All the Heskey haters.....

Hillskill

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will they finally accept he has a role and can do it brilliantly. When we needed an "out" he was always there. Can see this option be so crucial in later stages. Well played Emile !
 
Agreed, well said.

Apart from scoring goals, he's got everything!:smashin:
 
personally think bent should have gone instead of heskey. i'll admit he played well last night, but he just won't score us goals which are whats needed. just look at his 1v1. anyone else (except crouch) would have had the pace to get closer to goal.

saying that, he did very well despite playing next to the lump that was rooney
 
For all the good he does there are minuses IMO - we resort to punting the ball forward and when a chance falls to him you don't feel confident in him taking it. At a level of football where chances are at a premium can you afford to risk him?
 
I am sorry, but what good job does he do? We knock it long to him so he knockdown down the ball and give it back to the opposition. He got an assist, fair enough, but it was easy ball to gerrard, and when he was through on goal, everyone knew he was going to miss.
 
He is an outlet. We have all sat and watched plucky unlucky England fall in recent tournaments because we have invited pressure late on in games (often where we were even infront). This has been our un-doing too often. You could see 2nd half Heskey had the instructions to play as high a line as poss. The US defense caught him out a number of times but it only takes one decent flick to leave Rooney or any of the midfield bombing on to a one on one with the oppostion keeper. Don't get me wrong, I am not convinced he should necessarily start ahead of Crouch (Crouch would have put the Heskey chance away IMO) nor about to name my next child Emile. I do think he proved his worth in a role that we have desperately missed in the past.
 
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It's fine if your using him as a holdup player but, there has to be sufficent support running off him for an attacking ball to be played and that wasn't the case, nearly every ball got played back into midfield and that could have been acheived by playing short balls out of defense.

If your going to insist on playing him then you need to have your central midfield players pushing on a lot more than they did.

And when there is one clear cut chance in the game you need a forward that isn't going to aim straight at the keeper - might as well of passed it back for all the work the goalie was made to do.

Still not convinced, would prefer Gerrard playing slightly deeper than Rooney and the ball played on the deck, at least then we could have Lamps and Barry in the centre and Joe Cole on the left wing - might even see a decent cross!
 
You play Heskey then you're sending out such a negative message.

How can you play a guy up front who's scoring record is abysmal.

Yeh he holds the ball up yadda yadda yadda.

Strikers are meant to score goals.

I bet when all the other teams see Englands team sheet with Heskey on it, they're laughing.

He can't even hold a regular team place for a top half dozen premiership team yet you're asking him to play a part in winning the greatest prize in football playing the greatest teams:suicide:
 
How many times did Heskey get court offside, seriously no need. He needs to pay more attention to the last defender. I really hope he doesnt start the next game.
 
I bet when all the other teams see Englands team sheet with Heskey on it, they're laughing.

Quite the opposite. If I were a centre half I wouldn't be excited about bumping heads with Heskey for 90mins. Anyway I digress from my original point which was simply that he displayed his worth. I don't necessarily think he should start but what he should has atleast clarified for doubters is what he offers the team.
 
Why the big moan about heskey ,doesn't matter how many we may score ,we have a serious problem at goal keeper and have had since dave seaman retired..Heskey had a right game last night.
 
There's goalkeepers with better international scoring records than him.
 
but how many times did the ball actually go to our player after he knocked it down?
 
Please. So he wins headers. So does the cross bar on occasion. Apart from the assist for Gerrard, Heskey did nothing of note

Winning a lot of mindless headers without being able to direct them to your strike partner or onrushing midfield support makes your role ultimately pointless because we are after an end result

You might as well stick a Emile Heskey sized metal pole in the opposition area. A balance of probabilities dictates that the pole would win it's fair share of balls and lay it off aimlessly

:devil:'s Advocate
 
Along with Gerrard the only decent performance of the match. Done his job perfectly, just the shame some of the others didn't.


personally think bent should have gone instead of heskey. i'll admit he played well last night, but he just won't score us goals which are whats needed. just look at his 1v1. anyone else (except crouch) would have had the pace to get closer to goal.

saying that, he did very well despite playing next to the lump that was rooney

Bent doesn't have the intelligence to read the international game, he's also can't play alongside other strikers.

As for Heskey's pace - he's still bloody quick so haven't a clue what that point is all about.
 
As for Heskey's pace - he's still bloody quick so haven't a clue what that point is all about.


:eek: I think that comment alone negates everything else you've said

;)
 
:eek: I think that comment alone negates everything else you've said

;)

Really. Well at Liverpool a remember Houllier saying you couldn't split Owen, Heskey & Gerrard over 100 yards. He may have lost a little but Heskey is not slow by any stretch of the imagination. He's extremely mobile for a chunky fella
 
Another +1 for Heskeys performance on sat night. I think he gave it all he could and was better than many of the other players.

We all know he's a bit toothless in front of goal which to me is another debate entirely. In terms of what he's capable of I'd say his performance was 8/10. If he'd got the goal 9/10 and he could have won a few more headers (as could many of our players on sat) then 10/10

He's also been picked by three succesive managers which has to say something.

Playing 70 minutes against someone of Heskeys strength is absolutely draining for defenders which should enable us to finish strongly in our games as we did against the USA

I'd prefer two out and out strikers on the pitch if I'm honest but It's not hard to see the logic in choosing Heskey. After all we've got Lampard and Gerrard so surely they should be able to break forward into the space created and bang some shots in.

The wingers could have fired a shot or two off also (If they aren't going to look up before they cross the ball they might as well just shoot)

It did bring a smile to my face when I saw the replay of Capello when Heskey broke through on goal he didn't even raise an eyebrow. He knew it wasn't going in.
 
he had a good game against a weak USA, defence, I mean any of them play in a top tier league?

And the decent chance he had, just proved he can't score, or finish like a top class striker should, he just blasted it straight at the goalie.
 
he had a good game against a weak USA, defence, I mean any of them play in a top tier league?

And the decent chance he had, just proved he can't score, or finish like a top class striker should, he just blasted it straight at the goalie.

Lucio, Puyol, Cannavaro, Samuel, Vidic........all defenders we could be potentially up against in later rounds. I can't think of another English Centre Forward that will be able to match them for strength nor match them in the air above Heskey.

Walter Samuel would have Darren Bent for breakfast.
 

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