M, I realize Macca is not your favorite player. It's ok, I know people who don't like even Maradona. But I'd like to make a few comments to your remarks and ask a couple of questions.
1. Do you sincerely believe that with having James, Babb, Kvarme, Bjorneby this current Pool team would play better than the one in mid-90s?
2. You said that when Macca is losing his head would drop. Wouldn't your head drop if you giving your best week in week out but your team still ends up on the losing side only because there are couple of morons who do not know how to do their job in defence?
3. And why you always pointing to Steve? There were plenty of games when Fowler, Berger, Redknapp, Thomas, Barnes were anonymous. That's normal! That happens to everybody! But people like yourself always point to one person. And Macca has guts too! Or you forgot who ran across the entire field to score the 90th min. equaliser when your team were losing to Celtic in 97 , or the stunner at Highbury... I can go on and on.
4. What's your point anyway? You prefer to see thompson or Murphy, or Hamann rather than Steve? That's ridiculous! Those are very average players at best. Macca can be the best player in the best team in Europe. Or you prefer to see Wise playing next to Ince and Batty? True, their heads never drop, but what's use of that? For me it was Ince the Bull, who came and ruined beautiful fluidity of the Pool's game with intricate passing and diverse skills. I've seen none of that last year, and I know there is nobody to provide that now.
In the end I want to say a few things about England and France. Only 4 years ago England were a better team. Today, from any perspective, France are the best in the world, while England are playing 19th century soccer. How did this happen? The answer is very simple:
Gazza and Macca were England's best players, had excellent Euro-96 and both were dumped by Hoddle, who prefered to have bulldogs on the field rather than skillful players. In contrast to that, Zidane had a crappy tournament in '96, in some games you could see "his head dropped", but their coach knew that the key to success is not to drop Zidane, but to make ZZ work for the team, to make him a better team player. Of course ZZ is not the only + France have. In the semis against Portugal they also played 3 bulldogs(Petit, Vieira, Deschamps), but the bulldogs were there only to guard their master, bulldogs are useless if there is no master to make things work. And besides, compared to their English vis-a-vis the French bulldogs look like Rivaldos.
It's amazing to see that the most critisized and ridiculed people in England are: Gasciogne, McManaman, Fowler and Beckham. Is it a coincidence that those are your countries best? Maybe people on Albion don't know what a good player is about? But then how would you explain that the most glamorous figure there is Cantona. MU fans even voted for him as the best ever. No, I'm sure not because he was a flop in every single CL game he played and couldn't score a sitter when it mattered, but because he was... a FOREIGNER.
Untill people in your country keep slagging off your best players, and your coaches keep dumping them, your football will remain in decline. The more you desagree, the longer you'd suffer the consequences.