[Archived] England 1 - 2 France

[Anti Euro Smiths Fan]

The England manager has indicated that John Terry will return to the centre of defence on Thursday.

Eriksson said: "There is no reason to keep Terry out if he is fit. It is a good problem to have, but Ledley will not be that disappointed."

This will be our first competitive match against the Swiss since the 1-1 draw in Euro 96, when Shearer scored his first international goal for 18 months, having gone on a barren run of 12 England games without scoring. Prior to that, our last competitive game against Switzerland was a 2-1 defeat in the 1982 World Cup Qualifiers.

In 1963, an England team including Rovers' Bryan Douglas, Bobby Charlton and Jimmy Greaves hammered the Swiss 8-1.

On a different note, Italy have come up with a good excuse for their disappointing 0-0 draw against Denmark on Monday.

Remember when Fergie tried to blame United's grey shirts for a poor performance against Southampton?

The Italians have gone one better - blaming the wrong type of shoes and socks. I kid you not.

Link below:

http://football.guardian.co.uk/euro2004/st...1239841,00.html

Edited June 16, 2004 by Anti Euro Smiths Fan

[Bobby G]

How can anyone say that game was all England?

After scoring England just sat back and defended with two banks of four.

Just clearing the ball forwards with no ambtion whatsoever.

Fine England played tactical football and tactically it was strong,but the fact that you sit back and defend non-stop for 45 minutes trying to prevent the other team score means you are liable to deserve a loss.

[Morph]

I still don't see your point about putting a man on the line, how does this in any way block the keepers view?

It allows the opponents to move players, who would otherwise be offside, forward and stand as close to the goalkeeper as they want to.

Fair enough if the freekick is indirect, but in this case Zidane was only ever going to have a shot at goal. Why would he limit his available target area by putting his own men in the way or risk having a goal disallowed for obstruction if he scored? When taking a direct freekick you rely on your other players to create space for you by their movement (thus hopefully taking defenders away from the goalmouth), thus giving you a bigger area to shoot at, or so it seems to me.

[DP]

if you put one man on the wall, the french players could all have stood in the keepers way and obscured his view. it would have been far too easy for a dead ball specialist to simply pick his spot - knowing the keeper would be totally unsighted.

The problem is that James arranged his defenders then stood slap bang in the middle of the goal (the one place Zidane wasn't going to put the ball), with his view obscured by the wall in front of him. Seems logical that he should have either A: put a man on the near post, trusting him to be there if Zidane put the ball round the wall and allowing James to cover the far post if ZZ went up and over, or B: positioned himself more towards the near post to cover the shot round the wall and hope the wall did it's job if Zidane tried to shoot over the top of it. In the end he did neither, and it cost us a goal.

i thought the goal went into the far post!

shows how good a view I had!

in any case - you simply can't have a man on the line, for all the reasons i said above

Yes, it did go inside the far post.

Putting players on the line is dodgy as it just creates more uncertainty inside the box for the defending team. I re-iterate the point that if he'd stood a couple of feet to the right then he could have easily caught the ball.

From the position of the free kick, a right footed player shouldn't have caused us so much concern. Even if it was Zidane.

[Roaming Rover]

SCHOLES is probably Englands most CREATIVE player with his little passes to get attacking moves going, his superb passing ability and huge goal THREAT with his runs into the box.

He's so threatening he hasn't scored a goal at international level in well over two years now. That's the funny thing about being a "threatening" player, sometimes you actually have to back those threats up with action...

This hype about Paul Scholes not scoring a goal for years makes me laugh. The papers run a couple of stories about Scholes not scoring and should be dropped and the whole country suddenly decides Scholes is rubbish as he hasn't scored a goal.

It reminds me a bit of when Shearer hadn't scored the papers all said he should be dropped and the next thing Shearer was our 5th choice striker in all the polls - just goes to show what the public know about football!!

Against Turkey and France he was always available for his team mates to pass to and kept possession better than any other English player on the pitch. The passing and movement from Scholes when he set up Owen in the first half was class.

I'm not saying their isn't a case against Scholes being dropped, he even admitted as much himself, just that people need to see how much he offers to the team even when he's not scoring.

[Morph]

If Kennys Magic Hat insists on highlighting Scholes "huge goal threat", is it not fair to look at his recent scoring record to judge the extent of that threat? How else would you suggest one judges a player's likelihood of scoring a goal in any given match? Did I say he was rubbish? Did I even say he should be dropped? Am I a whole country? Nope to the three rhetorical questions (although I did once get mistaken for Sweden). I simply pointed out that calling someone who hasn't scored a goal in over two years a "huge goal threat" was rather strange, without making any sort of reference whatsoever to the rest of Scholes game.

[AllRoverAsia]

James didn't make a move at all - just stood still - Zidane knocks it in the corner (he could have picked either) and suddenly its a great fantastic goal by the world beater Zidane. I'd rather James have a go - even if he had gone to his left! He made a good freekick look great.

Not seen many comments on the England build up to the French 2nd goal - starting with an aimless punt upfield by James - and the rest is history. I was going to say like a bunch of schoolboys but that would be unfair to the schoolboys.

[Roaming Rover]

If Kennys Magic Hat insists on highlighting Scholes "huge goal threat", is it not fair to look at his recent scoring record to judge the extent of that threat? How else would you suggest one judges a player's likelihood of scoring a goal in any given match? Did I say he was rubbish? Did I even say he should be dropped? Am I a whole country? Nope to the three rhetorical questions (although I did once get mistaken for Sweden). I simply pointed out that calling someone who hasn't scored a goal in over two years a "huge goal threat" was rather strange, without making any sort of reference whatsoever to the rest of Scholes game.

Fair point Morph - I wasn't directing the whole of the county remark at you but the people you hear on talksport etc who just repeat what the papers say!!!

It just annoys me when Scholes is suddenly not good enough because he hasn't scored a goal for a while, there is so much more to his game which is over looked but i agree he needs to improve his goal scoring.

Anyway i'm off to put £20 on Scholes to score first against the Swiss tomorrow, and if he doesn't i'll be straight on the phone to talksport..........

[Morph]

Anyway i'm off to put £20 on Scholes to score first against the Swiss tomorrow, and if he doesn't i'll be straight on the phone to talksport..........

I sincerely hope he does (and not just for the sake of your wallet!). If he could find his touch again (especially from distance) it would add another dimension to our attack, which we sorely need right now. My problem with Scholes is that, in terms of his contribution to the national team, he is solely an attacking player. To my mind this means he has to be able to create and score goals in order for him to justify his selection. Defensively he is the poorest of our midfield four. Whenever he puts in a tackle he is as likely to get booked as win the ball, so he needs to be doing the business on all fronts attack-wise to justify his place in the starting XI. When he is at his best Scholes can destroy the opposition single-handed (remember the hat-trick against Poland at Wembley?), but we haven't seen that level of play from him in an England shirt for a while now, hopefully we will tomorrow.

[Kennys Magic Hat]

Morph, the argument was with some bum chogger who said all of the most threatening and creative players in THE PREMIERSHIP are foreigners.

Paul Scholes carries a huge goal threat in the Premiership (the fact cannot be denied) and along with Frank Lampard, Steven Gerrard, Michael Owen and Alan Shearer, they are the most creative and threatening players at their respective clubs, which basically ends the argument that the best, most creative players in the Premiership are foreign.

Despite the argument being about the Premiership, Paul Scholes 13 goals in 61 games for England isnt bad for a midfielder and I would put money on him scoring at some point during this tournament.

Even with his barren run lately, he remains England's most technically gifted player and fully justifies his place in the side.

[AllRoverAsia]

Paul Scholes....remains England's most technically gifted player

Kind of sums it all up really.

[Morph]

Morph, the argument was with some bum chogger who said all of the most threatening and creative players in THE PREMIERSHIP are foreigners.

Paul Scholes carries a huge goal threat in the Premiership (the fact cannot be denied) and along with Frank Lampard, Steven Gerrard, Michael Owen and Alan Shearer, they are the most creative and threatening players at their respective clubs, which basically ends the argument that the best, most creative players in the Premiership are foreign.

Despite the argument being about the Premiership, Paul Scholes 13 goals in 61 games for England isnt bad for a midfielder and I would put money on him scoring at some point during this tournament.

Even with his barren run lately, he remains England's most technically gifted player and fully justifies his place in the side.

Wouldn't call Paul a bum chogger (???) if I were you KMH, having met him briefly I can tell you he looks fierce! . Of those you mention in your post, Duff is closer to what I would call a "creative" type of player than Lampard, Ronaldo is a more technically gifted player than Scholes, although obviously more peripheral due to the fact that he plays on the wing (twinned with being a poncing great show pony), Gerrard is easily the best player in a very poor Liverpool team (although if Aimar follows Benitez to Anfield, not for long), and Bellamy is a nasty little Welsh thug, and Newcastle are welcome to him.

If you look further down the league table, you can point to Bolton (Okacha), ourselves (Tugay), Middlesbrough (Juninho), Portsmouth (Berkovic / Yakubu), Man City (Anelka), Fulham (Legwinski / Malbranque), Villa (Angel), and make a case for all of them having a foreign player as their most creative / technically gifted / dangerous. Only really with Liverpool, Newcastle, Everton (Rooney) and Southampton (Beattie / Phillips) can you unequivocally say that the most dangerous player at the club is British, and we haven't even mentioned Arsenal. If you took a straw poll of the top five players in the English game, my guess is that most people would give you a pretty similar set of answers, and in the majority of cases most of those players would be foreign.

This isn't to say that England lacks good players, and if anything the influx of foreign talent has only helped to improve the English game (eliminating the drinking culture of many clubs, improved fitness and technical abilities amongst our own players), but to deny the impact that players from abroad have had (and continue to have) on the national game is crazy.

Edited June 16, 2004 by Morph