England V Wales - Will You Be Working Or Watching?

[RobertT]

Slovakia were relying on the point getting them through in 3rd place.

Quite frankly we are just not good enough. I quite liked Bilic's summary of the game, just not quite good enough or clever enough.  We may have dominated, but we were allowed to and despite having a few shots, most were long range or under pressure in bad positions - only 5 on target out of 29.  Their keeper was hardly putting in a man of the match performance.

Dier has impressed me.  Other than him, I still see little to make the top dogs get worried by us when the crunch comes.  It's all a bit too slow, with little movement or intelligence and without any world class players who can take personal responsibility to drag the team with them.  Basically we are ok ish.

[Arriba]

Why oh why do we not play in swinging corners? The players in the box have a standing start and do not attack the ball which means they cannot generate power from headers. Every corner was an out swinging one. That was when they beat the first man of course  
Waste of time. Henderson's delivery was abysmal in open play and dead ball.

The forwards are the biggest worry as the system doesn't suit them(vardy in particular) or they are off the boil (Kane).
Sturridge was playing way too deep imo too.
That was crying out for Andy Carroll tonight.

How good were Wales by the way? Ramsey and Bale ran riot. The much ridiculed Joe Allen is having a great tournament too. Good luck to them.

[suttonred]

The last 10 seconds summed it up for me. 99.99% of players/teams on the half way line would launch into the opponents box. We passed it back, and the ref thought fuck that I'll blow. We're as we always have been, too negative, and even when we aren't negative, not skilful enough.

[Bogus Dave]

The positive is that it's very unlikely we'll end up playing Portugal. For that to happen (I think)

- Portugal and Iceland both have to draw their final group games
- Portugal have to score two more goals than Iceland in their draw
- if Portugal score one more than Iceland and both teams draw it goes down to fair play (not sure who's ahead there) and then coefficient (which I would assume Portugal are ahead in
- if they both draw by the same score line then Iceland finish second.

Edit edit - I think that's all valid too if you replace the word draw with win. But I can't see Iceland winning

[horlock07]

Slovakia were relying on the point getting them through in 3rd place.

Quite frankly we are just not good enough. I quite liked Bilic's summary of the game, just not quite good enough or clever enough.  We may have dominated, but we were allowed to and despite having a few shots, most were long range or under pressure in bad positions - only 5 on target out of 29.  Their keeper was hardly putting in a man of the match performance.

Dier has impressed me.  Other than him, I still see little to make the top dogs get worried by us when the crunch comes.  It's all a bit too slow, with little movement or intelligence and without any world class players who can take personal responsibility to drag the team with them.  Basically we are ok ish.

I can imagine any Town supporters there yesterday evening just thought it looked very similar to Swindon the last season, possession is pointless unless you either do something with the ball or are playing for a draw.

Telling to me that possibly our two best players have been our right backs.

[Wobbly Bob]

If that was Swindon then I'd say they played ok.
Because it's England, no. Very frustrating.
The team and staff should be disappointed with that performance.
Having said that, they should be able to move up a couple of gears when it's needed.
Six changes was too many.

[LucienSanchez]

In 2 years since the last tournament, Roy is still experimenting. He should have a preferred formation and lineup, but he doesn't. That's a huge failing.

[Peter Venkman]

I thought we played quite well against a side that had no attacking options at all with 8 or 9 behind the ball at all times....much like Wales did against us.

But thats international football when one side is an underdog vs one of the best teams in the world, yes I do think we are still up there with the best except for two areas....goalkeeper and attack (yes I realise thats two major parts).

We have so many options up front yet we don't play to their strengths at all, Vardy likes to run into the channels with balls over the top...but he probably had two of those all game. Sturridge is playing far too deep and looks uninterested 90% of the time and greedy the rest of the time, he should play further up and not come back and looking lost.
Kane still looks tired and way off the pace.

Henderson ran around a lot and interchanged with Clyne well at times but his passing and general play was poor, Lallana had a very good game with great passing and got in some good positions but his finishing will always be his weak point.

Bertrand is not an England standard player. Smalling and Cahill did ok but we have seen better but then they had little to do most of the game. Clyne played very well first half but faded a little 2nd half but was still out best attacking outlet and didn't look out of place.

Alli is a bit too greedy from silly angles but at least he has a go at goal. Rooney took a while to get into the game but did ok, not as good as his last two matches though. Hart still does not fill me with confidence...ever.

My MoM would go to Dier who was superb all game, always looking for the ball, winning tackles and headers and good going forward to.

We need to not walk the ball into the net all the time, try some shots from distance against some dodgy goalkeepers, play better dead balls and corners.

If we do get Portugal next game....lets make the whinger Ronaldo really have something to whinge about and knock them out.

No team has played with the confidence and ability all round so far that England have in all areas except in front of goal and in goal, we are so close to having a good team, if that Vardy effort had gone in or the Lallana shot gone an inch either way then the whole feeling around us would be a lot better.

We are still in, we are unbeaten, we look one of the best couple of sides left in it, we can get better and with some luck in front of goal we will get better, theres no team out there that worries me on current form.....yet, but its still early with no team hitting form so far.

[Nemo]

Good post PV.

The best news so far is that the England knockout game is now on Monday evening rather than Saturday, so no missing a game for Glastonbury

[Panda Paws]

Minute-by-minute breaking down of where it "went wrong" is so pointless. Its tournament football. We played very well against an extremely negative side and failed to break them down because the one thing we lack is composure when finishing, but as is the trend in this tournament - there's no outstanding strikers (hence Germany playing a 5"7' midfielder up front, Spain's second choice being a 35 year old journeyman and Italy relying on Eder and Pelle).

If Spain or Germany or France had put together the three group games we have (and France basically have) then we wouldn't be questioning them, but saying they look as strong as ever, haven't got the breaks, lack a bit of cutting edge.

Plus - I'd rather play a Hungary side that seem to at least try and attack, rather than depend on a poor defense and the worst gk in the tournament, than end up against the ultra-defensive Czechs for a repeat of last night.

Get to the QF (which we will) and then it doesn't matter who you play. The margins are so fine at that point and we have the ability to beat, and be beaten, by France, Italy and anyone else we may come across at that stage.

[Red Frog]

No team has played with the confidence and ability all round so far that England have in all areas except in front of goal and in goal, we are so close to having a good team, if that Vardy effort had gone in or the Lallana shot gone an inch either way then the whole feeling around us would be a lot better.

We are still in, we are unbeaten, we look one of the best couple of sides left in it, we can get better and with some luck in front of goal we will get better, theres no team out there that worries me on current form.....yet, but its still early with no team hitting form so far.

I was liking the reasoned positivity of your post until the last couple of paras. I think it's a bit of a stretch to say we're in the top two. Spain and Italy, at least, have looked more assured than us I'd say. I'd agree we look more or less on a par with France at present. Russia's subsequent results put our performance against them into perspective.

Still, with a bit of luck teams grow into tournaments. I remember the negativity about France in 98 right up until the QFs.

[Don Rogers Sock]

We've managed to stutter through what is a mediocre group thanks only a last minute winner against Wales that's fairly poor.
In front of goal we just aren't ruthless and all the backwards/sideways football is pretty frustrating at times.

We didn't stutter at all

[Abrahammer]

I remember the negativity about France in 98 right up until the QFs.

Until we won a major international tournament a couple of months beforehand 

[Tails]

Yeah I wouldn't call dominating 3 games as stuttering, we never once looked in danger of losing any of them.

Hodgson shouldn't have rested Walker, Rooney, Rose & Alli IMO. If we'd kept with them I think we would have won. However, if they all come out flying in the knockout stages then perhaps his decision will have been justified. We'll see.

[Red Frog]

Until we won a major international tournament a couple of months beforehand 

eh?