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Roy Crouchson - Taking England to Poland & Ukraine 2012


crouchaldinho

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Walcott was brilliant for me in Euro 2012; him, Rooney and Gerrard were the reason we won it.

Hope you keep your job going into Euro 2020, an easy qualifying campaign as two qualify but another quarter final will probably afford you the same fate as Sven! Although maybe the FA have learned from that, as we got rid of Sven after 3 QF's and then didn't even qualify for the next tournament!

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Post-World Cup 2018 - The Future

After World Cup 2014, I went for a risky strategy, dropping older players and working on putting together a younger team. This time, I don't have any similar plans top drop older players but I am going to make an effort to look to youth more and more in the future. I plan to use players from the U21 squad more regularly, especially as backup players to the first team.

The big news for England, as I plan for a Euro 2020 qualifying campaign, is that we have a wonderkid to look to for inspiration at last!

I want you to meet Billy Crooks, England's new number 9:

Billy Crooks profile page

He's a bit rough around the edges but I'm sure you'll all agree that there is potential here. Physically, he has the potential to be an absolute monster! Big, strong, agile and quick, he has it all! The mental stats will develop with age but he already has great composure and off the ball movement. The anticipation will need to improve obviously. He also has a bit of flair which I hope will make him an exciting and unpredictable forward. The technical stats are quite weak but I'm sure that the finishing will improve given a little time.

I plan to throw Crooks straight into the team and start giving him games. He is currently playing Premier League football with Hull City. In fact, Hull have a few other young English talents that I will be keeping my eye on.

Another talent is the very Irishly named Eamonn Mooney. He was born in Preston as is very obviously judging by his first name part Irish but he has selected to play for England. He still has some improving to do but already looks like he has all round good attributes for a central midfield player.

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International Friendly 2018 - England 3 Japan 3

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Formation & Ratings

Man City defender, Eric Dier, had an awful debut getting himself sent off after just six minutes. I decided to do something very un-Crouchson like and went to three at the back (so we were 3-4-2). That might explain the high scoring draw!

There were three debuts here including both Crooks and Mooney. Crooks had a great start, scoring two goals, whilst Mooney wasn't quite so convincing.

With Crooks in the team, I hope that we might at last have a clinical and lethal striker in our future. Could we be witnessing the emergence of a new England hero here?

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Euro 2020 Qualifiers, Group E - England 7 Finland 0

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Complete and utter domination here as we absolutely thrashed Finland!

This is some kind of weird free-scoring Roy Crouchson team. I don't know what has happened! :D

That rough diamond, Billy Crooks, was man of the match, setting up two and scoring one. His mere presence up front seems to cause all kinds of problems for opposition defences.

Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain was also fantastic as he scored two. We were lethal all over the pitch. A fabulous performance!

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International Friendly 2018 - England 1 Netherlands 0

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A really scrappy win against the Netherlands.

With Billy Crooks unavailable, I went with another youngster up front called Gari Putterill. He doesn't have the same obvious talents as Crooks but still did the business here grabbing the only goal on his debut! Not a bad start for the youngster.

As you can see from the line-up, I also took the opportunity to experiment with some other players. Mooney got another game to show me what he can do and he put in a decent performance this time.

I also gave a debut to Raheem Sterling. He could end up being a good option in the wide positions.

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International Friendly 2018 - England 4 Denmark 2

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A bit of a thriller at Wembley. We were way too open for my liking.

Gari Putterill, a striker who I didn't really rate all that highly in all honesty, once again stole the show with a brace of goals and the man of the match award. Don't get me wrong, I thought he was decent otherwise I wouldn't have called him up, but this is a start way beyond my expectations for a player who I was really expecting to be a potential backup forward.

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Rather surprised at Crooks, great physicals but don't rate him at all otherwise, and there's only so much development coming at 20.

I think you'll be surprised at how much he develops between 20-24. I hope that I'm right anyway.

And let's get this absolutely straight - I rate him as a lethal goal poacher only. This guy is going to be a goal scorer and I won't be expecting too much else. But what a goal scorer he could be.

With those physicals, he'll be a menace to all centre-backs! With the off the ball, he'll get into great positions and hopefully the anticipation improves to help that. With his composure and finishing, which again both will hopefully improve, he'll be lethal in and around the box. Also, I find that mental attributes continue to increase beyond the mid-20s, so I expect him to become a more intelligent player given time which may make up for any technical shortcomings.

I know what you're saying when you say you don't rate him because his technicals certainly don't impress but all I want is finishing (maybe first touch, technique, heading could be good if he improves in those areas too) and most other technical attributes are a bonus.

I generally like to build my teams around two players as a minimum: usually a pure consumer (goal poacher) and a creator (playmaker). For example, in my St. Albans City save, it was Michel Vermeer and Michael Ball. In this case, Crooks and Wilshere could be an extremely solid foundation for England's future under Roy Crouchson! ;)

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Sad times. :(

But let's try to make ourselves happier by Roy Crouchson winning another trophy in this alternative reality. ;)

Dooo-dooo-dooo, do the Panenka.....Andrea Pirlo do the Panenka!!

Once again.

Off-topic, I know, but I couldn't resist. ;)

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Crooks is already poaching! That's an impressive goal tally and so quickly!

Yes, he has certainly had a good start.

Looking forward to Mooney's development. These 2 strikers look great too. And Sterling :)

Yes, I have a feeling that I'm starting to build a good team here. Fingers crossed.

Any sunderland players even close to making the England squad? or are you another england boss who wont venture further north than manchester? ;)

I'm afraid that it's more a case of me being an England boss who won't venture into the Championship for his players! Sunderland have been a 'yo-yo' club since the beginning really. The odd year in the Prem but always straight back down to the Championship.

Sorry. :(

My Brooks > your Crooks. :)

I did actually think of your player when I saw Crooks in this save, Nobby!

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International Friendly 2019 - Bosnia & Herzegovia 0 England 4

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Once again, the Rooney and Crooks partnership was on form. We were dominant, as you might expect.

I'm pretty happy with the XI here apart from the wide players. Oxlade-Chamberlain is a definite starter but it's really about which side I play him on. He is strong on both feet, unlike some of the other options, so at the moment I'm preferring him on the left as we have a dearth of left-sided wide players. It is then all about who comes in on the right. I've been quite happy with Sterling but he has been out of form at his club lately and has also lost some competency on his positional abilities in playing wide right for some reason.

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Euro 2020 Qualifiers, Group E - England 3 Slovenia 1

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The first match in which Billy Crooks hasn't scored when selected. Wayne Rooney was on form to net a hat-trick in this comfortable win.

Mooney also did well alongside Wilshere in the middle of the park.

Qualification for the Euros appears to be a doddle at the moment.

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International Friendly 2019 - Portugal 1 England 1

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A very even match in which a draw was a fair result.

I was able to do some experimenting with players, trying Sterling on the left, for example. I also used six subs in this friendly and it made me realise that we are certainly quite weak in terms of depth on the flanks and also up front.

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Euro 2020 Qualifiers, Group E - England 2 Moldova 0

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So completely dominant that it was almost a joke. How did we not create more and score more goals though?

Andy Carroll came in for the unavailable Rooney and was, quite frankly, appalling. Wilshere was also a disappointment, unable to create much and set many moves into motion.

Wilshere has been disappointing at times during his England career and I'm a little frustrated. I'm starting to think maybe I will need to change things specifically to get the best out of him at some point. I don't know.

Crooks didn't score in this but at least claimed another assist.

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Euro 2020 Qualifiers, Group E - England 2 Northern Ireland 2

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Well, the warning signs have been there lately that we're not quite on the top of our game. We should have won this but let Northern Ireland into the game when we should have been comfortable.

I'm not too worried at this stage. I think it's just a mini-slump. Plus, Northern Ireland are fighting tooth and nail for a qualification spot in this group, so they were really up for this match.

Qualification is still very much on course. So no worries there.

This is the first time that the youngster, Billy Crooks, has not performed for me in an England shirt. He is still young though and I'm not too concerned as he has been so outstanding so far in his very young England career.

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International Friendly 2019 - England 3 France 0

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This is quite a result as France are a very good side at this point in time.

Billy Crooks was on fire and has proved that he can score against big sides. Now he'll need to do it in a competitive match at a big tournament, please!

Wilshere played really well so hopefully this is a sign of things to come.

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International Friendly 2020 - England 3 Austria 0

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Complete dominance against Austria.

I picked my strongest side for this match as I'm already pretty certain on who I am taking. Decided to just give the best XI 90 minutes to see how they performed together and to note anything I might need to think about changing.

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International Friendly 2020 - Denmark 3 England 1

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Having picked my best XI for the last friendly, I decided to go with my backup XI in this one. I wanted to see how they did and what kind of squad depth we have.

The answer is that there is little quality outside the starting XI, which I already knew really. Out of this fringe side, the goalkeeper and central defence is pretty decent and the midfield is good. The fullback positions are poor and the forwards are very young.

Was this a worthwhile experiment? Not sure. Hopefully morale will still be okay as we edge closer to heading out to Belgium for the Euro 2020 campaign.

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Euro 2020 Belgium - England are in Group F:

I'm not sure if I have mention what our group looks like. Pretty sure I haven't.

Well, let's just say that it's a really tough group for Euro 2020. Possibly the group of death?

Group F comprises the Netherlands, Italy, Ukraine and England!


| Pos   | Inf   | Team        |       | Pld   | Won   | Drn   | Lst   | For   | Ag    | G.D.  | Pts   | 
| ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 
| 1st   |       | Italy       |       | 0     | 0     | 0     | 0     | 0     | 0     | 0     | 0     | 
| ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 
| 2nd   |       | Ukraine     |       | 0     | 0     | 0     | 0     | 0     | 0     | 0     | 0     | 
| ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 
[b]| 3rd   |       | England     |       | 0     | 0     | 0     | 0     | 0     | 0     | 0     | 0     | [/b]
| ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 
| 4th   |       | Netherlands |       | 0     | 0     | 0     | 0     | 0     | 0     | 0     | 0     | 
| ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 

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Euro 2020 in Belgium, Group F - Netherlands 1 England 1

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A very tough game against a strong Netherlands side.

I was really disappointed with our big players in Wilshere and Rooney. Neither really turned up for us in this game.

A draw is not a bad result for the first match though, especially considering the tough opposition we had to face!

Other result: Italy and Ukraine draw 0-0

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Euro 2020 in Belgium, Group F - England 2 Italy 2

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We didn't play too well. It was very much a defensive and hit them on the break type of performance.

Wilshere at least played well but Rooney once again disappointed.

Tom Huddlestone grabbed a last gasp goal for us to get us a draw in this tough match.

It leaves us with the most fascinating group you've ever seen with all teams on 2 points after the first two games! Unbelievable really. I've never been involved in anything like it!

Other result: Netherlands and Ukraine draw 1-1

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Euro 2020 in Belgium, Group F - Ukraine 0 England 2

Match Stats

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We managed to do what both Italy and the Netherlands couldn't by beating Ukraine and thus sealing our place in the next round.

Billy Crooks was superb, claiming a brace of goals in this match.

Wilshere performed well but once again Rooney let me down with a poor performance. I had to sub him off at half-time.

We've done a thoroughly professional job in the group stages. Let's hope that sets us up for a good tournament now as we enter the knock-out stages of Euro 2020.

Other result: Netherlands beat Italy 1-0

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Euro 2020 in Belgium, Final Group Standings

Group A:

| Pos   | Inf   | Team     |       | Pld   | Won   | Drn   | Lst   | For   | Ag    | G.D.  | Pts   | 
| -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 
| 1st   | Q     | Romania  |       | 3     | 2     | 0     | 1     | 4     | 3     | +1    | 6     | 
| -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 
| 2nd   | Q     | Germany  |       | 3     | 2     | 0     | 1     | 4     | 1     | +3    | 6     | 
| -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 
| 3rd   | Q     | Bulgaria |       | 3     | 1     | 1     | 1     | 5     | 5     | 0     | 4     | 
| -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 
| 4th   |       | Serbia   |       | 3     | 0     | 1     | 2     | 4     | 8     | -4    | 1     | 
| -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 

Group B:

| Pos   | Inf   | Team     |       | Pld   | Won   | Drn   | Lst   | For   | Ag    | G.D.  | Pts   | 
| -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 
| 1st   | Q     | France   |       | 3     | 2     | 1     | 0     | 11    | 3     | +8    | 7     | 
| -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 
| 2nd   | Q     | Ireland  |       | 3     | 1     | 1     | 1     | 8     | 7     | +1    | 4     | 
| -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 
| 3rd   | Q     | Russia   |       | 3     | 0     | 3     | 0     | 4     | 4     | 0     | 3     | 
| -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 
| 4th   |       | Slovenia |       | 3     | 0     | 1     | 2     | 2     | 11    | -9    | 1     | 
| -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 

Group C:

| Pos   | Inf   | Team        |       | Pld   | Won   | Drn   | Lst   | For   | Ag    | G.D.  | Pts   | 
| ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 
| 1st   | Q     | Spain       |       | 3     | 3     | 0     | 0     | 7     | 0     | +7    | 9     | 
| ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 
| 2nd   | Q     | Turkey      |       | 3     | 1     | 1     | 1     | 2     | 3     | -1    | 4     | 
| ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 
| 3rd   | Q     | Croatia     |       | 3     | 1     | 1     | 1     | 3     | 5     | -2    | 4     | 
| ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 
| 4th   |       | Switzerland |       | 3     | 0     | 0     | 3     | 1     | 5     | -4    | 0     | 
| ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 

Group D:

| Pos   | Inf   | Team             |       | Pld   | Won   | Drn   | Lst   | For   | Ag    | G.D.  | Pts   | 
| ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 
| 1st   | Q     | Scotland         |       | 3     | 3     | 0     | 0     | 9     | 1     | +8    | 9     | 
| ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 
| 2nd   | Q     | Sweden           |       | 3     | 1     | 1     | 1     | 5     | 5     | 0     | 4     | 
| ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 
| 3rd   | Q     | Portugal         |       | 3     | 1     | 1     | 1     | 4     | 4     | 0     | 4     | 
| ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 
| 4th   |       | Northern Ireland |       | 3     | 0     | 0     | 3     | 1     | 9     | -8    | 0     | 
| ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 

Group E:

| Pos   | Inf   | Team           |       | Pld   | Won   | Drn   | Lst   | For   | Ag    | G.D.  | Pts   | 
| -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 
| 1st   | Q     | Belgium        |       | 3     | 1     | 2     | 0     | 5     | 2     | +3    | 5     | 
| -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 
| 2nd   | Q     | Denmark        |       | 3     | 1     | 2     | 0     | 7     | 5     | +2    | 5     | 
| -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 
| 3rd   |       | Czech Republic |       | 3     | 0     | 3     | 0     | 2     | 2     | 0     | 3     | 
| -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 
| 4th   |       | Armenia        |       | 3     | 0     | 1     | 2     | 1     | 6     | -5    | 1     | 
| -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 

Group F:

| Pos   | Inf   | Team        |       | Pld   | Won   | Drn   | Lst   | For   | Ag    | G.D.  | Pts   | 
| ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 
[b]| 1st   | Q     | England     |       | 3     | 1     | 2     | 0     | 5     | 3     | +2    | 5     | [/b]
| ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 
| 2nd   | Q     | Netherlands |       | 3     | 1     | 2     | 0     | 3     | 2     | +1    | 5     | 
| ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 
| 3rd   |       | Italy       |       | 3     | 0     | 2     | 1     | 2     | 3     | -1    | 2     | 
| ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 
| 4th   |       | Ukraine     |       | 3     | 0     | 2     | 1     | 1     | 3     | -2    | 2     | 
| ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 

England through in top place with Netherlands also through. Italy and Ukraine go home!

The holders, Turkey, go through as do the hosts Belgium.

Scotland go through whilst Northern Ireland go home.

England will play Russia in the second round!

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