June 19, 201213 yr A pretty exciting second half. I'm pleased to see England qualify, but I do think they played quite poorly for a majority of the game. I'm surprised to see them top the group though, but I'm not sure if they can beat Italy (which would see neither team qualifying from group A or D qualifying with a Germany-Portugal-Spain-Italy final four I guess).
June 19, 201213 yr Much better in the second half, we actually looked dangerous at times. Steven Gerrard was immense. How many assists does he have so far? 3 or 4? Was brilliant anyway, I've not see him play this well consistently for a while! Still think Carroll is a better option than Welbeck up front. One assist in each match I think, Gerrard and Parker have been a great partnership all tournament really. Terry and Lescott were immense at times, and Cole and Johnson defended very well too. Milner worked his socks off and Young had his best game. Rooney seems to have taken a lot of stick but he played fairly well, a few good flicks and passes, he made things flow between attack and midfield better than they often have.
June 19, 201213 yr Gerrard is always the man for the big games, awesome once again! I must say Lescott has suprised me so far, I've never rated him that much but he's been brilliant. Hopefully Rooney should be sharper after a good 85 minutes tonight. As for the disallowed goal, 1. It was offside anyway and 2. Remember Lampard against Germany? These things level out and its about time England had a bit of luck 3. We have gone through and won the group anyway.
June 19, 201213 yr Author One assist in each match I think, Gerrard and Parker have been a great partnership all tournament really. Terry and Lescott were immense at times, and Cole and Johnson defended very well too. Milner worked his socks off and Young had his best game. Rooney seems to have taken a lot of stick but he played fairly well, a few good flicks and passes, he made things flow between attack and midfield better than they often have. Our attacking play in the first half was just not good enough. Too many wrong decisions, slow play etc. if you're playing counter attacking football you've got to be better than that. Young, Milner, Rooney and Welbeck were all way way way below par in the first half. If that happens against Italy we'll get beaten comfortably. Luckily they all got better as the game went on and Rooney looked fitter in the second half.
June 19, 201213 yr Much better in the second half, although our attacking players still weren't great. Welbeck was invisible at times and Milner and Young weren't at their best again Gerrard easily MOTM Bring on Italy !
June 19, 201213 yr Pleased that we're through, although I did feel quite sorry for Ukraine as they were really trying their hardest. A solid performance from us despite some questionable moments We've avoided Spain (for now)! :D Edited June 19, 201213 yr by C.W
June 19, 201213 yr Actually really enjoyed our performance, liked the doggedness and the resilience we showed under a hostile atmosphere and a lot of pressure from Ukraine. My prediction of "1 goal in it" wasn't wrong, albeit I predicted a 2-1. So far Hodgson's done a decent job, he's got us battling, playing together as a team and there's an assuredness and a steel about England that was never there under Cappello. The lack of any sort of expectancy has helped as well, of course. I'm sticking with my original statement that qualification from our group is success for what i'd call a mostly very average side, winning the group is certainly an amicable achievement. What I would say is that it'll be interesting to see how we fare if we set up as we have against teams with the quality to break us down. But who knows, from this point onwards we're completely unfavoured, we'll be underdogs against Italy and should we progress we'll be underdogs against whoever else we play. We can relax slightly now, barring an absolute catastrophe against the Italians the players can come home from this tournament with their heads held high.
June 19, 201213 yr Author No chance against Italy and even if we do beat them, Germany await. Well we have a better chance against Italy than we do Spain. For the simple fact that I we really struggled playing against deep forwards today. They kept finding pockets of space in the first half. It would be similar against Spain. With Italy we have more of a chance. We'll be underdogs and rightly so, but the pundits on ITV were spot on today having possession doesn't anything if you can't score. Barcelona do it against Chelsea, the same with Bayern Munich. Happened with Liverpool so much this season aswell. We're actually set up like a more attacking version of di Matteo's Chelsea. I would put five in midfield against Italy, but Hodgson will stick to 4-4-2.
June 20, 201213 yr Well we have a better chance against Italy than we do Spain. For the simple fact that I we really struggled playing against deep forwards today. They kept finding pockets of space in the first half. It would be similar against Spain. With Italy we have more of a chance. We'll be underdogs and rightly so, but the pundits on ITV were spot on today having possession doesn't anything if you can't score. Barcelona do it against Chelsea, the same with Bayern Munich. Happened with Liverpool so much this season aswell. We're actually set up like a more attacking version of di Matteo's Chelsea. I would put five in midfield against Italy, but Hodgson will stick to 4-4-2. We do stand more of a chance against Italy but having a potential semi against Germany instead of Portugal kind of outweighs that. Still, making the QFs is a good result and probably wouldn't have been achieved under another manager.
June 20, 201213 yr Author We do stand more of a chance against Italy but having a potential semi against Germany instead of Portugal kind of outweighs that. Still, making the QFs is a good result and probably wouldn't have been achieved under another manager. I still think we would have qualified under another manager. The doom and gloom merchants only really came out after Hodgson was appointed and the "people's choice" wasn't. Germany 2010 really taught a lot of people that we're not good enough (and we're still not). It's not any managers fault, it's just the players we need weren't being produced. Thankfully the next 2-3 years should see some more technically gifted players coming through, and hopefully we'll have a younger more in touch with modern day football ready to take charge of England.
June 20, 201213 yr To be honest it's great that we're hard to beat and getting results, but is this really what we want for the future of English football ? It'll be interesting to see what happens when the likes of Gerrard, Terry, Parker etc.. retire and Hodgson is left with the more technically gifted players, who won't put their bodies on the line and won't want to defend deep for 90 minutes
June 20, 201213 yr I still think we would have qualified under another manager. The doom and gloom merchants only really came out after Hodgson was appointed and the "people's choice" wasn't. Germany 2010 really taught a lot of people that we're not good enough (and we're still not). It's not any managers fault, it's just the players we need weren't being produced. Thankfully the next 2-3 years should see some more technically gifted players coming through, and hopefully we'll have a younger more in touch with modern day football ready to take charge of England. There's an interesting article here about why Hodgson was a sensible choice for the tournament, and it does make me doubt whether we'd be in the last eight under Redknapp at least.
June 20, 201213 yr Can I just ask what these extra officials exactly do. FIFA - blah blah we say no to goal line tech, so here's 2 more refs who will spot everything instead. Ooops! I fancy us against the Italians, but it won't be easy, it's all very well having heroic defending (Lescott, Terry's goal line plus clearance), but eventually something will slip in.
June 20, 201213 yr http://i49.tinypic.com/1628v1s.png http://i49.tinypic.com/2rw9cmq.png http://i49.tinypic.com/2m7atyq.png Pass Completion Gerrard: 48 out of 53 91% Parker: 43 out of 47 91% Cole: 30 out of 34 88% Lescott: 27 out of 33 82% Rooney: 25 out of 33 76% Terry: 20 out of 25 80% Young: 18 out of 22 82% Johnson: 15 out of 19 79% Welbeck: 15 out of 16 94% Milner: 9 out of 13 69% Hart: 7 out of 18 39% Carroll: 3 out of 6 50% Walcott: 1 out of 1 100% Oxlaide-Chamberlain: 1 out of 1 100%
June 20, 201213 yr Hodgson is the perfect short term appointment, and so far he has handled himself exceptionally well with almost every question he's been asked, particularly how hostile it's sometimes been about 'Arry, Rio and Richards (to a lesser extent). The team spirit is as good as it's been since we hosted in 96, the atmosphere surrounding the team and fans is great and we've got as far as we have in any of the previous 9 tournaments we haven't hosted.
June 20, 201213 yr Ukraine were robbed a goal :o I wonder if there were riots over there They were not robbed of a goal because it was offside.
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