England 2 Ukraine 1

I enjoyed the game - even thou it was a very poor performance.

Thankfully John had a nice tap in near the end to keep us 100% for the group.

Enjoyed the bantering with Huzup over the invisable man in the 2nd half.

Still wondering if he will ever play for England like he does for Liverpool.

Well done to Josh - who will soon be able to give up working for a living after yet another visit to the withdraw window at his local bookmakers.

Maybe we can make the chatbox a regular thing on other football nights?

Firstly I thought the chatbox worked well, nice bantering - josh with his betteing expertise, and tick with his knowledge of who's going to pick up the next yellow

Not sure how it (chatbox) would work for our club sides, but for England matches definitely.

I'm not sure if I enjoyed the game, I only remember one passing move with any real purpose - and even that had no end result. It was a bit boring, and a poor opposition made it possibly a worse spectacle than England were making it out to be in the first place. Dare I say - a bit boring?

Cant complain with 5 wins out of 5 and success as group leaders should be easy to complete, with Kazakhstan and Andorra to come in the next two games - 21 points doesnt seem too hard to acheive.

Capello said he was happy with the effort, but I do question how much effort it takes to play long ball football - supporting LFC under Houllier - I'm confident in saying - 'not much effort'. Not sure what happened in the second half - forget invisible man - invisible midfield came to mind. If Hargeaves ever gets back to full fitness, and once Joe Cole does too - Capello will be made to make some real bold decisions about the players he wants to play in his system - imagine Owen had a run without picking up injuries - if he eventually came back into contention.
Lennon was 50-50 as well, I'm not sold on him to be honest - Is Swp a better option? Can Beckham really start against the better teams - shift Gerrard out there again? - we havent got anyone who's nailed down as right back so we could have problems there.

Still got a while to go, plenty of time for Capello to weave his Italian magic.

The two celebrations were the highlight - I'll take credit for the robot, and Torres takes credit for the second

I thought it was a poor game with a very good result, especially since we found a bit extra to win late on when it looked like it might ebb out into a draw. I was at the game and thought the big problem was the midfield. It looked so static at times with Lampard, Gerrard and Barry often looking reluctant to come and receive the ball from the defenders, forcing us to play wide (where on neither side do we have 2 quality players). Rooney was the player who put himself about and was really at the head of all good things England did, other than set plays.

Many people look at the Spain game as an indication of how far we have to go, but flicking through the match program (it has all recent results) it proved that against Spain we fielded half a full team at best. I think our team, in terms of personnel may not have that far to go.

Our weak points against Ukraine were left mid and right back (also up front and in goal but less important). I believe Joe Cole will solve the left midfield conundrum. Frankly, Gerrard is terrible out there since he is a) wasted and b) never stays there anyway. Cole (A) was left hopelessly on his own except when Rooney drifted over and he had very few options on numerous occasions (amazing how much more u can see from the stands as opposed to by the TV).
Owen Hargreaves could solve the right back problem, since he defends comfortably and also is good going forward. I feel that he could form a good partnership with Walcott, who I believe to be the man for the future, since the others frankly, are shit.

So, lets get Hargreaves and Cole (J) back, and lets have Capello either get Frank and Gerrard together, or drop one of them, and perhaps we will be nearly there!!!

abcdef wrote:

I thought it was a poor game with a very good result, especially since we found a bit extra to win late on when it looked like it might ebb out into a draw. I was at the game and thought the big problem was the midfield. It looked so static at times with Lampard, Gerrard and Barry often looking reluctant to come and receive the ball from the defenders, forcing us to play wide (where on neither side do we have 2 quality players). Rooney was the player who put himself about and was really at the head of all good things England did, other than set plays.

Many people look at the Spain game as an indication of how far we have to go, but flicking through the match program (it has all recent results) it proved that against Spain we fielded half a full team at best. I think our team, in terms of personnel may not have that far to go.

Our weak points against Ukraine were left mid and right back (also up front and in goal but less important). I believe Joe Cole will solve the left midfield conundrum. Frankly, Gerrard is terrible out there since he is a) wasted and b) never stays there anyway. Cole (A) was left hopelessly on his own except when Rooney drifted over and he had very few options on numerous occasions (amazing how much more u can see from the stands as opposed to by the TV).
Owen Hargreaves could solve the right back problem, since he defends comfortably and also is good going forward. I feel that he could form a good partnership with Walcott, who I believe to be the man for the future, since the others frankly, are shit.

So, lets get Hargreaves and Cole (J) back, and lets have Capello either get Frank and Gerrard together, or drop one of them, and perhaps we will be nearly there!!!

I agree - please drop Frank so he is rested for Chelsea

If you supported England as much as Chelsea and actually wanted them to win something....which would you drop then?

abcdef wrote:

If you supported England as much as Chelsea and actually wanted them to win something....which would you drop then?

I am alot older than you - England dont win anything - Because the players are over hyped - And 95% of English football fans are one up from pond life and have no real understanding of the sport - Meaning they are taken in with the false hope the media bring every other year.

Lets spin this - Do you honestly think this current squad is good enough to win a World Cup?

Ermm.. not really.. for starters you need a world class keeper to be succesful.. we dont. spain have casillas.. we have mr calamity..

we have a great left back.. and ttwo of the worlds best centre backs.. right back.. well.. could be better by a long shot.. but we do our best.

midfield.. well we have a bunch of great talent.. but they ned to learn to play classy and together.. just look how spains midfield outplayed us as a team. Needs sorting.

Strikers.. our only real class talent is Rooney.. and i do believe he will be key to us next year.. presuming we get there! .. who else? well.. heskey is far from classy.. but does the job.. i would love more than anything, for owen to get himself sorted and get back in the team. LOVE IT

TickTok wrote:

Lets spin this - Do you honestly think this current squad is good enough to win a World Cup?

The thing about wining a World Cup is that you don't have to have the best team there, you just have to have every thing go right for a month. Which is asking a hell of a lot of England. If you compare the talent level with some of the other teams, England falls far short. Argentina, Spain and Brazil have more talent, Italy and Germany are technically better, but then again Argentina with arguable the most talent were beaten 6-1 by Bolivia yesterday.

This team is still a work in progress, it shouldn't be, they have had enough time to get it right, but Capello seems to be getting a few things right at the moment. You can't argue with 5 wins from 5 qualifiers. enough to include in the team.

There are some problem areas, James maybe the best keeper England have, but he doesn't inspire confidence and you always expect he will have that clanger or two that will see England give up a cheap goal. He muffed a shot against Ukraine yesterday that bounced off his shoulder. Ultimately this maybe the biggest problem Capello has.

Johnson at Right Back, is not good enough to play against World Class strikers or wingers. Nobody they have tried as Right Back has looked capable of doing the job. Like ABCDEF I wonder if Hargreaves when healthy could play there.

I see what Capello is doing playing Heskey upfront on his own, he is tough to handle and he creates space and opportunities for Rooney, Gerrard and Lampard. But I wonder whether Heskey can stay healthy through the World Cup. If Heskey gets injured the only option is Crouch, but he is not effective as Heskey. Owen is not an option because he cant play upfront on his own.

The real problem is what is Capello going do when and if Hargreaves, Walcott and Joe Cole are healthy and playing well I think Walcott maybe the one to replace Beckham on the right, Beckham cant play 90 minutes anymore and is good coming off the bench the last 20 minutes. Lennon and SWP have pace and nothing more, they can only beat a man by pushing the ball ahead of them and out runing them. Neither can cross the ball with any consistency and have terrible shots.

If you put Walcott on the right, England will certainly have pace and width. But what do you do with Gerrard, Lampard and Rooney. All three of them are best when they have some sort of free reign, but you can't have three Roy of the Rovers on one team. Lampard seems to be the only one with enough discipline to play a defensive role, but that's a waste of his talent. Once you throw Joe Cole and Barry and maybe even Carrick into the mix, there is a a wealth of talent in the midfield if Capello can get the right blend.

Can they win in South Africa? If everyone is healthy and they get a favourable draw, they have as good a shot as they ever had. One thing in their favour will be the weather. This will be the first World Cup I believe since 1966, that the weather will favour England. It will only be in 60's, so England will be able to play their high tempo fast paced football without worrying about the heat and the humidity draining their strength.

You mention Argentina.. its the high altitude teams struggle to cope with going to play teams like them.

They arrived there 2 hours before the game, cannot believe they got beat by that scoreline.

JoshBrfc wrote:

You mention Argentina.. its the high altitude teams struggle to cope with going to play teams like them.

They arrived there 2 hours before the game, cannot believe they got beat by that scoreline.

Thought may have been one of the reasons.