England V France Matchday Thread

[Bogus Dave]

England are the only side this tournament where the director has not cut to some attractive woman in the stands. Not that I've seen anyway.

IIIINNNGGGEEERLLLUUNNNDDD

[Abrahammer]

Quite encouraged by that.

Main change i'd make for the next game is to leave Welbeck on the bench, if we go with same formation then Carroll would do better job holding the ball up. Defoe also looked quite lively but generally has looked better coming on late in games during his England career.

[adje]

England will be a better team once they stop selecting Gerrard. He's not a team player.

What he is, is a diving cheat. If he happened to not be english, and played against them the english media would call him exactly what he is, a cheat.

Having said that the rest of the team did well, fair play to them.  Typical Hodgson inspired tight ship.

totally agree with that-he's made a career out of cheating

[kerry red]

Good, fairly typical, England tournament performance. Milner was crap and strangely Joe Hart looked a wee bit dodgy at times.

Had a really knowledgeable Irish commentator who said: 'A lot of these players are on view in the Premier League each week - such as Ribery'

[Bogus Dave]

totally agree with that-he's made a career out of cheating

I'd tend to agree with what Jan says, but I thought Gerrard was brilliant tonight. A surprisingly disciplined performance from him.

[THE FLASH]

Typical england display, we looked okish at the back but I cannot see where the goals are coming from.

Milner looked clumsy and did Henderson touch the ball?

Not disappointed, we certainly didn't see the tournament winners out there tonight.

The ref reminded me of my favourite Sunday league ref from years back.....he let everything go.

Missing Friday night but not too bothered.......hopefully we will get stronger!...pleaseeeeee.

[TheMajorSTFC]

I'd have taken the draw if offered before kick off, so a good result IMO. We never seem to start tournaments well, but I think this was one of our better opening performances for quite a few years! Encouraging to say the least, onto Friday now! We're missing a goalscorer (Rooney?)

[Flashheart]

I keep thinking about the 'parking the bus' comments. Partly because I too thought we should have been pushing up further and was surprised to hear the commentators commenting on our 'bravery' for pushing up as much as we did. I didn't quite get it so made note of watching.

England did actually push up quite far, a bit too far for my liking. France failed to take advantage of that and seemed happy instead to pass it about sideways and wait for a breakthrough. They took so fucking long pushing up that we got men behind the ball.

[DiV]

I thought the game was dull. I also thought all of Chelsea latter stage Champions League games were dull and they won the fucking thing.

Decent result, dull performance.

[chalkies_shorts]

I'd have taken that before the game. I don't think the rest of Europe are going to be shitting themselves at the prospect of playing either of us. Wellbeck MOM for me - he's got a great touch and looks very comfortable. Both Ashley's were shite. Gerrard had a good first half but was shit in the 2nd.

[bigbobjoylove]

Two poor teams on that showing, Ukraine and Sweden will fancy their chances against both. Ukraine look rather good on this evenings performance.

[Summerof69]

Ukraine look rather good on this evenings performance.

You must be watching a different game...

[leefer]

Typical england display, we looked okish at the back but I cannot see where the goals are coming from.

Milner looked clumsy and did Henderson touch the ball?

Not disappointed, we certainly didn't see the tournament winners out there tonight.

The ref reminded me of my favourite Sunday league ref from years back.....he let everything go.

Missing Friday night but not too bothered.......hopefully we will get stronger!...pleaseeeeee.

Agree about Milner...he seems to have lost that sparkle,a lot of huff and puff but no end product from him.

[janaage]

Sweden look good...

....but that's down to their quality shirts.

[Paolo69]

More than happy with that first game up. Defended pretty well and looked relatively comfortable. Would obviously nice to add a cutting edge but could have scored more than the 1 we got. Would gave taken a draw before the game and that's what we ended up with. My expectations are alot lower than some admittedly. I believe more realistic. I don't expect us to play like Brasil in 1970 although I wouldn't complain if we did.

Jan - Stevie G is no bigger "cheat" than many other footballers. Oh how Scotland would kill for a player if his ilk.