Great win. Woke up this morning to the result and it made my christmas.

The thing I'm getting most tired of is being on here one week after a win and hearing us praised from all sources then the next weekend half of you suddenly saying we are lucky not to be in the relegation fight.

They may have struggled but they finished with the second best record of any European qualifier, so obviously everyone else struggled that bit more. The French and Germans are in with a shot but both are much weaker sides then the top nations going into the tournament. They will need their entire team to turn up and play out of their skins and on top of that have a bit of luck if they are to stand a chance of winning it.

More the reason why I'm finding it difficult to see how the USA can get out of that group is the lack of a world class player in their side. As long as they don't have any injuries they will field a good starting eleven, certainly one of the best 12/15 in the world and the sort that makes them a difficult prospect for any side, but in an even game against another quality team I fail to see where that moment of inspiration will come from. It's for these same reasons that England can't afford to lose the likes of Rooney, Lampard or Gerrard, all player who can turn a game in a single instant. Several sides will go into this tournament feeling that they have a good chance of winning it. In the end the winner may well be decided by the team who's "special" players turn up and play well for those 7 games.

It also does depend on the call he got. I'm sorry, but if as a defender you go to lunge and then get a call from the keeper, you have to pull out. I haven't seen it yet so I don't know in this case, but if he's gone and then Friedel has called and he's stopped then that is fair. If he's gone after a call, or if there is no call, then it is his fault.

I'd also be surprised if England play Australia, just the other day SGE was talking about how, had he known about the rivalry between the two sides, he would never have given the first friendly the go-ahead.

Good preview...though am I the only one who was confused by it? I'm still trying to find out exactly what's going on.

England supporter but have my ties to France and the USA so they are both there as well. Sadly, the country my mother is from, Guyana, is not, and probably will nevr be, in the hat for the draw. Though Trinidad and Tobago is about as close as you can get to Guyana as far as West Indian countries are concerned so I'll be looking out for them and good old Yorke this summer.

Totally agree with you.

Interesting line I heard from Moyes, he called us "one of the best passing sides in the division", one of the few things that cheered me up a bit after the result. Not great, but not the end of the world.

Was thinking the same thing, not up on latest goals yet. Anyone know where they can be found?

See that's the thing, I thought Savage was much better than Reid while he was on the pitch and in fact felt Reid was one of the main reasons why we seemed to just get stuck in midfield. Reid's performance began to pick up as the team started to get forward, making his job easier and making him look better, Savage would have done the same had he been on the pitch at the time. I don't think any player on the pitch could be particularly proud of their performance up until the 70/75 minute, from that point on I can't really complain about any of them, apart from Gray, who simply had a shocker.

I don't think Savage was having a bad game, he wasn't the reason we weren't playing well. The introduction of Kuqi was vital and from that point on we suddenly had the cutting edge about us. Before then we just seemed to keep the ball well in the middle and then simply not know where to go and it would be played back and forth between the defense and midfield.

Absolutely fantastic, really enjoyed it, possibly best match I've ever been to. Thought it was all over at 2-0 and then we suddenly just started to play. Sorry that I missed a few of you there but phone died and couldn't meet up with Ben and the rest of you. Converted a couple of my friends who I took with me to rovers supporters. At the start they wanted Charlton to win but they seemed just as happy as me when that third goal went in.

Very impressive.

It's another game against one of the big boys this weekend and if this season's experiences are anything to go by then we should be in for a good one. This Saturday we make the long trip down to London and face a resurgent Arsenal at Highbury. After looking totally out of sorts at the start of the season they seem to have hit form with the return of Henry and are once again looking a formidable opposition. However, with no Viera in central midfield they certainly aren't the side that they were last season and as Wigan showed only two days ago they can certainly be given a game, we do not have to go there either being intimidated or expecting to lose. Very few sides have played us this season and walked away thinking that they have had a comfortable win, or even a comfortable draw. In recent weeks our defense has been as sure as ever while our attacking play has been good, at times even free flowing and the goals have come regularly, with last weekend being the only recent exception where we simply haven't looked like scoring. In recent seasons this fixture has thrown up some great games and some amazing goals. However, the memory that will be most fresh in both sets of supporters minds will be the FA Cup semi-final from last season. Rovers fans did themselves proud at the Millenium Stadium and the scoreline certainly didn't reflect the closeness of the match. While Arsenal fans may well still feel aggrieved by our supposed "bully boy" tactics and no doubt in the build up to this game we may well hear some of that being drawn up again. For Blackburn there will almost be a full squad available. Neill and Emerton should be back into the starting eleven after being rested following their success for Australia in the World Cup Qualifiers. The one major selection headache for Hughes will be to figure out how three central defenders who can all justify their place in the team are going to get into two positions. I know that almost every person has an opinion on this, but I would expect that we will see Zurab and Nelsen in the back with Gray and Neill, a back four that is solid while also having the ability to get forward and support attacks, which has been possibly the major part of our good performances so far this season. Arsenal, on the other hand, have a different problem at the back. With both Clichy and Cole injured they are struggling to find a leftback, a problem we are all too familiar with. In midfield they have yet to replace Viera and we can only hope that Savage and Tugay can dominate the centre of the pitch. The one place we can get no encouragement from is their strikeforce. Henry is back and back to his sparkling best. While Van Persie has been good in recent weeks and the two seem to be working very well together. Our defenders will have to be on top of their games to prevent either of them from scoring, especially considering the pace that they will have to deal with and this is certainly a game we will almost have to score in if we are thinking of taking anything from it. My own personal prediction is that it will probably be a tight match but one that we lose, but I certainly am looking forward to it and maybe we'll be lucky enough to walk away with all the points. If we win we could realistically be looking to go as high as 8th. Though if results really went our way and several goals were scored we could find ourselves in sixth place by six on Saturday. It certainly is a credit to Hughes and the side that we our able to say that and that we are looking to this game thinking we could realistically take something from it.

As I'd be interested in the Poker I'd be happy to help out in any way possible. I only know a couple of sites and on top of that I'm probably not the best qualified when it comes to what I need to be knowing about the sites, but if some of you are willing to let me know the exact things I need to find out I'll happily do the snooping.

When I first played it I thought it was amazingly slow, but I've become used to it and love it. The pace is more realistic and once you forget about the ridiculous speed of PES4 it doesn't seem slow at all. When I now play it I find it more than fast enough.

At least Hendry was replaced by another ex-rover, simon grayson, so have to wish him luck while he is in temporary charge.

Was that to me? All I'm saying is that Henchoz left us for Liverpool, so he shouldn't be part of the list of players we have bought from Liverpool.

Didn't Henchoz go the wrong way to be considered a feeder club?

A player who I thought was impressive was Beckham. He was involved in virtually everything that England did that was good. What I also noticed was that he seemed to have that drive back in his game, he was getting around the pitch and really troubling the opposition, he's been in good form for Real Madrid this season and it was good to see him play like that for England again.

If we want to pay off the rest of his wages yes. Doesn't make much sense though does it, pay his wages and not having him there just in case. I thought he did well for us at times and was simply the scape goat for a bad team and an even worse defense. Not a great signing, not worth the money, but doesn't deserve all of the flack that he gets.

I thought he did quite well. I'm not a Crouch fan, although I'm not a Crouch hater like some, but I thought he did pretty well and won the ball well a few times. Didn't set the world on fire but did what he needed to.

That game more than justified the why. For once a friendly game that had passion and entertainment and that I actually couldn't pull away from.