Thetownend.com

Robinson, Young, Terry, Ferdinand, Carragher, Wright-Phillips, Lampard, King, Cole, Owen, Rooney.

No suprises there.

Just as - I'm sure - every forum member expected then.

3-1

I'm hoping, as all the presure is now off ,the boys will go out and give a good performance,i'm tired of all the sven bashing.

I'm not!  

By rights he should have one of the easiest jobs in the world - he's got one of the most talented squads in the world yet he still fails to get them to produce.

That said I'm hoping for a proper game of footie tonight.

"That said I'm hoping for a proper game of footie tonight."

I take it you're watching the Ireland game then KT.  I hope they do it!!

I hope they get through too - good fans those Irish.

I'm actually playing pool tonight, but luckily the pub we are playing at have one of the biggest 'big screens' I have ever seen, so the England game should be on.

I agree with all of the above, team as expected, pressure off should mean a good game (?), and good luck to ireland, a squad of decent players with phenomenal fans would be a lot more fun in germany than the swiss or israelis.

 :)
True Jan,the irish game should be a lot more interesting.
K.T,don't get me wrong,i don't think sven is doing a very good job[understatement of the year!].Tired is the wrong word maybe,i think i'm more bored by it than anything else.Unfortunatly he is going to be the boss until at least after the world cup :(  ,thanks to the f.a,so we need to just to grit our teeth and get on with it.

I fuckin hope those Israelli bastards don't get through.  My mate reckons that if Germany, Israel, Japan and USA were drawn in the same group (I know it wouldn't happen) it should be called "the group of death".

Oooh.  You'd get banned from thisis for that. :wink:

I'm gonna miss the game tonight probably... not too bothered really.

Why is the editor an Israelli, a kraut, or a jap?

To be honest that's why that site's so shit, not one is capable of reading a post the way most are meant to be taken.  But that's kids!

no way has sven dropped world class superstar peter crouch :roll:

cheer up ben wah balls
oh what can it be...

I wouldn't call bringing Rooney back in as "dropping" Crouch.  He was an understudy whilst "Always a blue" was banned.

come and join us, come and join us...

I think I want the Swiss to beat the Irish because France will have a harder task to qualify.

I'd laugh for many minutes if the mighty French fail to qualify... That would mean commentators in 2010 can say (if France qualify) the last time the French scored in a World Cup is in 1998 and that was the World Cup Final (Petit)

I'll get my sheepskin coat.

:Ride On Fatbury's Lovestick:

No surprises, but were you expecting anything to change dramatically?

There is nothing I want more than for England to go out there tonight and prove that Sven is worthy of his job.
If they don't win, however, then serious questions might be asked.

POLAND are NOT are not a good team!

PS Good luck to the Irish, would love a good old World Cup drubbing to be handed out by the England boys, and it really wouldn't be too exciting if it was against israel! :wink:

Do you think that England are capable of "drubbing" Ireland at the moment then?  Honestly.

And the "on their day" answers not acceptable as "on their day" pretty much any side in the world could beat any other.

they would drub belarus though wouldn't they Jan?

unlike some teams  :wink:

Would they???  Really.  They'd probably win by the odd goal, but I doubt they'd drub them.

I'd say that Scotland would fancy beating Northern Ireland, but you never know.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/graphics/gallery/football/wembley/wembleysupp/wembgazz.jpg

oh yes

those were the days a Jan?  :mrgreen:

Bloody hell fella's let's start harping on about our premiership days next, anything to take our minds of the shit that's going on right now.

Good result that for England, played poorly but got the result.  Fair play.

I honestly think that this England team is capable of beating anybody.

We've only seen them play crap opposition lately. I reckon tonight is the night they will prove people wrong. Even without Beckham (who IS STILL the best player in the team) they have a great side with Campbell, Carragher, Lampard, Gerrard, Owen and the "Blue"

All they need is a kick up the arse!

I'd say that's a fair assessment of the situation R4E.  The side are clearly lacking in organisation and motivation.  Not sure that Sven's capable of getting the most out of his players though.  Bobby Robson managed to get england to the semi's on pride and motivation, his 90 side weren't that great on paper.

thats why Sven should go! get Stuart Pearce in now! at least he will have us playing with passion

I would agree that Sven isn't the best man for the job, by a long chalk.  I still think Martin O'Neill will be approached for it.

Will be approached, but not sure he would take it to be honest, and even then, interbational football is so different.

Not to say he wouldn't do the job though.

 Seems to me a case of kismet that Israel will qualify for Germany.

 Also all this bollocks about England having a wonderful side....what we have got is a number of decent players who mostly cover the same two or three positions.......what we don't have is balance....its a  team game and our team is less than the sum of its parts.

 v Austria we didn't have a single left footed player,  and at the moment only Ashley Cole is missing....this is something Sven has been unable to find an answer to.

no no no you see old sven gordon has  worked it out, Joe Cole! he's an obvious choice for the left wing role, as a naturally right-footed player, having to cut in to do anything good and generally being a cunt. :-))(

  As in any tournament...what went before is largely irrelevant....what you need is a bit of nous and luck with the draw, then two or three players who are expected to be fringe players stepping up to the plate.....so in 90 England started with Mcmahon but discovered Platt, who went on to have a lucrative career in Italy as a result......similarly in 66 Jimmy Greaves....played as many matches as Geoff Hurst.

 It could be argued that Greaves is Engalnd's finest post war striker, but he got injured Hurst steppd in and the rest is history.

Indeed Reg.  In 98 Owen came in an made an impact, 2004 was Rooney's turn.

Who will have a go now?  Kieron Richardson?  Bent?  Scott Parker?  Aaron Lennon?  

I honestly cannot see Sven dropping his current first choice X1, no matter what any of the players say about no-one being a shoe-in!

 8)

I think i heard tht Crouchy was booed.  Bit harsh if you ask me.

Greaves strike rate, goals per games, is by by the best of all England's strikers isn't it?  Unlucky to be injured when England's glory hour came and went.  That's when he really hit the bottle wasn't it?

I like Greavsie, I'd love to have a pint or two with him.

Not a fan of Crouch .. i Really dont see what he brings to the pitch

No need to boo him though, if that's what happened.

How did The King play?

Well - I thought he was one of the better performers.

How loud were these boo's?  Were they a la David Duke's reception last autumn or John Barnes v Netherlands circa 93?

John Barnes styleee

Ledley was ace!

The same Joe Cole who has often played at left wing for Chelsea and had a very good game last night?

 Didn't you notice that England's winning goal, was down to a piece of ice cool defending from Crouch,  he picked the ball on the edge of the box, rather than hoofing it,  played a pass, then ran the length of the pitch as the move progressed pulling defenders out of position to enable Lampard, to run into the space and score.

That said his ice cool defending isn't really why he's in the team, I can't see Jon terry feeling under threat.

 Football is a team game....you attack as a team and defend as a team.

Exactly I noticed that too, very impressive how quickly he ran the length of the pitch.

Of course John Terry's not under threat but he's hardly competing for a place with Crouch, however as Reg says defending is part of every players job.

Lampard and Gerrard cant play together in the same team, discuss...

Last night both Lampard and Ledley King had great games, with Lampard scoring a superb goal, I'd give them both an 8. Shaun Wright Phillips and Joe Cole also did very well so if one of Lampard and Gerrard had to be dropped then we'd have to drop Gerrard, no way you can drop Lampard, after Rooney he's our best player.

Personally though I think Gerrard and Lampard can play together though.

I'd agree Lampard is the better of the two esp. going forward. However I think you need a holding player to complement him, which Gerrard doesnt do, but King did well...

I agree, and have done for a while.  Pick one of them, with a holding player (King, Carrick, Parker) and let them loose!  Then, if the starter is underperforming, just imagine having either Lampard or Gerrard coming off the bench.  Superb.

With King holding midfield this will allow Gerrard to play as the attacking midfielder as he often does at Liverpool ...

Best side

Robinson
G Neville Terry Campbell Cole
              King
  Becks           Lampard
          Gerrard

Rooney Owen

Who the hell is young Terry Ferdinand?

I'd rather Gerrard over Lamps tbh - I know they are both fantasic players in their own right, but Stevie G basically won the Champs League single handedly, he just seems to take the game to the opposition a bit more for my liking.

I asked the question myself last night, there's not much in it, but I'd plump for Gerrard.  'Most valuable player in Europe' afterall!

 :Ride On Fatbury's Lovestick:



Jamie Carragher won the champions league for Liverpool, not Gerrard....

But then Lampard was one of the key players in Chelsea winning the premiership which is harder to win than the champions league.

We need Lampard's goals 10 in 37 caps for England, already has 6 including 5 league goals for Chelsea this year and 19 last year.

It's a tough choice because the holding midfielder with Lampard or Gerrard is ideal but it'd be very harsh to drop Lampard or Gerrard.

i went to this match

I WAS THERE

So were Ash and Marie, not sure about anyone else.

Did you get as angry as I was watching the tv?

What did you get angry about? I thought we played pretty well, I mean I was pissed off between about 60 and 80 minutes 'cos I really wanted to win and even though we'd had all the possession and all the chances it was still a draw but after that I was fine. Lampard's goal was superb and it was an entertaining game.

Well I only watched the first 60 mins, because I had to play a game of pool and ref one but I was getting frustrated that they seemed bereft of ideas - we had loads of possession, but rarely threatening possession.

They just didn't convince me that much, they should be capable of so much more!

SWP was the worst culprit for my money - he had so many oportunities to just knock the ball past the full-back into the space behind him and just outpace him, but he just didn't bother, always trying to outskill the guy.

Think this season's just getting the better of me at the moment, I just want to see a really good game, I've only seen one really and that was Real Madrid.

 :(
I ,for one share your pain KT.Personally i'm finding myself less and less interested in football in general :( .Although being bottom of the league just seems to cloud my every waking moment, not just my interest in football:( .

I thought he played damn well to be honest, much better than Beckham.

I've not lost interest in football, just a little faith in it I suppose. :(

Oh don't get me wrong he had a decent enough game, but I've seen him play much, much better, and be much more explosive.  He just needed to be a little more direct I thought.

I'm obviously still interested in us though :) Its just other games,[ i.e any on the t.v],that i would have watched in the past with real interest,just seem a bit pointless and redundant.I'm not sure if its because of us or if its just old age :) .

i didn't really get angry, apart from at joe cole in the first half but then he improved in patches.

I really don't think the criticism of Beckham is fair.
People seem to hat ethe guy just because he isn't the best player in the world. Owen went through the same recently but it seems to be coming to an end. Perhaps its because we don't see them playing every week?

Now Owen is at Newcastle people are saying how great he is again.

I don't think you can compare SWP and Becks because they are so different. Becks and Neville owrk so well on the right, helping and covering for eachother, and Beckham has the ability to pick out amazing passes.
On the other hand, SWP has the pace to get in behind the full backs and cause problems that way. It just depends how you want to play and to some extent who else is in the team.

Beckham believed his own hype for far too long - he forgot football was a team game.  He's been cracking for Real this season though.

In my opinion there are three reasons we did so much better last night.I know people are split on Beckham but last night we had a wide player who ran at the full back with pace and skill,yhis puts defenders on the back foot-when Beckham plays there any full back knows he's not gonna do that.Secondly the fact that King played so well in the holding role encouraged Lampard to get forward and play with the confidence he has lacked in recent internationals.Thirdly,when Beckham plays,we give the ball away far too cheaply cos he's always attempting 50,60 even 70 yard balls which look great when they come off but only 50-60% of them ever do.Passing last night was much shorter and compact and more effective.Thing is Beckham and Gerrard will come straight back in and on last night's evidence thats wrong

We play better with Beckham not in the team I think.

Oh and the Jocks suddenly think they are world beaters after they beat Slovenia 3-0 last night in a dead game. Gimps!