[Archived] England Games

[AlanK]

Can I just take this opportunity to say

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Typical attidtude of a sour faced bitter jock when most of us FOOTBALL FANS are cheering on all of the home nations. Or was it a religious thing? The amount of times England have won and Scotland lost and yet we don`t rub it in. I think it must be an inferiorority complex.

As for England, Fat Frank!?! He`s not fat. Is that a tabloid thing? His football abilty however is in question at this level.

Gerrard. Was he right or centre midfield caus the space on right midfield left by him was evident. Neville ran the whole pitch for the whole game on his own.

Crouch. Won nearly every flick yet not one player picked up on it.

Rooney. Why drop Crouch when Rooney is playing like this. Crouch was our only threat.

Downing. You already know.

Anyway 7 out of 9 points. I`m sure we`ll qualify but.....

As for the jocks, I`d lower myself to the the bitter twisted religious level but it would be nice to see them there from a home nations point of view. Maybe it would even better Paul Gallagher or is he something to do with Souness?

[Flopsy]

So McLaren's better than Erickson why?

Dear god we were awful

[Grabbi Graeme]

Mclaren's first game that did'nt result in a win and now he starts getting the flak, from the Macedonia game I can highlight 2 things wrong.

1) Why is Stewart Downing even in the squad, he is not a International player.

2) Rooney was picked on reputation , he has been awful for Man U and sticking him on the bench and putting Defoe up front would of been a better idea, Mclaren said that Rooney would burst back into forn in this game, sadly he didnt.

Our best chances were Gerrards shot against the woodwork and Gary Neville's shot at goal which I think even Jeffers would have scored from.

England head to Croatia with a little pressure on them to get the 3 points, maybe now is the time to put the 3-5-2 formation into practice and please play Wright Phillips from the start

[Alan75]

I wonder if sparky and Robbie had a little wry grin on their chin today.

Hughes is a very proud Welshman, doubt that he is grinning, more likely he would want to chin Toshack.

[Blueboy Downunder]

plain and simply, we were awful last night - all over the pitch. an awful performance from a bad england team, at the moment.

[trs]

Went to watch Eagley v Charnock richard (west lancs lge) yesterday afternoon, then raced home for England match.

Without a shadow of doubt the first match give me far far more enjoyment, and all for the total cost of NOTHING!!!!!!!

England's top profesional players are overpaid, overhyped, and in world terms ............average at best!

[T4E]

Can I just take this opportunity to say

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Brilliant day

[John]

Hughes has a lot of credibility in my view. The chubby, arrogant kn*b that is Toshack publicly slated Hughes et al during his era.

One of the first things Toshack did when he became manager of Wales was to scrap Mark Bowen's Prozone technology. This angered Hughes big time..... lets see who ends up with more respect.

Edited October 8, 2006 by John

[Will]

Can I just take this opportunity to say

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Yet again you will end up crying in your scoth broth.

Scotland are doing 'ok' for the time being.

They will soon self implode when they realise they might well have a chance of qualifying for a international tournement.

England will plunder on, and qualify without even trying.

I will be the first to laugh when it happens AGAIN.

[Jan]

Yet again you will end up crying in your scoth broth.

Scotland are doing 'ok' for the time being.

They will soon self implode when they realise they might well have a chance of qualifying for a international tournement.

England will plunder on, and qualify without even trying.

I will be the first to laugh when it happens AGAIN.

The only reply to that is:

France (second in Fifa September world rankings)

Macedonia(51st in September FIFA world rankings) !!!!!!

I don't think any of us expect to qualify from a group with BOTH of the world cup finalists and one of the quarter finalists (2nd 5th and 13th in FIFA world rankings for September). So your laugh will be a wee bit hollow. However I think we would expect to beat Macedonia at home and to qualify as winners from your group easily if we play like we did yesterday.

[blue phil]

Why do you come on here , Jan ? You must realise we're a predominantly English lot ..

[ABBEY]

jan ferk off back up to the land where men wear skirts if you hate the country were you live ...

and jump off a bridge on the m6 as well and do us all a favour you pathetic excuse of a human being

[Radagast]

Well, as a man who apparently wears a skirt, I'd like to say firstly that I'm immensely proud of Scotland for a battling display where we rode our luck, took our chance and then defended like hell; and secondly that the England result didn't bother me one way or the other.

Edited October 8, 2006 by Radagast

[Billy Castell]

As an Englishman, I'll be decent and say well done to Scotland on a good result. Unlike most Scottish people it seems, I can be magnanimous enough towards those from the other side of the border.

As for England......................what do you expect when Smithers takes over from Mr. Burns?

[speeeeeeedie]

Didn't see the game, and glad I didn't as it seems like normal service has resumed from our overpaid footballing representatives. We will qualify, we will go into the tournament as favourites in the bookies' eyes, we will play like donkey's there, apart from 1 game, and we will go out on penalties.

Well done Scotland, no vitriol from me here, I'd rather they win than France.

[pleasure]

Many of us said it when McClaren was given the job, he's not the man.

that was my view. however, i'll stick up for him. he's not to blame for saturday's debacle. i agree downing, king and carrick dont appear to be of international quality, but they still have enough ability to beat these minnows.

the players chose to sleepwalk through the game and the tempo was non- existent.

tel vegatable and mcc wouldve identified those points at half-time, but their words will have been ignored, as the players believed they only had to turn up to win.

lampard and gerrard are both selfish players and seem more interested in trying to out-do one another, than affect the game.

i'll end this post with a question. - "should international players need motivating ?"

[Ronin]

Well, as a man who apparently wears a skirt, I'd like to say firstly that I'm immensely proud of Scotland for a battling display where we rode our luck, took our chance and then defended like hell; and secondly that the England result didn't bother me one way or the other.

Seconded, brilliant result for us Scots. If anyone had said after three games we'd have scored 9 goals as well Wasn't fussed about the England game either, but I'm not one of those Scots that gloat about it either.

[RovertheHill]

that was my view. however, i'll stick up for him. he's not to blame for saturday's debacle. i agree downing, king and carrick dont appear to be of international quality, but they still have enough ability to beat these minnows.

the players chose to sleepwalk through the game and the tempo was non- existent.

tel vegatable and mcc wouldve identified those points at half-time, but their words will have been ignored, as the players believed they only had to turn up to win.

lampard and gerrard are both selfish players and seem more interested in trying to out-do one another, than affect the game.

i'll end this post with a question. - "should international players need motivating ?"

I don't think it was lack of effort. I think it was a lack of quality in some areas and poor tactics by our supposed management team. We do not appear to be able to cope with the boy wonder having a run of poor form and resort to lumping long balls up to Crouch. Reminds me of Everton when Ferguson used to play. The problem I see is that McClaren, as well as not being very good in my opinion, was a fundamental part of Ericssons management team. I think it will be very difficult for him to introduce any new ideas with effectively the same group of players. He's tried to show who is boss by axing Beckham - which as I said before is the easy option. He should axe Lampard if Gerrard is fit and only play him when he isn't. It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if Lampard plays well for the first time in months on Wednesday with no Gerrard around.

[Ronin]

He should axe Lampard if Gerrard is fit and only play him when he isn't. It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if Lampard plays well for the first time in months on Wednesday with no Gerrard around.

Didn't Lampard play much better when Gerrard was out last time?

[LeChuck]

What an amazing over-reaction to one game. Lampard may need dropping at some point, but there's no point in doing that whilst Lennon is out. Our best midfielder over the last few months (Hargreaves) was out and Carrick is still finding his feet at this level, as is Steward Downing. In fact, with two of his first choice midfield missing, one in relatively poor form and the other becoming fully accustomed to a new role in the national side, is it any wonder there are a few teething problems? There's also the fact that Rooney is suffering the first slump in form of his career. I believe McClaren (and Venables) has us on the right track with the team selection and tactics, it's just going to take time to remove the negative impact of the Eriksson era.

All reports are suggesting a 3-5-2 formation on Wednesday, in which case I can only assume we'll be lining up with...

------------Robinson-------------

----Ferdinand Terry King-------

Neville----------------------Cole

----Parker Carrick Lampard---

---------Rooney Crouch--------

Parker should give us the tenacity we need in the middle and maybe Lampard will rediscover his form when playing in a three. It's a real shame Andy Johnson is injured because I think he would make so much difference to the side, the midfielders would have the option of playing the ball in behind the defence then, we just don't have that at the moment.

[American]

I was thinking this morning how stupid it is not to be including Parker in the starting XI.

[G Somerset Rover]

Apologies if it's been asked, but why wasn't Bentley in the under 21's last week? He also has been taken off the squad list on the FA site.

[Cheshireblue]

I think it is nice that Scotland won a game. It's a rare treat for our celtic friends north of the wall and therefore we should not begrudge them their five minutes of fun. Well done Scotland.

As for England, I cannot understand how Lampard keeps getting picked. Has he ever had a good game for England? He's in danger of becoming another John Barnes / Matt le Tiss - Fantastic at club level but useless at international level.

As somebody else pointed out, when you are missing Gerrard, Joe Cole, Lennon, Lampard is still playing poorly and for some reason you're sticking with Downing (despite there being absolutely so suggestion as to why), surely there must be a place for Beckham? He is still international class, he has a level of experience that we need, and frankly he is worth a goal a game against the likes of Croatia from free kicks alone.

[FourLaneBlue]

McClaren dropped Beckham to make a point - that he was his own man and not just Sven's lackey.

Unfortunately by not recalling him into the squad when other midfield options are injured (Cole, Hargreaves, Lennon) he is just making himself look like a baby. I'm not Beckham's biggest fan but he should be in the squad. Certainly ahead of Jermaine Jenas.

[G Somerset Rover]

Ive just seen the Bentley debate on another thread, and I really think that there's no way he would have been dropped-especially given that he was their motm scoring two goals only a couple of games ago? I could also have sworn that he was in the original squad when the news of their sqaud first broke, so unless he is injured it certainly is strange!