Thetownend.com

Comes to mind.

I wish I had taken a half day and sat in the pub at least there would beer there.

I’d drag off Owen and Cole and stick Lennon and Rooney on.  To be fair they’re not to blame although Owen again looks off sorts and we might get more joy with the other pair's style of play.  

Only players that seem to be playing it forward are the defence and what a fucking clearance by Terry he’s on fire.

Needs to change or we’ll be going down like a pair of Meschersmitt knickers.

i agree dazza, ENGLAND are fucking awful!

at fucking last, bunch of useless cunts

Fucking get in!   :o

Can I just announce now that my, always frankly rather conditional, support for England's world cup campaign is now at an end.

They are fucking awful. We beat this lot with a third string side! Golden generation my fucking arse.

I can't believe that a bunch of experienced international players waited over an hour for a half fit kid to come on as a substitute before they started playing.

And Crouch was fucking climbing! Both hands on the defenders shoulders when he made contact with the ball. Fucking lucky.


C'MON the Toboggans or whatever they call themselves, they deserve a fucking point!

fuck off cunt  :fu:

fucking strike!

Thank fuck for that.

let gerrad go forward from now on, lampard had about 5 chances this game and done nothin

Thank fuck for that!

Good to see Gerrard get that goal think he really needed it but what is going on with Lampard and Owen?

Edit aside well done to Crotch Rot, what a fucking thundering header but he really needs a bit more composure with the ball at his feet.

I know people will tell me he scored a goal and all that, but I thought Peter Crouch was fucking shite

Frank Lampard, was poor....wasnt he runner up in the world player of the year, not the best midfielder in the world, not the best midfielder in the Premiership. He is not Steven Gerrard. Drop him for the next game and let Gerrard go forward

Beckham, took an age to cross the ball past the first man

That was awful.

We'll get through the group and they go out to Ecudor or Germany, we are shit....

Look at the fucking height on that, air traffic control must have been panicking.

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41771000/jpg/_41771726_crouchgoal416.jpg

Credit to Trinidad and Tobago they defended well and it wasn't looking too good for a bit. We definitely deserved the win though having spent most of the game camped in their half and 2-0 is a fair result, with 25 shots we really should have scored sooner though.

Aaron Lennon made a big difference when he came on and played extremely well. Crouch should have done better with his chance in the first half but more than made up for that with the crucial goal and a very good header it was too. He came to our rescue yet again and that's 6 goals in 5 games for England now. Set up Lampard very well with 15 minutes to go too and that should have been a goal.

Wasn't impressed with Gerrard until his last minute goal, if only he'd done that with some of his earlier chances. John Terry played very well, crucial clearance in the first half. Lampard got in good positions but his finishing was a bit off today, didn't play badly though.

Owen was not at his best again and might be worth trying something different against Sweden and maybe drop him, Lennon deserves a start as well or at least a good 45 minutes.

The other thing I would say is we tried far too many long passes and they weren't accurate enough, particularly ones for Owen to run on too. Gave the ball away too easily too many times.

All in all good result, average performance but much better for the last half an hour with Lennon making the difference, they had 11 men behind the ball and were tough to break down but we managed it in the end.

I took the dog for a walk,it was so boring.At least we're in the next round now,it would be nice if we can go and beat the Swedes now the pressure is off.

But the thing is, that was the only time he actually jumped for a ball!

Overall assessment - very poor, not creative enough to break down a poor side (who to be fair played with passion and commitment). They were all shit, with the exception of Terry who is fast becoming a legend in my eyes (despite the fact he plays for Chelsea). Ashley Cole was crap, Beckham (aside from the cross to Crouch) was crap, Owen was anonymous, Crouch was awful, Lampard didn't impress me, Gerrard (goal apart) was shite again.

Lennon looked OK when he came on - at least he ran with the ball. Rooney getting 30 minutes is promising.

Also has David James knicked Robinson's body somehow. Dodgy fucking keeper.

Cole had an off game. Midfiled, just no pace and flair whatsoever. Crouch was crap and Owen was worse.

We were so slow and plodding, uncreative and simply awful. Lennon provided the only bright spark. Can't really judge Rooney, he needs games and I wouldn't be suprised to see him play 60 against the Swedes (all being well).

That said, we are through to the next round. We must improve.

Crouch was definitely not awful, even apart from the crucial goal he also set up Lampard who should have scored and made a number of good passes which is far more than Owen did whilst he was on. Trinidad and Tobago have a 6'7" defender who played well so his height was less of an advantage than normal but he still made the breakthrough, which is after all what won us the game and I think Crouch is the only player who would have scored that.

Sorry Ben, Crouch was awful....

....as for the t&t defender marking him, it was only dennis lawerence for christ sake, who plays for a 4th division side...and last time he came to the county ground the man he was supposed to be marking scored a hat trick...

The whole team were awful today...

He wasn't outstanding but he played well and I think he can be happy with his 6th goal in 5 games. The point is not that Lawrence is a great player, just he's one of the few defenders Crouch doesn't have a height advantage over. Despite that Crouch played well and scored a very good goal.

My ratings would be:

Robinson 5
Carragher 5
John Terry 8
Rio Ferdinand 6
Ashley Cole 5
Beckham 6
Gerrard 6
Lampard 6
Joe Cole 6
Owen 5
Crouch 7
Lennon 9
Rooney 6
Downing 6

Ben my friend, take off your Crouch-tinted glasses and put on my (not fake) Oakley's just for one moment. Overall, Crouch did not play well today. Granted, he took the goal very well, but one well taken goal does not a good performance make. He was no worse, nor better, than anyone else, Terry aside.[/b]

Well I defended them after Paraguay but that wasn't much better. However could work in our favour, think of the huge performances in the group stages in 2002 and 2004 and that counted against us I reckon.

I thought the back 4 and keeper were rubbish for us today mind and not alot of optimism, beckham did well again imo. crouch wasn't very accomplished at all.

Robinson had little to do and fucked up once which nearly led to them taking the lead. I rate him highly but by his standards not a good game. Carragher and Ashley Cole I thought were both poor, Neville was just as bad last game though. 7 just isn't generous for Crouch he scored the fucking winning goal! Without that goal we wouldn't be through to the next round, so that alone puts his score up by 1 or 2. Even if he hadn't scored he was worth at least a 6 so 7 is perfectly fair.

Lennon wasn't on for that long but when he was on he won corners, beat players easily and caused all sorts of problems for them which we hadn't being doing up till then. He was also involved in the buildup for both goals. Maybe just 8 would be fair but I really think that bringing on Lennon made the difference, more so than Rooney. One positive was that Sven got the substitutions right today.

absolute gash i'm supporting spain instead

you're a fucking paddy anyway, what the fuck do we care

touché.

After already missing what was, by far and away an easier chance and generally doing nothing and not threatening the goal at all.



Thats complete and utter rubbish, you dont know how the game would have gone had he not scored, Gerrard might have still scored...someone else might have scored. We might have drawn and beaten Swenden. We could have easily still gone through without that goal



Bar the goal he did nothing.

Come on Benjamin, if he gains one for the goal he loses 2 for the 2 times he attempted comical scissor kicks.

Crouch reminds me of Ifil  8)

Good goal stevie G!!!

He could have done better with one shot but as for doing nothing that's simply nonsense.


No it's not rubbish, the goal came with less than 10 minutes to go, that goal was absolutely crucial, it broke the deadlock which is what we needed to do. Crouch's goal was enough to send us through. Gerrard simply confirmed it.





 :shake: You're simply wrong, 5 minutes before that goal he set up Lampard for one of our best chances of the game. Even before that he'd looked far more of a threat than Owen.

BWB, you do realise that you are so easily wound up when people start criticising the Crouchmeister  :wink: Sometimes you just have to let it go. For what its worth, I agree with your second paragraph.

My opinion of Crouch has changed dramatically in the last 6 months. I still remember that friendly at the CG when he was with Southampton, and he was utter shite. I thought he was a one-trick pony with his height, but watching him play for Liverpool and England recently is changing my opinion of him. Granted, he isn't the most technically gifted player, but for his height he adapts well and causes defenders different sorts of problems.

I stand by my opinion that he didn't play that well today. Better than Owen, yes. He scored a very good goal that effectively won the game, but missed other chances. He set up a couple of other chances which were not taken. But my point is he didn't stand out (height excepted) in a poor overall performance. He can and will play better. I'm not disagreeing with you per se, just stating a difference of opinion. And isn't that what football is all about?

As long as he scores and wears the England shirt I couldn't give a fuck.  

Overall bar the missed chances he did alright.  Kept it tidy when needed and got the winning goal which is what counts.  Like BWB not many would have got a head to that without a step ladder.

For what it's worth the pass to Lampard was nothing special but the knock down and chest down to Rooney before he played it back to him made the difference.  

Lampard’s miss was horrific at the end of it all so it makes no difference.  

Question is with Rooney now selectable is Sven going to drop Owen against Sweden?  

Tough call, I can’t help but think Owen needs match practice and is badly needed back on song but can you possibly drop the Crotch Rot?   On song it has to be Owen and Rooney up front with the Crotch coming on to mix it up and meet crosses into the box.  

If Sweden don’t pick up the win tonight (0-0 at the time of asking) I’d be tempted to start Owen and Rooney with a view to the latter being replaced early in the 2nd half and giving Walcott a go later on for Owen.  Jesus if the young fella is going to be of any use in this tournament that’ll have to be the game to blood him.

Same goes for Lennon.

Okay. What was wrong with Robinson? He missed one cross.
Cole and Carragher were okay.
Terry and Ferdinand were quite solid.
Owen didn't see much of the ball but he created a couple of chances for others, notably one of the many Lampard wasted.
Lampard was poor
Gerrard wasn't great until the goal
Beckham for some reason couldn't find his range

Crouch wasted oppertunities but his goal proved why he is valuable to the team. Joe Cole had a bit of an off day but still looked a decent player.

All in all England are not suited to playing against teams who sit back. We are better at defending, drawing players forward and then catching teams on the break. Next game I would start Owen and Rooney and give them around an hour then bring on Crouch and Walcott. Rest Beckham and Gerrard and give Campbell a game.

The result really doesn't matter

I'd say he was one of the better players in an average performance and hence worth a 7. He can do better but was by no means awful. What does piss me off is when people ignore the fact he's scored 6 goals in 5 games for England and still don't rate him at all or even think he should be at the world cup which is just unbelievable to be honest.

I've got no problem with people having different opinions and you've not been too unfair so that's fair enough.

Yeah but the thing is he didn't have much else to do but when he was needed made what could have been a disastrous mistake, in the Paraguay game he didn't have much to do but when he was needed made a great save so I thought he did much better.

I do think he's a good solid keeper though.

You cant drop Crouch, Englands record with Crouch in the team...

P9
W9

the problem with crouch is he looks utterly hopeless as he ambles around the pitch like a spastic, but he does pop up with the goods eventually. think he needs to keep things simpler.

Who do you pick against Sweden then?

Owen, Crouch or Rooney?

Owen and Rooney it has to be for me.  Crouch has shown what he can do and Owen needs the confidence of a goal.  One way or another one of them is not likely to play the full 90 minutes so it wouldn't equate to a snub for Crouch.

Walcott to get 15 - 20 minutes run out at the end.  Job done.

all three, rooney behind owen and crouch and drop lampard

Showed a slo-mo of Crouchy's goal, he was pulling the defenders hair!  8)

Couldnt give a fuck,yup we were shit but we won.

All you 'im supporting someone else' merchants are cunts.

Simple :nod:

Spot On Sir  :thumbs:

Good comment, i was just about to say the same! we can win 1/2-0 every game i would be happy! fuck good football, i want to win! thats my pro evo attitude:) and im good

Owen will always get you a goal... parp!

it comes down to the famous phrase good teams win. it doesn't have to be pretty, they just win.

In years to come no ones going to remember these games at all IF we win the World Cup.Its all about qualifying,hopefully now the pressure is off we'll go and finally beat Sweden :-))(

Thank god for the last few posts, I was beginning to think I was on my own on this island in thinking positive thoughts!

I'm looking at it this way, we've played two games against teams whose main game plan has been to try and not get beat.  T&T practically played a 4-6-0.  Maybe we could have upped the tempo a bit, but we had 25 shots in a match, which is pretty much unheard of (even in games that teams have won by 4 or more) at international level.  Thats 1 shot every 3 mins almost, and on another day we'd have already had the game sewn up by half time even without being fully at the races.  If we had scored early then a bigger scoreline was likely as the T&T gameplan would have gone out of the window.  In the knock out stage we won't meet many teams trying to go for a 0-0, at least not as their sole approach to the game.

We've produced much more abject group stage performances (1990 anyone?), went on to the semi's and only got knocked out on penalties.

My inspiration is the Rugby WC in 2003.  England didn't produce a performance worthy of being in the top 5 games probably, but won the fucking thing.  That's all I need!!

Yes indeed. People have short memories. They remember us going out heroically to the Nazis in Italia '90 and talk about how great we were but forget how crap we were against Ireland in the first game. Similarly in Euro 96, everyone remembers the Dutch game (rightly so) but forget that we scraped a draw against the Swiss in the first game and were fairly fortunate to get through against Spain in the Quarter Finals.

I am sure England will get better and one decent performance will make people forget the first two games completely (whether we can win the whole thing or not is a different matter)  I never expected the T+T game to be easy, I don't know why anyone did. Beenhaker (sp?) got them superbly well organized but we kept going and got the job done.

precisely OST...

Sweden couldnt break them down and im sure we all agree sweden are a very good side (note sweden only managed to beat paraguay with a last minute winner).

it's completely the same as an FA cup tie. man utd couldnt beat burton albion last season but does that make them a shit team?

paraguay and T&T are smaller clubs and they've just come to stifle us. beenhakker had a game plan against us and so did paraguay. pure organized defending. the trouble is, none of the players in the world cup are shit, if they are organized properly they are extremely frustrating... im just happy we managed to bag a couple, sweden didnt.

for example take a look at the other side of the coin. it has been universally agreed the best performers so far are czechs, argies and espana. take a look at their opposition, USA, ivory coast and ukraine respectively. any one who knows a jot about football can see they are all quality opposition with very talented players.

so the best performances have come against better sides? its not a coincedence really is it.
but even after these performances i honestly recon we could beat every team in this competition on the day, whether we do or not we'll have to wait and see

oh yeah rooney and owen to start.

on checking, only Germany (with 26 shots against 10 man Poland, with many coming late on I expect given my memory of the game) have managed more shots in a game than the 25 we managed.  Poland were well organised but did push on times in the game, making it slightly more open than ours and were down to 10 men towards the end with Germany really pushing them back.

We've also dominated possession in both games (yes, even against Paraguay) and nobody has managed more possession than we had against T&T.  So even the bollocks about us giving away possession doesn't really stack up compared to other teams.  i think the only real issue has been our use of that possession and dominance of chances.  We haven't been as clinical as we could have been (Lamps last night and Crouch earlier on in the game).  Stick some of those away and we'd have been looking at having the higest goal tally as well.

Definitely that's a very good point, you often get premiership teams struggling to beat team 3 or 4 leagues below them in the early rounds and then sometimes they even go on to win the cup.

Here are my thoughts:
- We have 6 points from two games and have qualified
- We have played 2 minnows who have been more content on defence than attack
- Crouch has broken his duck, but his chance to goal ratio is very troubling as in international football against a good team you only get 1 or 2 chances in a game. Can't see him finding himself on the penalty spot with noone within 6 yards of him again !
- Owen has looked poor and has not justified his inclusion in the squad. The two English Premiership top scorers, who are sitting at home must be furious !
- Our midfield has looked devoid of ideas. Are they not able to run ?
- Our tactics are abysmal
- Lennon looked to bring an added dimension to our game yesterday
- The Lampard/Gerrard combination doesn't appear to work
- Beckham is a shadow of his former self
- Thought we missed Neville's overlapping yesterday
- Carragher's distribution was awful
- I don't fancy Ecuador next as they have looked bloody good ! Not just in the Finals, but in qualifying too. Very solid at the back and very quick to break with a good set of strikers. A flair side that could run rings around us if we are not careful
- I don't fancy playing the host nation next either ! The Germans, even when poor, always seem to find a way of winning in the Finals.

I'm excited and think that on paper we have the best chance in years of going all the way. However, our 'stars' don't work well as a team at the moment. I hope that this changes as the competition progresses.

NMH

1. I wouldn't class Paraguay as minnows! They're a good side who came through a very tough South American qualifying system ahead of Uraguay, Columbia & Chile to name but three.
2. Beckham can't dribble with a ball to save his life - but I'll wager his kids can dribble  :wink: Two of our three goals were created by Beckham, and we looked better yesterday with Lennon running at the full back and Beckham sitting deeper.
3. Carragher's distribution IS awful. He's a CB not a full back. Hate to agree, but we missed Neville yesterday.

Now I'm really pissed off. At very short notice I have a business meeting next Tuesday, which fucks up my plan of a afternoon in a bar! Grrrrr  :twisted:

neville is a perfect example of the sort of player you don't appreciate properly until he's not there. he's solid defensively, reliable and has an understanding with beckham.

he is a cunt though.

Agreed. We missed him going forward as well

Neville was one of our worst players against Paraguay though but Carragher was just as bad yesterday.

Indeed.

http://blogfc.com/neville.mp3

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b100/landofbo/crouchbreakdancer.jpg

Oh dear

A very passable impression of the flag of The Isle of Man :shock:

http://www.plcmc.org/forkids/mow/images/isle_of_man-largeflag.gif

and what a flag it is  8)




I thought he was bloody aweful against Para-gay as well to be honest ok in the first 45 minutes but dreadful passing in the 2nd half.

I'm Welsh, I can support who the fuck I like, and your lot are just not exciting enough.

I think we were probably all right when we suspected that the "we don't need another striker, we'll cope with the big freak, the crocked monkey boy, the half fit, out of form bloke and a YTS lad" line was maybe a mistake.

lampard was a complete pile of wank.

:Ride On Fatbury's Lovestick:  :Ride On Fatbury's Lovestick:  :Ride On Fatbury's Lovestick:

to be fair, thats probably the one bad game I've seen Gary Neville have ever, I dont think hes ever put a foot wrong.

As for the next game, if we had better options id drop both Owen and Crouch....thought both were shockingly poor last game.

Robinson

Neville (if fit)
Ferdinand
Terry
Cole

Lennon
Beckham
Lampard
Cole

Gerrard
one of our strikers

let Stevie go forward!

If your Welsh you support Wales pal.

Jumping on the England glory wagon just because your to shit to qualify isnt acceptable or welcome.So join the rest of the home nations and pretend to support Brasil.