Thetownend.com

Joe Hart is doing his 'rabbit in the headlights' thing again.

Need something from this game
Ukraine fired up as you would expect as are the crowd
Moment of magic would silence them
Gonna be a tough one to come away with the win

Can we take Walcott off and play with 10 as he is shit

Looks like the 'diver' is coming on for Walcott any time soon. Too many 'light weights' in our squad. Our 2nd half performance is dire.

Young on for Wilshere
Deffo need to up their game this 2nd half
Pedestrian and crap with it

Yawn.....
 
 :deadhorse:

Greg Dyke can rest his case anyway

That was another waste of time... so dull, players mainly picked on reputation rather than form/fitting into a system... urgh.

We went for a 0-0 and got it, job done.

Whether or not we should have been playing for a 0-0 against the Ukraine is another matter.

I think the fact an important game for the national team on a football forum has only managed 8 posts says it all tbh.

We will scrape through and as soon as we play anyone half decent will be embarrassed as uaual, what's the point?

 :zzz:

 Good result...still got a chance to qualify, but need to up the game now. Not sure we'll be capable of doing that, but stranger things have happened.

I made a huge mistake watching that, Fuck me, we'd beat both of them 7 times out of 10, truly desperate, certainly wont bother with the world cup if we get there, be way better off without both those sides.

Can't believe that young is 28 wasn't he supposed to be the great hope when he signed at man utd.

It shows just how bare the cupboard has become.

Nevertheless, the players showed a bit of spirit, and as an England fan I'll settle for that.

Old mother hubbards cupboard.....

That second half was as embarrassing as I have seen.

Lambert 'found out'.....when half decent (half decent ) defenders are on him.

Wilshire and Walcott gave the ball away for fun...

What the fuck was Hart doing waiting for the ball to bounce...

If we qualify I will do cartwheels....because that would be an achievement.

Dire.

Dier, Eric....sub for the U 21's...could be an interesting player as he's with Sporting Lisbon, having been brought up there as a kid. Might become a mainstay in years to come

Easily pleased Reg, that was crap. And if we do get through every team in the group will be expecting 3 points, one dimensional comedy team.

I think most know we've a fairly limited bunch of players, and then quite a few who might have featured were missing. So I think you have to be happy with a hard working point...I thought we'd prob lose 1-0, and so be looking at the PO's at best.

We'll probably need to beat the Poles in the final qualifier, and we all know how that worked out the last time.

I can see your point ,I would have agreed 10 years ago   but after watching for years and going to 2 world cups, and being mainly frustrated, even then,  we're mediocre now, edging on poor, play without fear and we might do something, even if not winning, at least get some interest and excitement back, otherwise nationally the game for us will die. One bright spot tonight, at least that god awful trumpet and drum weren't there.

Calm Down, Calm Down.

I can't see the point in picking Arsenal players etc, if England continue to play that way. This Swindon side would play England off the park.

That was a shit game. we got the draw but the 2nd half was an embarrassment. Our midfield was non existent. Wilshere was total wank but better than Walker who looked as though he'd been on the laughing gas again. He really is a fucking awful defender constantly getting caught out of position and on the wrong side of his man. Hart looks like a poor mans Hammond. Jagielka got name checked at the start and wasn't mentioned again. Cahill was only defender and probably our best attacker. When you're in a situation where Young comes on, you know you're either 5 up or totally in the shit.
Lambert did Ok considering he had fuck all support.
Any decent team would have pissed this group. We're not decent.

The main thing I drew from watching tonight is that apparently our nations finest footballers are unable to put together anything resembling a pass. Gerrard and Lambert were the only people whose passes would actually reach vaguely near their targets.

I have had more fun watching a League 2 match.

Only 4 wins out of 8, and agains San Marino/Moldova twice...we'll need to beat someone else in order to qualify

We've done the draw away from home now we have to do the winning at home. It's the age of recipe for topping the group. Need to back ourselves. If we fuck it up now then I'll agree with most of the miserable fuckers on here. We won't deserve to qualify!

Personally, I think we'll do it!

Can't even give a flying fuck about England anymore. I'd rather watch Emmerdale.

Last time I felt any excitement about the national game was 2002 WC (v Argentina).

Sometimes I wonder if England would be better off fielding a bunch of League 2/1 lads. At least they might play with some heart and soul. I'm afraid watching England just sucks any joy of life out of me and leaves me feeling empty.

Perhaps I am just a miserable bastard with rose tinted glasses but I miss the days when Lineker and Gazza were playing - supporting England was natural then - now it just feels like a corporate driven chore. 

What a fucking boring match that was.

It was a dull game but the right result, we went for a draw and got it.

I don't get the furore surrounding Lambert who I think is a Championship level player at best, he was dire 2nd half. Milner, Walker and Wilshire were poor all game for me too.

England will do what they always do, qualify for the finals then disappoint badly in the finals, its kind of expected.

The Ukraine left winger Konoplyanka though was brilliant with some great skill and speed and passing, he would do well in England.

Unless I'm mistaken, we haven't yet managed to beat anyone other than those two giants, Moldova and San Marino - with or without the likes of Rooney, Welbeck, Sturridge etc. 

That says it all, really.

I struggle to get excited about watching England..

Yet we're still top! Must be doing something right, although there's definitely room for improvement.

This is exactly right, the football we are playing is much better than under the Italian and we are getting good results if not exactly playing overly attacking football, the same goes for England :D

Before 1990, watching England play, was something only really done by the hardcore fan, even in 66, there were no real spontaneous celebrations of the WC win. England fans were notorious for trouble, so attendances at games could be quite small.

I recently watched some old footage of Euro 80 in Italy, and it was short shorts, empty stadia and England fans getting teargassed along with Ray Clemence. By 86, you could go in a fairly packed pub for England v Argentina, and there'd be 1 tele in the corner, where the diehards would gather to watch the game.

1990, changed all that, England went OK in the tournament...the Italians sexed up their grounds and the Beeb had Nessum Dorma...thus making it OK for the middle classes to like football.  Then the Prem hype kicked in and maintained the bubble, until now, Beckham did his bit, to maintain the hype, but it's now getting back to just the hardcore fan having an interest.

I got tear gassed in Turin in 90. Great fun that was..

Ahhh that explains a lot. :-)

It's probably even more simple than that Reg. The introduction of the Premier League and subsequent influx of foreign players has raised fans' expectations - they now expect some kind of footballing spectacle from their heroes, which the current crop of players (and dull Manager) can't produce. We're crying out for the next Gascoigne, Hoddle or Beckham.

Attendances at England games hit a massive lull after about 1982 lots of sub 40k crowds at Wembley culminating in the 15,628 in 1989 for the Rous cup v Chile.

I don't think we will ever see crowds that low again at Wembley for an England game. The lowest crowd I have been in at Wembley was 38,125 vs USSR in 84....talk about sparse, awful crowd awful game.

Luxembourg beat Norn Iron last night, titter. Luxembourg's first home win in qualifying since 1972.

My first England games were some of the friendlies pre Euro 96. Most were pretty poor stuff and gave little indication of the joys to come in the tournament ahead.

Having looked it up there was 21,000 at a Wembley game against Japan in 1995. Incredible when you think about people make of a non sell out nowadays.

About 58000 v Saudi Arabia pre France 98. 0-0, awful game.

My first England game was vs Czechozlovakia in 78 we got tickets for about £2 from the school, fantastic game when Viv Anderson became the first black player to represent Engand at full international level.

There were 92,000 there and that was a fantastic atmosphere....Steve Coppell scored the only goal of the game, still have the programme to this day.

Peter Shilton, Dave Watson, Trevor Cherry, Phil Thompson, Viv Anderson, Steve Coppell, Tony Currie, Ray Wilkins, Kevin Keegan, Tony Woodcock, Peter Barnes. Bob Latchford sub.

Brings back some good England memories for me.

Only time I ever went to the old Wembley.

I went to Wembley for Summerslam 1992.

Amazing.

Maybe you shouldn't have been chanting 4-0 to the Swindon Town.

I was their for that, fucking shit game! Can't remember there being a genuine chance!

Stuart Pearce has had a rant here

http://www.theguardian.com/football/2013/sep/11/stuart-pearce-england-u21-fa

But to be honest I'm with the players on this one. If you are Oxlade-Chamberlain for instance, 13 England senior caps, in the Arsenal first team, should you be considered for the U21's? Or Olympics?

Get the next lot of players through.

So boring that the crowd started singing anti man U songs, and we got chatting to the Brighton fans in front of us.