has Jags been sent off ? How often does he get booked ?
The same go's for Distin who is a tremendous athlete for his age and a great professional.

England have quite a few players coming to the end of their days eg; Terry, Ferdinand, Gerrard and Lampard.
Our best youngsters are attackers eg; Walcott, Chamberlain and possibly Sterling.
We have never adequately replaced Scholes as a midfield general.
He is far better than Gerrard or Lampard as a reader of the game and long passer.

The whole England team is badly needing a good shakeup but Jags is as good as any other English centre back and far better than most.

Let's hope that Jelavic, Naismith and Mirallas etc are the start of our attack becoming as sharp and effective as our defence, sticking the ball in our opponents net on a regular basis and that this trio will have hefty price tags around their necks this time next year – alongside a 4-year contract.

I felt for both Jagielka and Lescott against the Ukraine as they passed it square across the back for the 99th time........ there just wasn't a lot on beyond them nor was there the tempo that really opens up opponents.