I can’t believe having taken Walcott to Germany Sven didn’t give him a half hour in a game we didn’t have to win when we had no other strikers available.
Still, Stevie cleared off the line and scored. I doubt many of our bench would’ve had such impact. Perhaps our best hope is a five man midfield to unleash him and Frankie…
Yeah, it has to be a 4-1-4-1 w/ hargreaves sitting in front of the defence vs. Ecuador. He was OK today, but usually isn’t; is there any particular reason Sven called up Michael Carrick, Theo Walcott,Stewart Downing and Jermaine Jenas ahead of Scott Parker? He’s no Makelele but he plays that role better than anyone england have at the moment.
Any news on Neville? Carragher had his worst game I’ve seen from him since he was restored to CB by Benitez. And Beckham was just crap: Spurs reject Edman dominated him all game. He’s basically England’s special teams at this point.
Re: sweden’s second: we’ll be seeing a lot of long throw ins like that vs. Ecuador. They scored their first vs. Poland on a long throw quite skillfully and they won’t have failed to notice England’s comedy defending.
I can’t believe the English defence let them through in the last three minutes. There seemed to be some kind of low level panic at work on the part of the English defenders that had them on auto-pilot hoping for the best.
The difference between the first and second half was stark.
What was with Owen’s dying swan routine? He’s been under the gun in the Brit press and hasn’t been handling the negative attention particularly well. Is it possible that he saw a way out and grabbed it? It looked very damn odd on the replay.
Despite skill and depth, the English squad suffers from some sort of psychological deficit that prevents them from raising their game to the levels they are capable of. Maybe it’s Monty Python syndrome – the need to be nice and polite even when someone has run you over.
I know this much – the Northern Irish squad took them out at Windsor park in Belfast much to my pride and delight. Rooney came close to punching out the ref AND Beckham.
It will be interesting.
Prediction … England 2 – Equador 1. Open for bets :)
Slighty off topic but that earlier thread about “football”, “soccer”, “association” etc, I’ve finally found the right word over at “It Comes in Pints?”
That seems odd, as Association Football has stuck to imperial measurements for pitch and goal dimensions, unlike Rugby Union (say) which has converted to metres.
Look, the first half was fine. England dominated although they lacked inspiration up front. When you have to rely on screamers like that to get you going you are in a bit of trouble.
The second half was rubbish and I question Sven’s use of Crouch, who is a weak link (contrasted to Rooney who is perhaps the missing link).
We should remember that Beckham had a quiet game because he was heavily marked, which is why the ball was spread to Joe Cole all the time and he had a blinder. If Beckham fires and Lampard gets out of his rut and the defense do what they usually do, we’ll be hard to beat. England are always mediocre against mediocre teams.
{ 12 comments }
Chris Bertram 06.20.06 at 3:55 pm
Hey, top of the group, what’s to complain about? (Unless your name is Jermain Defoe — he must be gutted.)
Amanda 06.20.06 at 4:00 pm
What’s to complain about? The defence, the midfield, the coaching, the attack, the tactics …
Ecuador must be salivating.
Rob 06.20.06 at 4:09 pm
In a struggle to take positives from the game, I note that if we could defend setpieces like a Sunday League team, we’d have won 2-0.
Commenterlein 06.20.06 at 4:42 pm
I’d say that anyone who preferes to play Ecuador instead of Germany in Germany will be quite happy with today’s outcome.
Ben 06.20.06 at 4:55 pm
I can’t believe having taken Walcott to Germany Sven didn’t give him a half hour in a game we didn’t have to win when we had no other strikers available.
Still, Stevie cleared off the line and scored. I doubt many of our bench would’ve had such impact. Perhaps our best hope is a five man midfield to unleash him and Frankie…
foolishmortal 06.20.06 at 5:30 pm
Yeah, it has to be a 4-1-4-1 w/ hargreaves sitting in front of the defence vs. Ecuador. He was OK today, but usually isn’t; is there any particular reason Sven called up Michael Carrick, Theo Walcott,Stewart Downing and Jermaine Jenas ahead of Scott Parker? He’s no Makelele but he plays that role better than anyone england have at the moment.
Any news on Neville? Carragher had his worst game I’ve seen from him since he was restored to CB by Benitez. And Beckham was just crap: Spurs reject Edman dominated him all game. He’s basically England’s special teams at this point.
Re: sweden’s second: we’ll be seeing a lot of long throw ins like that vs. Ecuador. They scored their first vs. Poland on a long throw quite skillfully and they won’t have failed to notice England’s comedy defending.
Aidan Maconachy 06.20.06 at 6:05 pm
I can’t believe the English defence let them through in the last three minutes. There seemed to be some kind of low level panic at work on the part of the English defenders that had them on auto-pilot hoping for the best.
The difference between the first and second half was stark.
What was with Owen’s dying swan routine? He’s been under the gun in the Brit press and hasn’t been handling the negative attention particularly well. Is it possible that he saw a way out and grabbed it? It looked very damn odd on the replay.
Despite skill and depth, the English squad suffers from some sort of psychological deficit that prevents them from raising their game to the levels they are capable of. Maybe it’s Monty Python syndrome – the need to be nice and polite even when someone has run you over.
I know this much – the Northern Irish squad took them out at Windsor park in Belfast much to my pride and delight. Rooney came close to punching out the ref AND Beckham.
It will be interesting.
Prediction … England 2 – Equador 1. Open for bets :)
Aidan Maconachy 06.20.06 at 11:55 pm
Make that Ecuador :)
a 06.21.06 at 12:23 am
Go England!
Tim Worstall 06.21.06 at 3:16 am
Slighty off topic but that earlier thread about “football”, “soccer”, “association” etc, I’ve finally found the right word over at “It Comes in Pints?”
Metric Football.
Chris Bertram 06.21.06 at 4:10 am
“Metric Football.”
That seems odd, as Association Football has stuck to imperial measurements for pitch and goal dimensions, unlike Rugby Union (say) which has converted to metres.
finnsense 06.21.06 at 4:12 am
Look, the first half was fine. England dominated although they lacked inspiration up front. When you have to rely on screamers like that to get you going you are in a bit of trouble.
The second half was rubbish and I question Sven’s use of Crouch, who is a weak link (contrasted to Rooney who is perhaps the missing link).
We should remember that Beckham had a quiet game because he was heavily marked, which is why the ball was spread to Joe Cole all the time and he had a blinder. If Beckham fires and Lampard gets out of his rut and the defense do what they usually do, we’ll be hard to beat. England are always mediocre against mediocre teams.
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