Congratulations Wayne Rooney

[Lord Duckhunter]

Nobody would claim that Graham Gooch was a better batsmen than Don Bradman just because he scored more test runs .

[VectisSaint]

I'd like to see a statistical breakdown of this - I'm fairly sure there are now retrospective world rankings going back to the pre-War era and England matches are so well documented they're actually numbered nowadays, so knock yourself out.

Without checking the facts, half the teams we play these days didn't even exist (as international football teams) in the 1960s, no way did we play the likes of San Marino, Andorra, Liechtenstein, Gibraltar (OK England haven't played them yet). In 1962 the USA were considered minnows (and they beat us 1-0). The only remotely little teams back then were Luxembourg (1960), Cyprus (1975) or Malta (1971).

 

What I find quite interesting in all this chat about Rodney being our best ever goalscorer is if you look at it in terms of strike rate. Of England's top 20 all-time scorers, Rooney comes out 11th in this, with Cahrlton 12th and our own Mick Channon 12th. If you want top goalscorers who could be relied on to score whenever they player you need to go with Vivian Woodward and Steve Bloomer (who I confess I had never heard of) then the likes of Tommy Lawton, Nat Lofthouse, Stan Mortensen, then Greaves, Lineker, Crouch, Hurst and Shearer. All of those down to and including Crouch have a better than 1 goal in 2 games average. Players like Stan Mortensen were unable to play as many games because of the War. I don't like Rooney, but by almost any other measurement he is not worthy of being even top 10, just happens to have played in an era where we play games against minnows and where there is almost no competition for his place. Still, hats off to the thug, he is now our top goal scorer and probably will be for a long time to come.

[The9]

Without checking the facts, half the teams we play these days didn't even exist (as international football teams) in the 1960s, no way did we play the likes of San Marino, Andorra, Liechtenstein, Gibraltar (OK England haven't played them yet). In 1962 the USA were considered minnows (and they beat us 1-0). The only remotely little teams back then were Luxembourg (1960), Cyprus (1975) or Malta (1971).

 

What I find quite interesting in all this chat about Rodney being our best ever goalscorer is if you look at it in terms of strike rate. Of England's top 20 all-time scorers, Rooney comes out 11th in this, with Cahrlton 12th and our own Mick Channon 12th. If you want top goalscorers who could be relied on to score whenever they player you need to go with Vivian Woodward and Steve Bloomer (who I confess I had never heard of) then the likes of Tommy Lawton, Nat Lofthouse, Stan Mortensen, then Greaves, Lineker, Crouch, Hurst and Shearer. All of those down to and including Crouch have a better than 1 goal in 2 games average. Players like Stan Mortensen were unable to play as many games because of the War. I don't like Rooney, but by almost any other measurement he is not worthy of being even top 10, just happens to have played in an era where we play games against minnows and where there is almost no competition for his place. Still, hats off to the thug, he is now our top goal scorer and probably will be for a long time to come.

 

Turkey were utter gash well into the 80s, FWIW. And Norway (hence all the Lady Diana, Maggie Thatcher stuff in 1982-ish). Basically the rubbish teams were just different ones, and if you aren't a top tier side, England at home are probably going to beat you and whoever their striker is will probably get a goal or two. So Rooney has done it via longevity (as the strike rate shows) rather than any kind of excellence - other than getting regularly picked at a time when the number of English players in the top English division is at an all time low.

Edited 10 September, 2015 by The9

[CB Fry]

Turkey were utter gash well into the 80s, FWIW. And Norway (hence all the Lady Diana, Maggie Thatcher stuff in 1982-ish). Basically the rubbish teams were just different ones, and if you aren't a top tier side, England at home are probably going to beat you and whoever their striker is will probably get a goal or two. So Rooney has done it via longevity (as the strike rate shows) rather than any kind of excellence - other than getting regularly picked at a time when the number of English players in the top English division is at an all time low.

Behave yourself. In the seventies tournament qualifying was a handful of ties. You can't avoid the simple fact that there are tons of minnow teams that simply did not exist in Charlton's era.

 

Norway in 1982 achieved two wins and two draws in a group with England, Switzerland, Hungary and Romania. Hardly San Marino level, is it.

[The9]

Behave yourself. In the seventies tournament qualifying was a handful of ties. You can't avoid the simple fact that there are tons of minnow teams that simply did not exist in Charlton's era.

 

Norway in 1982 achieved two wins and two draws in a group with England, Switzerland, Hungary and Romania. Hardly San Marino level, is it.

 

But the fact there are loads more minnow teams that England don't play against isn't really relevant. There's at most 4 more games per qualification and the standard overall is much better than in the 70s or 80s (including for England of course). Plus Charlton played 90 minutes in all but 1 match for England.

 

Also, Norway lost 4-0 at home to Scotland in 1979 (and 4-0 to Austria) and 4-0 to England in 1980, and 4-1 to Hungary in 1981. They regularly shipped 4 or more against others in the 60s and 70s. Though from a quick look at their results they were better than Finland and Iceland. http://www.fotball.no/fotballdata/Turnering/Terminliste/?tournamentId=39899

 

Oh and they lost to Luxembourg in 1973. And 9-0 to Netherlands.

Edited 10 September, 2015 by The9

[supersonic]

For a long time now has been picked on his reputation/status rather than his current ability...

Not showed during tournaments because his shortcomings have been more noticeable then..

Over the hill in all honesty and no point in getting all emotional over him.

He is now probably holding England back....

 

8 goals in our last 9 competitive games...hardly mediocre form!

 

Next highest scorers in the same time frame are (Welbeck 6, Kane 3, Walcott/Wilshere/OG 2).

 

I'd also like to point out to all those that claim we only play poor sides, the likes of Belarus, Estonia, Turkey, Poland, Georgia, Lithuania etc are all much better than they were 20/30 years ago. The general standard of european football has improved.

 

There will always be haters with England players, but well done Wayne. It'll be a long time before another England player reaches 50 goals.

[The9]

8 goals in our last 9 competitive games...hardly mediocre form!

 

Next highest scorers in the same time frame are (Welbeck 6, Kane 3, Walcott/Wilshere/OG 2).

 

I'd also like to point out to all those that claim we only play poor sides, the likes of Belarus, Estonia, Turkey, Poland, Georgia, Lithuania etc are all much better than they were 20/30 years ago. The general standard of european football has improved.

 

There will always be haters with England players, but well done Wayne. It'll be a long time before another England player reaches 50 goals.

 

Awkward choice of 4 countries which didn't actually exist 30 years ago there, but I think the whole standard of opposition thing is overplayed anyway, overall much of the relative standard is similar, England are worse overall in relation to others compared to either Charlton or Lineker's time which can be judged by their lack of tournament successes.

 

Doesn't mean I'm not going to argue that Norway weren't cack in the 60s to early 80s though.

[CB Fry]

But the fact there are loads more minnow teams that England don't play against isn't really relevant. There's at most 4 more games per qualification and the standard overall is much better than in the 70s or 80s (including for England of course). Plus Charlton played 90 minutes in all but 1 match for England.

 

Also, Norway lost 4-0 at home to Scotland in 1979 (and 4-0 to Austria) and 4-0 to England in 1980, and 4-1 to Hungary in 1981. They regularly shipped 4 or more against others in the 60s and 70s. Though from a quick look at their results they were better than Finland and Iceland. http://www.fotball.no/fotballdata/Turnering/Terminliste/?tournamentId=39899

 

Oh and they lost to Luxembourg in 1973. And 9-0 to Netherlands.

 

Being that we are talking about a 12 year international career, the aggregation of all those additional matches against minnows clearly is relevant.

 

Stop trolling Finland, too.

[VectisSaint]

Turkey were utter gash well into the 80s, FWIW. And Norway (hence all the Lady Diana, Maggie Thatcher stuff in 1982-ish). Basically the rubbish teams were just different ones, and if you aren't a top tier side, England at home are probably going to beat you and whoever their striker is will probably get a goal or two. So Rooney has done it via longevity (as the strike rate shows) rather than any kind of excellence - other than getting regularly picked at a time when the number of English players in the top English division is at an all time low.

With respect you are missing the point. England just didn't play any of the "gash" teams before the 1980s. We never played Turkey until 1984 (we won 8-0). We only played Norway twice post war until the 1980s. Look through the matches that England played between 1945 and 1980, there were hardly any "minnows" in our list of opponents. You might throw Wales, N Ireland and Scotland back at me, but they were not minnows back in those days, matches against them were usually very hard fought, playing against N Ireland when they had Best, Jennings and Dougan, or Wales when they had Ron and Wyn, and as for Scotland, the days of Bremner etc, they were a top notch opponent. The only times we ever played against the so-called minnows was for WCQ matches, which were few and far between, unlike the qualifying tourneys these days where we play weak teams five or six times every 2 years. Before 1972 we only ever played 14 WC Qualifiers, and 8 of these were against Scotland, Wales and Ireland (the others were against Luxembourg, Denmark and Portugal). European Quallification games are an even more recent phenomenon, before 1970 the only European (as opposed to home nations) teams we had played in EQ were France and Spain. We don't think of Hungary now as a top team but they certainly were when they thrashed us 7-1 (Ivor Broadis) and 6-3 (Sewell, Mortensen & Ramsey).

The list of matches is here:

http://www.englandstats.com/opp.php?oppid=-1

[CB Fry]

Finland, Finland, Finland

The country where I want to be

Pony trekking or camping

Or just watching TV

Finland, Finland, Finland

It's the country for me.

[The9]

Being that we are talking about a 12 year international career, the aggregation of all those additional matches against minnows clearly is relevant.

 

Stop trolling Finland, too.

 

But only 2 matches max, every 2 years, so at most 12 matches (and Rooney would be injured or suspended for a few of those) would be against a "minnow" regarded as worse than the teams around when Charlton played. Even with that taken into consideration it's speculation about the relative abilities of the weak teams in the 60s anyway. Look at Zaire in the 74 World Cup - would you see a team like that play in the World Cup now? (And yes I know England didn't play them, it's illustrative about how the bad teams were much worse, more naive and easier to score against than they are now - had England played the Cook Islands or American Samoa repeatedly then fair enough, it's a big skew even nowadays).

 

Whichever way, never mind everything around the difficulty, longevity, character or likeability of the people considered, it's still a record of fact.

[The9]

Finland, Finland, Finland

The country where I want to be

Pony trekking or camping

Or just watching TV

Finland, Finland, Finland

It's the country for me.

 

A poor second to Belgium. And I said ENGLAND.