Had the misfortune of catching some of Alan Green's phone-in on 606 after the game on my way to get a sausage in batter and chips (mentioned for accuracy). Christ, what a miserable bastard he should just do himself a favour and eat a bullet. England - missing their best attacker and with Parker not fully fit, put in a good shift last night and a draw against a superior french side was a good result. Well done them and Roy for overseeing it. Clearly Alan Green and other anti-Englanders (and let me clear, I'm not a die hard fan by any stretch!) were upset that they couldn't blurt out their pre-written obituaries. They will get to though when England eventually go out and be proven 'right'. Losers. England need to beat Sweden, get out the group and hope that Rooney can deliver the goods with the other forwards whilst the defence keep tight and midfield work hard. It probably won't happen but it's the best we've got so so be it - we looked united for once.
I thought it was a damned good performance by England. I know I diss teams that defend and play negative football, but I appreciate good defending as much as I do good attacking, a good shot is as good as a good tackle. England's defending was fantastic at times and they deserve some credit. If they can reproduce defending like that - which I don't doubt they can, if they get the attacking balance right, England will cause more than a few problems because England ALWAYS seem to be able to score against teams, be it Brazil, Spain or whoever.
Man i hope the poles do the russians tonight. Their fans are a feckin disgrace. and yeah , Green is a right dingbat. waffle , waffle waffle. cant stand the bloke.
Really looking forward to this Poland and Russia game. Both teams played such an open attacking style in their first games.
Arshavin's footwork is excellent this game. He really looks very confident on the ball and is making some excellent passes every time he has the ball. edit: just got an assist as well.
Interesting that Advocaat seems to have relieved Arshavin from any kind of defensive responsibilities. Even when the CFs are back all the way he roams around 35 meters from goal. He isn't tracking back much either. Pretty logical IMO, he doesn't have the stamina to move up and down the pitch all game, so why not only use his energy for what he's good at? With us it was pretty frequent he would chase the opponents RB, and be completely dead for the counter attack.
Tyton has done excellently in the absence of Szczesny. Will be interesting to see if their coach continues with him for the rest of the tournament.
Jesus H Christ , Poland are the most negative team i have ever seen . 5 Minutes to go , they are the host nation , have the chance to get 3 points against their most hated neighbours but instead they pass the ball back and sideways with NO effort to even get to the russian box. At 85 minutes they give up and play for the point . Sh1te.
russia gave up at 80 mins. and they r teh favourites from that good. a point is amazing for poland, less so for russia
Watched the game and it was quite entertaining. I thought Poland had a poor team but when i looked more closely, they have a few good players. They have 3 players who all play for Borussia Dortmund, one of which has around 22 goals in the league! The biggest problem is they lack belief, if they could consistently play well throughout the full 90 minutes, they would have beaten Russia by a couple of goals. Russia on the other hand played good football in patches and just disappeared in the last 10-15 minutes....
Tbf he didn't really have much to do. Excellently might be stretching it, but he played well. I still think Shezza will play vs Czech Republic.
I think Tyton was really safe at the back and his distribution was better than Szczesny's. Not sure he'll stick with Tyton as Szczesny is first choice. Personally i still think Szczesny is a little green and in a crunch game, I would go for a more safer option in Tyton. Szczesny obviously is the future.
I thought Lewandowski was best player on the pitch, magnificent effort and ability. Poland ran out of steam because they put so much into the game at certain points, so unlucky to be behind having made all the running then the effort they put in getting back level. Good result and the least they deserved.
Pepe scores! But wait... he was dead minutes before. Must be some sort of Wolverine. These are full-time professional referees... why would any referee stop the game (Denmark in full flow) because that proven notorious cheating weasel Pepe is on the floor holding his foot/shin/whatever? And I see Mereiles only gets a booking for deliberate handball when Denmark in on goal - fair stuff. When Portugal are in trouble then go all-out to cheat their way to victory - most disgusting top nation in the world.
