England V Nothern Ireland

[Black Dahlia]

That was woeful! - Discuss .........

[emilystrange]

will that do?

oh ffs. wtf were we DOING? no. not 'we'. 'they'. i refuse to be a part of that.

[aims]

English sports team proves inferior to foreign side.

Pope still a Catholic.

News at 11.

[ruffers]

Woeful. What else is there to say? Sven has never made a difficult decision and got it right, tonight was just more of the same.

[timsinister]

English sports team proves inferior to foreign side.

Pope still a Catholic.

News at 11.

Well said!

[Dark]

My dad cheered when Ireland scored, saying they deserved a goal. By the end of it we'd agreed they were overpaid and badly organised players, just a load of celebrities (who seem to play quite well in their own sides) going against a side with more variation and who were clearly superior.

We both cheered when Ireland won. Go figure.

[Norman Hunter]

...Only consolation was that Healy scored.

[timsinister]

...Only consolation was that Healy scored.

Somebody must have cashed in on that, 33 to 1 odds!

[Norman Hunter]

...Only consolation was that Healy scored.

Somebody must have cashed in on that, 33 to 1 odds!

Possibly Kevin Blackwell and Healy himself. It'll add £500k to his value come January...

[nigel d]

being welsh , i thought it was an amusing result.

[Ed Rhombus]

Didn't see the match. Loved the result!

[andymackem]

Premiership in 'not actually all that good' shocker?

It's easy to have a go at Sven (he is foreign, after all) but as usual we're guilty of assuming that playing in the Premiership gives players a divine right to win things.

Rio 'World's most expensive defender' Ferdinand standing a yard behind his back four to play Healy onside?

Wayne 'brightest young talent in the world' Rooney sulking because he's out of position? (if you think he's justified, think of the coating Kieron Dyer got when he spat the dummy at Bobby Robson about a year ago).

Lampard and Gerrard contributing a joint tally of bugger all in midfield?

To be honest, if these players are as good as we keep hearing they are, a goldfish could manage them to victory over Northern Ireland. You'd need to be a twisted managerial genius to actually create a team out of that lot which was capable of losing with them playing to even a fraction of their potential.

Of course Sven made mistakes: picking a clearly under-prepared Michael Owen; removing Wright-Phillips for the anonymous (and still lacking in end product) Joe Cole; marginalising Rooney's strengths (though the player could and should have made more of his role on the night); persevering with Owen Hargreaves.

Ultimately, though, the players were either woeful or are nothing like as good as the Sky-sponsored hype machine tells us they are.

But we can't admit things like that or Chelsea won't be able to charge £50 a pop for Saturday's compelling clash with Sunderland, will they? And people might stop watching Murdoch-TV. That would never do.

[Ed Rhombus]

What's the phrase?

You're only as good as you're last match?

[ruffers]

While the players aren't as good as they're made out to be I think most of it has to be laid at Sven's door. Lampard & Gerrard contributed nothing primarily because the quarterback kept going for hail marys and they only saw the ball when it was going 20 feet over their heads. They want to stay in the team presumably, so they do what the manager tells them to do for fear of being dropped.

The manager, well he won't change the system that isn't workng until it's too late as he doesn't want to admit his mistake and there are several, primarily around him not being strong enough to t pick/drop players when appropriate or make decent substitutions.

To me it was obvious the system didn't work on Saturday as it negated Lampard & Gerrard as said. Revert to 4-4-2, maybe (perish the thought) don't play Beckham the whole game. Instead of that we get more fudging trying to accommodate too many players.

Bring back Heskey

[andymackem]

Although the QB's long passing in the first half was picking out Wright-Phillips, who in turn was giving Tony Capaldi problems on the England right.

That might have cut Gerrard and Lampard out of some of the play, but these guys play in central midfield. It's not like they are stuck out on the flanks dependent on getting service from others. Can't they go and look for the ball themselves? Or would that risk having to do something nasty like tackle a lower-division clogger who really, really wants to win the ball.

If we revert to 4-4-2, who plays wide left? We don't have a left-sided player who can actually cross a ball; certainly not one the manager is willing to trust. It makes more sense to identify a crop of players and set a formation around that instead of putting square pegs into round holes.

How about Robinson in goal; a centre-back trio of Ferdinand, Carragher and Terry (Campbell in reserve); wing backs of Wright-Phillips and Ashley Cole (SWP is a bit too attack-minded to be a full-back, but Carragher's experience at right-back can compensate for that in an Ajax-inspired total football switch); centre midfield of Beckham, Lampard and Gerrard. They should be intelligent enough to alternate between holding and attacking among themselves. Up front I'd go for Rooney and Defoe on the basis of form and fitness. Owen isn't a bad cover option, is he?

The possible flaw is the lack of a destructive central midfielder in the Vieira, Keane, Makelele role. But Beckham has played centre mid for Real, so he should be able to cope.

I'm not a huge defender of Beckham, but in the last couple of games he's been consistently better than the other midfielders, so dropping him seems perverse. Even if he is a big media tart.

[ruffers]

I've argued a similar 3-5-2 long and hard in the office but let's face it, it won't happen.

The thing is he has to do one thing or the other. I'd prefer him to pick a formation and then put the best player for that position in the team. OK, Barry may not be as gifted as some other players but he's a better left sided player. Unfortuanately this would mean someone had to be droped and Sven hasn't really got the bottle.

Or, pick a formation that matches the players, ie 3-5-2.

As it is we get the fudge, and the fudge is that we have all these players who may know where they're supposed to be standing on the pitch but don't know how they're supposed to relate to each other as a team.

[DerekR]

Well done to Scotland, who were playing too last night, although you wouldn't know it watching last night's 'national' news.

2-1 against Norway away from home

[BillyBadBreaks]

Being an English Rangers fan I have endured years of crap regarding the "kilted" game, so last night brought a smile to my face. Scotland won, Nordern Ayerlund with a historic victory, smug English tossers sulking!

British by Birth, American by choice, Rangers by the grace of God

[BillyBadBreaks]

PS I do want all the British teams to do well, but last night seemed poetic justice. I hope England do qualify but it should stop their fans being so arogant!

[andymackem]

The only thing which will stop our fans being arrogant is an end to the depressing hype which engulfs the English game.

We're told we have the best league in the world, and draw our national team from (some of) the star players involved in that. The only 'outsiders' come from Real Madrid and Bayern Munich, hardly Euro-minnows.

You can't be surprised that people believe it, even when it's palpably untrue.

[Al]

[ruffers]

Well thanks for that, a great help.