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By the England team tonight  ;)

Even bought the Bothroyd on.

Fucking hell

Gerrard's pulled up too. Liverpool will be pleased.

I know, superb isn't it?  They said at the start of the match that Wembley was a sell out several weeks ago!  I have no idea why people would waste their time and money quite honestly.

...and then enters Crouch.

What's happened

They were shit.

We lost.

We resorted to bringing on Jay cunting Bothroyd

It was ooooooooooooooonly a friendly.

Also, in the post-match interview you get the feeling that Rio Ferdinand doesn't believe what he's saying.

That fist must still be up his arse

Yet again, we were bollox. I can't quite understand some of the selections. Why the fuck did Davies come on as sub against Montenegro but not be in this squad. I still care about England but its going downhill fast.

Ooooh errrr guess I missed it then

Whoever gets worked up about a friendly needs to take a fucking chill pill.

How are we doing in the qualifiers, ok?

It's a friendly, the result is fucking meaningless.

Pretty much the same as the last WC then

Well i'm still going to support the national team, as i do with any sport, so fuck anyone who doesn't!

Why people choose to participate in a thread when the topic is on something that they apparently 'couldn't give a shit about' i will never know! (It was obvious what this was about...)

Ho hum....

It has to be said, however, the French have made the transition from being dogshit, to what we saw today, very well. Credit where it's due

Bloody French....

And are you disappointed that they're fucking shit?

As individuals they're not shit, but something's seriously wrong elsewhere.

I think it's clear to see we have plenty of talent in this country, from the likes of Rooney, Gerrard, then the up and coming talent in the form of Adam Johnson, Walcott, Wilshire, Hart etc.

As individuals there's plenty to look forward too, but as a team, i dunno.......Capello's selections are fucked up though! So that hasn't helped  ;)

dunno what people expect, it's a friendly with a few new faces, wilshire would have been in there too had he not gotten injured.

you get people all over the place saying we need to start getting the next generation ready (myself included) but then slam them before they've even played 90 minutes.

friendlies are for exactly the purpose of trying things out, these younger players will never be ready unless they are given a chance, I'm quite happy to sit through 4 or 5 shit friendlies if it means we get a team together that can be proud of.

so what if it's en vogue to slate everything we're supposed to care about, i wish people would either say what they really think or not say anything at all because most of the chat you hear is just folk trying to look cool, fuck off and become emo...

The results of friendlies, just like the results in U19's & U21's are meaningless.

The purpose of these games is, as Tom has said, to look at different players/different formations in an environment where defeat won't cost points.

The successful footballing nations, like Brazil for example, tend not to comment on results of friendlies more on individual performances. Unfortunately our media like to make out it's the end of the world if we lose a match, albeit a match that isn't even competitive. And so it seems do posters on here.

The World Cup was a disaster, but that's gone. The next competition is the European Championship and, so far, we are unbeaten in the qualifiers.

But no, we lost a friendly so we are shit and Capello must go, blah, blah, blah.

The past it so called "golden generation" have proven themselves serial failures, so why not have a look at what's coming in the future?

Only watched the first half. Despite being sceptical of his inclusion Andy Carol looked like he might be useful.

Residents in the areas around wembley were offered tickets for £10  - the FA wanted to fill wembley as they was struggling to sell tickets, I must admit I'd go if I got a £10 ticket

I don't give a shit about England any more, they broke my heart many many times.

Last night was poor, very poor.

But the thing that does concern me a little about England is the quality of the players on show, most wouldn't even make an England B international let alone an A game.

Foster, Gibbs, Warnock, Henderson and Bothroyd are all very average players IMO and nowhere near an England shirt yet in their careers.

And here we go round in circles again.

I agree that these players aren't world class and some like Bothroyd and Warnock shouldn't be anywhere near the England squad; they're too old and should've already had their chance, but the only way players like Foster, Gibbs and Henderson are going to go from "very average" players to "international" or "world class" players is by them gaining first hand experience.

I am with you!  It just seems to be different players, different coach, same old England!

I backed France at 12/5 last night.  They may have had an awful world cup, but they are technically in a different league to English players.  The first 20 mins were embarassing!

They talk about getting Burton built but still the fruits of that would take 10-15 years to come through.  The footballing world seems to move on and England takes 10 years to catch up by which time the rest of the world has moved on to something different!

Maybe English players just arent as good as all the hype!  After all take the top quality foreigners out of the PL and what exactly do you have left?

I'm only 28 and am starting to give up hope of England winning anything iin my life time!!

They gave away a shit load of tickets to the armed forces... probably only 30k or 40k actually paid cash to watch that pile of steaming shite.

Jesus christ. It was a friendly, we have injuries. Thats why they played, and like sam said, they aren't going to get better unless they play.

It was a friendly, cappello tried something different. If he can't do it in friendlys when can he do it?

But they proved it last night, they are nowhere near good enough, the 4 players named have less than 180 Premier league appearances between them, with most of those being Warnock.

I stand by my statement that they are among the worst set of international players ever to play for England in the 40 years I have watched England.

May as well have picked Charlie Austin to play, thats how ridiculous Bothroyd's selection was.

i was working yesterday evening trucking along. when the football started i turned it off and whacked on on queens greatest hits.
unlike the national team that doesn't disapoint....

I agree, but Capello can only pick from what's available to him. Whilst I agree with the sentiment, Bothroyd's selection was not completely crazy.

Top international sides with an abundance of talent to choose from will always be made up of class players, like Brazil for example. Then you have your likes of Germany, a good international side who have a handful of real top class players with the rest of the team made up of in form players.

No matter what people think, England do have top class players. The likes of Rooney, Gerrard, A Cole and Lampard do not play week in week out in the Premier League (when fit) because they are average. The trouble when it comes to England is the rest of the team, the in form players, and it's been that way for a number of years now. I firmly believe it's due to the influx of foreign players in England and the reluctance of Premier League teams to give young players that much need experience, either for them to pick up form or even for them to develop into top class players. Rich Pullen made a great point the other day about Germany and how their youngsters from the last World Cup had made so many appearances for their club teams in the Bundesliga. Not so much Henderson because he is playing every week for Sunderland and will only get better, but the likes of Gibbs, Walcott et al need more experience of Premier League football.

It's not Capello's fault that this doesn't happen and like my earlier point, he can only pick the form players that are put in front of him. At this moment in time, that is the likes of Bothroyd, Jagielka & Lescott and that's the sad picture of English football for the forseeable future.

The manager can't win. If we play 4-4-2 it gets questioned, play 4-5-1 and people then want 4-4-2.

Also, after the world cup people were calling for all the usual players to be removed from the squad and replaced with young talent. Well isn't that what the manager has tried to do?

I honestly don't know what people expect.

Could almost be reading a TEF matchday thread after a defeat.  :(

I largely agree, but I actually don't think the Premier League is a good place to learn to play international football even if these youngsters do get a game. Sure, top internationals from overseas can come here and thrive - once they have adapted to the pace and hectic nature of our game - but they all learnt to play somewhere else.

He'd earn less money, but it would be great to see someone like Gibbs fuck off to Ajax or Bordeaux or Wolfsburg or Anderlecht or Partizan fucking Belgrade, play football every week in a less pressured environment and get some Champions/Europa League experience.

I swear I heard Mickey Quinn on Talksport yesterday stating it was about time Henderson and other younger players were called up for England.  This morning he is saying that it came too soon for him and after playing only one full season with Sunderland that he should be nowhere near the England team (or words to that effect).

I think that we just have to get used to England being an "average" team.  Roll on the Welsh in March.

Oh, I agree with that too. If that practice became common place then England could have a very good [future] team. But convicing young players to go abroad would be even harder than getting Premier League managers to field young English players.

yep, too many foreigners has certainly made a difference...

one of the main culprits of this is Wenger but if you take a look at their younger players coming through now there are a lot of english lads in there - wenger's been there long enough to have these kids growing up in a completly different culture than most other english clubs.  i'm hoping that along with wilshire and to a degree gibbs there will be a good pool of talent coming through in the next few years from north london.

The problems with our youngsters ( and even established stars ) is threefold. First of all, the vast majority have shite technique. Second of all, their wages. Why would you pay £20k a week after a substantial fee for a young English player when you can get a Dutchie for a much smaller fee and much lesser wages. Third of all, how many of our players have truly lived up to their potential abroad. Its not only a lack of technique but a lot of our players are fucking Neanderthals who would have no chance abroad - they're too fucking stupid to adapt.
Why are there not many foreign clubs lining up to sign English players - because they have a wider view of the world and the players in it. They are not deluded like we are. 

As I see it the problem isn't technique as such, it is thought. English players aren't taught how to play, they teach themselves what works. (Not enough coaches to teach one on one) Initally they could master the kind of one touch game but they haven't needed to and so they stick with the kind of direct game that dominates in these Isles. Hey, it works so why try to play a harder way? Then, they can't adapt, can't match the movement that others learnt as theory age 8 and have used since.

The tactical element exacerbates this problem - creating simple shapes of three bands that other teams can play through leaving the players chasing shadows and so 'looking uninterested' in many people's eyes - but the problem is rooted far deeper. IMHO and all that... 

That's pretty much spot on Chalk-speed of thought is the problem with our players,not lack of technique{apart from Barry maybe).Ferdinand has pretty good ball technique but is so fucking dumb he constantly gets pulled out of position or ball watches and loses his man.Clever foreign players make him look ridiculous.And he is held up as one of our so-called world class players.Gerrard can control and kick a ball well enough but constantly makes the wrong decisions when passing.

He'd be getting stick for picking Rooney et al if they were all fit. "I thought this was a new chapter..." etc.

As long as we beat the Welsh.