Thetownend.com

ITV's coverage off to a wonderful start. Joe Cole has just shockingly revealed he's hoping to be playing again next season.

Crouch starting up front, Lennon on the wing. Lennon's an interesting choice, not sure I'd have gone for it but good luck to the lad.

I really struggle to get motivated to watch England these days. Until we get to the big tournements, i'm not that bothered. Will probably turn over and watch Apprentice at 9.

James routed to the spot...on 30 mins

Lovely smack round the face on Voronin by Terry!

1-0. Crouch. In off the keeper's face too. Lovely.

Nice to see Crouchy pull out the rope just like Smithy told him to :)

i have the radio on, alan green really is a ray of sunshine isn't he?

He was in a right mood on Saturday.

Ooh...Becks on for Lennon

I thought the masses hated David Beckham - they love him now.

wish i was watching this game: Poland 10-0 San Marino

chubbs is probably somewhere ejaculating furiously

They hated hom when it was cool to hate him - when everybody forgot how good he was

rat shit second half

It had to be.

1-1. Shevva. You just knew.

ruddy hell

I blame Wilson for allowing our back four to play!

I loved the apparent suprise of that twat Clive Tyldesley when Shevcenko scored - Yes, an unhappy spell in England but he's easily been one of the best strikers of the last decade.

First time i've watched england since the 06 debacle, looks like not much has changed, same old players, same old one dimensional play and the same old mistakes. Oh and those arseholes with the trumpets and the 2 song repetoire are still around, enough reason not to bother for another 3 years methinks.

Huzzah. 2-1.

Offside? We'll take it!

Didn't think it was.

cant teach set piece delivery like that...

Get in there!

has anyone seen lampard today? i think he was meant to be playing football...

That'll do! :D

Onside apparantly. Fair enough.

To be fair he's been abysmal at Milan since he went back.

Glen Johnson is the most useless cunt to ever wear an England shirt.

We won, but I felt we were too sloppy at times.  How many times did Cole give the ball away in  his own half?

Yes but same old bollocks we'll never win anything like that, nothing has changed. Is that lennon really ricky shakes? One surprise for me was when that jaglielka? came on never seen him before in my life. And David James ha ha, first time i saw him was at the CG letting one through his legs, if thats the best we've got.....

Never seen Jagielka before? Deary me.

We didn't play particularly well tonight but Ukraine were much better than Slovakia at breaking up our attacks and preventing us from attacking. Given that they were set up to defend and attack on the break we played quite a sensible game, apart from a period where we went to sleep in the second half. Capello won't be happy about that I'm sure, and I'd imagine he'll sort it out

No-that's Ashley Cole

Agreed but his career can't be judged on the twilight.

I'd back that up Johnson was average...Cashley terrible.

 We won so move on...as John Terry said two tough games coming up...Andorra and Kazakhstan.

 Congrats in order to the Ulstermen....beating the Poles and then the Slitheens

Norn Iron have another good chance of qualifying, I fear they'll run out of steam again.

That was shit. It was like watching Swindon play - you know they're better than that, they know they're better than that but still for some reason they play like a bunch of twats who can't string two passes together.

I'd love to single a couple of players out but they all made far too many simple mistakes.

But to be fair, it was just one of those bad days at the office and they still won - time to move on to the next game.

Result from the local derby.

Czech Republic 1-2 Slovakia

Yeserday's thread was more entertaining.

I've long given up on England playing consistant good football. I still watch them and still want them to win etc but it'll be a long time before we do it the pretty way :)

A win is a win.

I expect England to win every game by 20 of the Queens goals to Jonny Foreigner's nil. I also expect the players to put their heads together and find a cure for AIDS. A 100% record in the qualifying campaign just isn't good enough!

5 games, 15 points.

Who's fucking complaining?

Well you, obviously, but you shouldn't, we're England, not some cunts with a god given right to win everything.

Another good result and the first half performance was very promising.

We are Swindon Town supporters :badmood:.

To be honest it always feels the same when I watch England, dull in the qualifiers then an exciting swift exit when we are in the tournament. :bye:

Don't get me wrong I'm glad we're winning games and we're doing a very professional job ensuring we don't fuck up like the last qualifiers.

I get sick of that argument - we're England, we're shit, we don't deserve to win anything, we're not good enough.

Its total bollocks and just a lame excuse for them under performing. They were good enough to win the last World Cup, they didn't because of Rooney being unable to control his temper, Erikkson's defensive team selection and their normal bottling it when it came to penalties. It wasn't because they weren't good enough, its because they fucked up and they need to sort it out.

But as I said, they got the points which is the important thing at this point.

What would you rather.....Swindon stay up this year, or England win the World Cup 2010?

Swindon stay up. Every single time

other than 5 out of 5 qualifiers then?

England world cup. Swindon would win more games next season if we went down....

 :fishing:

England win the world cup, Swindon will always bounce between leagues 1 and 2, its our level. 

We've been in League Two once in the last two decades, for one season. I'd hardly say it's our level. League One is though, although going by previous years Hull's level is league two as well!

Kazakhstan away and then Andorra at home should set us up very nicely thank you very much.

But how do you know they were good enough to win the last world cup. That reasonning is the problem

You need luck as well......nobody can tell me that Greece were the best side in Europe that year.

England up to 4th in the elo rankings now, http://www.eloratings.net/. I find these are the most accurate rankings for international teams. England are actually in the toughest qualification group with two teams ranked in the top 10 and 3 in the top 25 in the world so it's great to have a 100% record.

Good to see Crouch keep up his amazing England record. Yesterday was England's 500th win in international football, only Brazil have won more.

I can't believe people are complaining so much with 5 wins out of 5 (including beating Croatia, what was it, 4-1 away?).

What a pointless statistic

Possibly helped by the fact that we were playing and winning official international football matches long before the Brazilians and the rest of the world! Our first game was in the 1870's and Brazil's was against Exeter City shortly before the The Great War.

Anywho. I applaud Capello's work thus far as far as results are concerned. However, I will always argue that for the money these guys are paid and the ability they have - they could certainly play more assured football.

I'm not trying to spark an argument because I know that results are all that matters etc. I agree with that totally.

There's nothing less pointless in football than winning. Don't get jealous of England having the best international record in Europe.

It's a real shame that more countries weren't playing football around that time, if the world cup had started in 1870 England would have easily won the most but not entering until 1950 meant we were already 2 behind Italy.

The Scots might have got a World Cup win too.

The F.A. didn't recognise the World Cup until the 1950's. Our attitude was "how dare the rest of the world create this "World Cup" when we created the game".

We have about 30 years more international history than Germany too. Plus a stint in the football wilderness no thanks to one Adolf Hitler.

You just know that he'll get dropped again when Heskey is fit though, or they re-organise the team when Cole and Walcott are fit. Which I think is stupid, they should be working on getting Crouch and Rooney to play better together, as admittedly they don't work too well at the moment mainly due to Crouch dropping too deep.

I dont think Crouch and Rooney well ever work well together for that exact reason. Heskey may be mildly shit but he does push the opposition defence back with his ability to get on to balls over the top.

But that's not the argument I made - at no point did I say any of those things.

Let's face it -how we qualify will have nothing whatsoever to do with how we play when we get there

I think we are going to win it :)

South Africa next year will be cold, wet and windy. Just how we like it.

I read your post as saying England are shit and aren't good enough to win a coin toss and that to expect them to would be unrealistic. If that isn't what you meant, I apologise.

My point stands though. Too many people give the England team a get out of them just not being good enough to win tournaments. They are good enough and we should be giving them bollockings rather than excuses.

I absolutely did not mean we are shit and shouldn't be expected to win anything, but there are expectations and they need to be realistic, I expect to be in the top ten rankings and reach the last 16 / quarter final of major competitions (and for fuck's sake qualify), after that it takes something special and i don't think it can be expected of any England team to assume to be there, but I would expect to be there once in a while.

I would hardly say I was jealous of Englands record

Happy with mediocrity then.

3 world cups and 3 european championships = mediocrity

Germany's overall record is worse than England's and they are currently a weaker team than England, really helps to get lucky at the right times though but lets be honest if either of those competitions had started in 1872 England would have easily won the most.

If we hadn't had our heads shoved up our arses for so long and had entered every World Cup since they started we'd probably have won it as many times as Brazil.