England

[yates jr]

2-0 down
bin all England Croatia have had 2 shots and 2 goals ! :(

[yates jr]

do you think we would let Tim harris talk to the FA ? :D

[CompostBin]

Just got in from work, was shocked (but not surprised) to see the score!

They've had the biggest amount of luck any team could wish for last week, and this is how they respond?

If they don't qualify I think they should all be done for treason and beheaded. You wouldn't think those players were doing a dream 'job' and becoming millionaires overnight would you!

[Neil]

Just in from work? So you're the one that John Motson refers to when he says "If you've just come in from work....."!!!!

I've given up watching. Our game has been bastardised in this country, I can only see two players in white shirts capable of actually doing anything with the football on the ground (Joe Cole and Gerrard), the rest are just athletes. The scoreline is no fluke, it's a relief actually because we simply can't compete on the world stage and would only embarrass ourselves if we had played in the Euro finals.

The English FA need to get back to the drawing board and start making up rules so that THEIR league produces players for THEIR national team and not every bugger elses.

:tosser:

[Woody]

McClaren :tosser: is useless, Slaven Billic has spent the entire first half on his feet in his technical area barking instructions to his side who are winning 2-0. McCLaren :tosser: has just stood under his brolly or sat on his seat and not said a word. No emotion, no passion, no hunger, no fight, no leadership and no direction. The man is pathetic.

[Woody]

Oh and is Lampard playing?

[Woody]

And please don't use the pitch as an excuse, Croatia seem to be doing alright on it! :mad:

[Neil]

It's nothing to do with McLaren, it's the players on the field that aren't upto the job. Sad thing is that they're arguably the eleven best players that we have in the country :(

[Neil]

Lampard will miss!

[Neil]

I love being wrong!

[Woody]

Oh and is Lampard playing?

At last he did something! :thumbsup:

[Woody]

It's nothing to do with McLaren, it's the players on the field that aren't upto the job. Sad thing is that they're arguably the eleven best players that we have in the country :(

Nothing to do with Mclaren:tosser:? What world are you living in?

[yates jr]

2-2 !!!!!!!!!!!!
Crouchy :D :notworthy:

[Woody]

Nothing to do with Mclaren:tosser:? What world are you living in?

Forget it, he's a tactical genius! :thumbsup:

[ItmustbeCity]

Now I know who's nicked all the get out of jail cards from my Monopoly set ;)

[Woody]

Now I know who's nicked all the get out of jail cards from my Monopoly set ;)

It's probably Mclaren's birthday too and he'll be collecting £10 from each player! ;)

[yates jr]

3-2 to croatia :mad:
Sitting too far back !!!!! :mad:

[ItmustbeCity]

oh ****

[Manic Tiger]

we lost

[Manic Tiger]

oh...andorra are gunna score aint they

[Neil]

Hang your heads in shame England :(

[Woody]

:mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:

[Neil]

Nothing to do with Mclaren:tosser:? What world are you living in?New boss now then, shame it's going to be the same old players :(

[yates jr]

OUT :mad:
:tosser:

[Woody]

Mclaren :tosser: out, Mourinho :notworthy: in if you ask me. It may be the same old players Neil but you've got to have in charge a man who is going to get the best out of what he has available to work with. Mclaren :tosser: obviously has not and cannot! Mourinho :notworthy: would.

[Neil]

Hopefully you're right, but theres going to be a long wait to put the players to the test if he does get the job....

[Woody]

Hopefully you're right, but theres going to be a long wait to put the players to the test if he does get the job....

Mclaren :tosser: has just come out and said he has no plans to offer his resignation, can you believe the gall of the man. We have got the world cup qualifying draw on Sunday and the FA need to act now. Mourinho :notworthy: is available so let's get him before someone else does and give him the time to put his plans in place ready for those qualifiers. He obviously has a clause in his payoff from Chelsea that prevents him taking another club job in England until next season but I bet that doesn't include the actual England job. It doesn't matter how much he costs, pay him whatever it takes. He is the man for the job!

[tigermatty]

Utter crap. Sacking McClaren is just a way of apportioning blame, it won't solve the inherent problem we have in producing players who are capable of passing the ball to a team mate along the floor and moving into space. No decent manager is going to be interested in taking charge of a team who won't be playing in a competetive tournament until 2010 at the earliest. I just can't believe he reverted to trying to play Lampard and Gerrard together when Barry had solved the problem. :brickwall:

[tigermatty]

Utter crap
By the way, that was a reference to the performance, not you last post Woody!

[yates jr]

and it was Mclaren who took Barry off ! :mad:
you can blame him because he picks the team not the players them self !

[Co Stompe]

Martin O'Neill to be England manager within the next fortnight. You heard it here first! ;)

[tigerchef]

I dont see the point in teaching kids to pass in neat triangles (FA Coaching manual) and then hoof the ball up the pitch, looking for crouch. We have good ball players in this country, and we should try and pass it on the floor more.

[Joe]

Blame McClaren if you like, I know I was earlier. But when you think about it, most of us would have complimented his team selction, and his half-time substitutions.

But really, all 3 of Croatia's goals can be attributed to England players, not the manager. If I saw Big Kev chuck that first goal in, I'd go apesh*t. And if I saw Jamie Reid let his marker go for the second goal, I'd be livid. It's incredible. They all cracked under the pressure.

And as for Barry being the answer, I'm not having any of it. He was bloody awful, and shouldn't pull on an England shirt again. Utility squad player at best.

None of the players care or play with passion (Joe Cole and Beckham the possible exceptions), and it's because they get paid extortionate amounts by their clubs, and turning out for England is a little side project to mess about in. It doesn't effect them, their careers, or their bank accounts if they win or lose.

[Matt]

But when you look at the players we have and the salaries they are on they should be performing better. We may not be producing the amount of quality players we want to - but there must be 20 England players on at least 50 grand a week. How many Russian players earn anywhere near that? Yet they will be in Austria next year.

To be perfectly honest I'm not that gutted we didn't qualify. Things need a shake up and maybe now it will happen. And maybe some of our stars will now realise they are not as world class as they think they are.

And as a Villa fan - Barry is class and O'Neill can stay right where he is!

[CompostBin]

To be perfectly honest I'm not that gutted we didn't qualify. Things need a shake up and maybe now it will happen. And maybe some of our stars will now realise they are not as world class as they think they are.



If you think that players on £100k a week with either a) take a pay cut or b) improve because of defeat or a pay cut I'm sad to say you're mistaken.

The game died the minute Sky TV came along, and we all bought into it. The money, the analysis of every ball played, the moving of fixtures, the branding of a sport, the gulf between rich and poor, the lowering of the size of the PL, the creation of celebrity amongst players, the high ticket prices paid without question that pushed decent honest [and unfortunately poor ] people away from the game.

Compare our game with every other nations game, and I don't think you'll find we do one thing better than any other nation, apart from turnover of the top Clubs .... which is what English football is all about.

[bobcarolgees]

Theres many reasons why football in this country is woeful compared to others.

The media have to take a large proportion of the blame. Ok we didnt get there and the players, McClaren etc are rightly getting roasted but had we gone through give it till march next year and then all the papers will be saying "this is englands year", "the golden generation will do it" crap they always spin out. The hype they give the team is ridiculous. No wonder half of them are so over paid its sickening. We are a average team and our current FIFA ranking is false.

The media should be having a go at the bloody useless FA. As some of you know im a Boro fan and McClarens negative tatics got him a lot of stick and some of his subs were bizarre at times. When he was linked with the England job boro fans were singing McClaren for England! So why did he get the job in the first place? He was never up to it. And as for Barwick saying he was their first choice after the fiasco with Scolari. If you believe that you'll believe anything. The FA proved how pathetic they are when they finally got rid of Sven but kept paying millions of pounds. We waste huge sums of money on poor managers, a hugely overpriced stadium and on the fat cats themselves. Im not suprised we are going after hosting the world cup, it seems to be the only way we might qualify!

The whole foreign players are killing the game is a weak argument! Did all of Crotia's players play in their homeland?? Do Brazils?? Or maybe it was American footballs fault for playing a game there? Or maybe it was the weather? Rubbish excuses.

Maybe in the summer we can play Scotland and Northern Ireland and be beaten by them (again). They may not have players who have the technical ability of a Rooney or a Gerrard but they have pride in their nation, give 100% and play as a team. Not like us!

Still like I said about this before, the players will all be saying how gutted they are in all the newspapers today. But give it till next summer, theyll be showing off their latest Hummer on footballers cribs, getting chucked out of the west end nightclubs for fighting and sunday tabloids will be full of stories of them spit roasting drunken slags in Magaluf. And that just about sums up the modern day England footballer.:tosser::tosser::tosser:

[Neil]

I think the foreign players excuse relates to the number of each teams countrymen playing regularly at the highest level that they can play at. You can bet that the Croats play regularly either in their own "Premier" league or likewise across Europe.

Our goalkeeper is third choice at his own club and has been loaned out for the past two seasons...

[SHANDY LOVE MACHINE]

sunday tabloids will be full of stories of them spit roasting drunken slags in Magaluf

Oh well, every cloud has a silver lining. The answer to England's woes in two words? John Ward. If he can perform miracles with that shower of ****e across the ****ehawke valley then the stratosphere is his limit

[Simon]

After watching most of that farce yesterday, I have to say Croatia impressed me a lot in the match. They where already through and could have just played for a commendable draw in which Bilic would have been happy with. But they attacked with real puporse at times and they look like scoring almost everytime they went forward. Modric looked very impressive as did the midfield/forward line/defence at times in the match and they followed their tatcics to perfection. In truth they could and should have won by more, they played better than us in both games and fully deserved to win both games.

Not for the first time, Mclaren showed his tactical ineptness which in turn followed the players on the pitch. In the end, many where confused which role they were playing yesterday and clearly the lack of good quality crossers out wide to utilise Crouch in the box was evident when Beckham came on in the second half and whipped in the best cross any England player made in the game for the 2nd equalising. Bar Crouch or Beckham, too few showed up yesterday in a poor abject performance. How on earth Lampard one man of the match was beyond me, as Crouch was clearly Englands best player and even Beckham did more in 45 mins than Lampard in 90 mins. Carson did make a mistake for the first goal, but his defence let him down for the other two. I'm certainly not blaming him for the defeat, nor Barry or some others. It seems Mclaren losed that game before the team even got on the pitch. Hopefully this wake-up call will make changes at the very top in the F.A as well the Manager and some players, and maybe we can get a new England team that can play as a team, show the passion in wearing the shirt, maybe not assuming we are the best and will win any tournament we are in (more humility/lower expectations will be nice.) and maybe we can have a team we can be proud of.

Still, I am absolutely gutted.

[tigermatty]

Is there any player in the world who has underachieved at international level more than Steven Gerrard? Incredibly this man was our captain last night. Does he even want to play for England? There was only one player last night who in my opinion looked anything near international class and that was Beckham. The fact that he is 32 and plays for LA Galaxy speaks volumes about the other muppets on show.:brickwall::brickwall::brickwall:

[Neil]

FN_V38pUeS4

[yates jr]

lol :D

[Pablo]

Firstly, well done to Croatia, they came to Wembley and played us off the park at times and no-one has scored 3 goals against us in a competitive match at Wembley since the 70's so fair play.

All week up to the game they were pleading the Wembley crowd to get behind the team and they got it, everyone was well up for it! To concede two terrible goals like that at the start was very annoying, but to see the players walking around like they were 2-0 up was really frustrating and they deserved the boo's at HT.

Second half they played alot better with the 4-4-2, I thought Barry and SWP had to come off (though SWP shouldn't have started). To get it back to 2-2 was incredible, the place went mental! But we threw it away with another avoidable goal.

I think some of the players need to take the Zat Knight approach and come out and apologise for a perfermance, but it's not going to happen really is it. ie. (Gerrard, Bridge, SWP, Barry etc.)

David Beckham was the only player to clap the crowd at the end, who had all paid between £30 and £60 and travelled all the way to support the team.

I'd like to see Mourinho as the new manager, but it won't happen, Cappello it is for me, he is a proven top coach and has worked with the best.

2 years is too long to wait for a Championship to come around, 4 years is an absolute nightmare..

[bobcarolgees]

This is good :D

http://www2.talksport.net/index.asp?id=101198&c=&t=

[Kingo]

I think I could be the next England manager as fudamentally Steve McClaren made same basic mistakes;

1) English league teams do not play 4-5-1 so why did England
2) Yes Peter Crouch could win lots of flicks in the air but who was he going to flick it onto?
3) Gerrard and Lampard cannot play together - why is it that we can all see that but he can't?
4) Beckham, like it or not should have started end of.

Kingo for the next England manager, or at least sell programmes at the next match:thumbsup:

[Oldie]

Who's to blame for our missfortune then. Lets have your opinions.
My thoughts are he should not have been booted out with the best players out injured. Also , like others, I think w have too many foreign players in our top teams but what can be done about it!

[ItmustbeCity]

Had some time to calm down after last nights farce, firstly well done to Croatia, many sides would have sat back after being pegged back to 2-2 especially away from home but whenever they went forward they looked a real threat and could be dark horses for next summer championships. Sacking Steve McClaren is only the tip of the iceberg , if the FA take heed and see the game needs a complete overhaul then maybe in the long run not qualifying will do more good than harm in the long run

Maybe they should ask if there is a problem with coaching young players although it can't help any youngster to have a few good games and have a contract for more money than he can dream of shoved in front of him, maybe they should ask why the set up of wealth is such that a relegated club from the top flight get enough money that could keep a non league side going for years or even help funding youth setups

The England national side has ben struggling for years due to poor decisions at the top and my only surprise is that its taken so long for it to blow up in our faces as spectactularly as it did last night. Still there's always another man out there to take the job who will be hung drawn and quartered because lessons haven't been learned

[Oldie]

Sorry guys. Looks like I was a bit late and put my comments on the wrong page. I still think that McClaren should not have gone, he just didn't have the players to choose from who were good enough. Like I said, too many non english players in english football.

[SHANDY LOVE MACHINE]

I'm sure I had that deja vu feeling last week as well

[JCGaughan]

This is nothing new. It has been the same old style for the past 30 years. Bang it down field and hope somebody latches on to the ball. Very little build up, which is due to the lack of good technical skills. Upgrade the U-21's to be the full blown England #1 for a few games. They have the heart, stamina and fighting spirit and I believe better technical ability. As long as the young lads are staying home playing electronic games and being masters on their PC's I see no hope fot the future of English footy.

[IJD]

And Gerrard had the cheek to say afterwards that 'life goes on'. It's alright for you to say that when you're are earning £100k+ a week. :tosser:

Indeed it might Mr G but that just sums up the lack of pride and passion that our so called top players show when putting on the Three Lions.

[Pablo]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/eng_prem/7099694.stm

"Gerrard put his England misery behind him for Liverpool"

Well there's a bloody suprise! Maybe he should join his mate Carragher and quit!

[CompostBin]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmnjV5juzw4

England in training :D

[Neil]

Plenty of booing for the England players yesterday. Gerrard unsurprisingly starring for Liverpoo, Lampard and SWP doing the biz for Chelsea (and SWP tapping his badge when he scored) - ****ers the lot of the them...

[Pablo]

Neil Hards is on 5 Live talking about England!

[tigermatty]

Croatia, Ukraine, Belarus, Andorra and Kazakhstan. Those last three teams don't have anywhere near the quality of Israel or Macedonia so there are no excuses for not picking up maximum points in those games. Some unpleasant away days all round but we should be looking to win this group, no matter who we have in charge.