England v Ukraine

That was incredibly like watching City last season. All the possession in the world but couldn't get past the 11 defenders for ****. It seems to be a general English football issue because Liverpool have had the very same problem in the last year or so and you see it a lot in other matches too.

Special mention for the ref who thought every tackle was a booking tonight. How many cards were there? Not even a dirty game either.

 

It really irked me to hear the commentator say Welbeck was 'unlucky' to hit the post. That's not bad luck, you thick ****, it's the sign of a poor player. What kind of forward hits the post (not even a shot on target) when he's 6-yards out and has the goal gaping?

Sturridge looked great when he came on, which makes it all the more amazing that he's behind the likes of Andy ****ing Carroll and Danny Bastard Welbeck in the striking pecking order. Glen Johnson was once again ****e, both going forward and defensively. He's OK-ish at beating a man, but whenever he gets within 20-yards of goal, he either balloons a cross over the bar or cuts onto his abysmal left foot and toe-pokes a pass to the opposing keeper. He also impressed me tonight with how bad he was at tackling, marking, heading and retaining possession. Cleverley was a key player in midfield... For the Ukraine... Jagielka looked like a headless chicken at the back, and Gerrard seems to be getting worse with every game.

 

I agree about Johnson- he tries to beat players when whipping a cross in would probably be the best option.

Milner is another i don't rate.

Defoe needs more support upfront, but he puts it about well and is a handful.

At the back, it wasn't the greatest match for the centre halves, but luckily they were equally dire infront of goal (apart from the class goal) as we were.

 

I say it all the time, but we really need a settled England side. When you see Spain play, for all the exciting young players they have coming through you rarely see them play without most of their core players: Villa, Iniesta, Xavi, Pique, etc. Our core players for ages have been Gerrard, Lampard, Rooney, Terry, etc. and we hardly ever play a game with all of them in the team. Yet when it comes to a tournament they're all there of course, hardly knowing a thing about each other's games. The PL clubs obviously rule the roost and decide when a player is injured if it suits them,

 

How is it a disallowed goal if the ref has blown before Defoe strikes the ball?You can clearly hear the whistle on the TV.

 

That is a disallowed goal.

There is no such thing as a genuine "disallowed goal" in Football, as far as I know. If the ball goes into the goal in open play - it's a goal, no matter what. If a foul is committed before the goal, the ref awards the correct response to that foul. Play stops at the foul, and anything afterwards is ignored.

By your interpretation, there would never have been a disallowed goal for offside - because the moment the linesman's flag is raised, a foul has been committed.

 

This is a very worrying development.

Alex Bruce's pukey ways are spreading, like a wave of unwanted vomit, across the squad.

Who will be next? Sick bags at the ready.

 

Thought it was a good game last night, both teams created some good chances, could have been anything from 0-0 to 4-4. Everyone seems to think we should have walked last night, but after the Euros Ukraine were always going to be well up for it and it was never going to be easy. I said all along last nights match was the biggest potential banana skin we'd get in the qualifiers and it turned out it was. Ukraine also, whilst not being great, have a handy team with the odd fantastic player, it was only 5 minutes before their goal I was saying how good and dangerous Konoplyanka and Yamolenko are out wide and we'll have to stop them both cutting in and putting one away, and it happened.

Even though it was a draw I still think the performance holds alot of grounds for positivity, we created all game long and generally looked better than we usually have in the past, it was just the finishing that let us down and on another day we could have had 4 or 5, but with a combination of a resilient Ukraine defence and nervy England attack it was always going to end how it did and both teams fully deserve that point. It's not like we were utter dog **** like we were against Italy, Ukraine in the euros or France were vs Spain in the quarters (now that was a truly **** performance), we played well, it just wasn't our day.

 

I never saw the match last night, but listened to the second half on 5Live. They said that Ukraine were sitting deep and hitting on the counter-attack quickly. I don't know if that's right, but if that is their game, surely they will not play like that at home? A lot of teams do it at home, but their home supporters expect them to attack

 

I liked the look of the Ukrainian kid who scored- Konoplianka (sp). Ran Johnson ragged all match and his goal was a belter.

Just seen some other highlights from other matches on last night. Scotland look like they're already out in their group. Croatia v Serbia v Belgium for top dogs in that one. Some tasty matches in the Balkans there- bet it kicks off.

Spain only just scrapped through 1-0 last night. Made me feel a bit better.

 

I had Spain in all 4 of my multiples last night, I was tearing my hair out. Only 2 ended up coming in though coz of ****ing Argentina (only team I picked that didn't win) which only gave me a couple houndred, had Argentina won I'd be a proud multi-thousandaire at this moment

 

I agree with Bob - I thought England were OK last night, which probably shows how low my expectations of them are these days. A 3-1 scoreline would not have flattered them.

Funny to think that these are the best two teams in the group - it really is a weak qualifying group. (But with the quality spread thinly among 9 groups, there are other weak ones besides ours.)

 

The last time I got excited watching England was at Italia 90. Apart from a slight upward blip at Euro 96 I think we've been in decline ever since.

 

Argentina 98? Germany 5-1 in Munich? Argentina 2002? I'd agree with you since then it's been downhill and dire.

 

I guess what I meant to say was that Italia 90 was the last time I watched a major tournament that I got excited enough to think England might win the tournament. I remember when England lost the semi I was quite low for a few days, now if England lose it doesn't seem to bother me because my expectations are quite low.

 

I still get pissed off. Not because we're out, but because we never do ourselves justice & we just roll over. The WC 2010 & the Euros this summer were hard to stomach.

At least in 90, 96 & 98 we had a go.

 

I agree, the performance against Italy in the Euros showed how far behind we are. Credit to the defence though for us getting to penalties.

 

Thing is, us fans are partly responsible for us being behind countries like Spain and Italy. The modern passing game works really well for them, and we aren't very good at it at all. Defences now can cope with the ball in front of them really well, even when its a **** team. What we lack that other countries have is the ability to break down those defences by patiently moving their defenders about and creating openings. English fans just want the ball FORWARD constantly and will even use it as criticism against a player when he passes sideways too much (Cairney for example). All we want to see is pace and balls in the box but it achieves **** all, we need to use our skillful midfield players like other countries do and get them on the ball. It might come in time, but right now that is where we are a long way behind and the sooner we accept that and stop groaning whenever the ball goes sideways or god forbid even backwards, the sooner we'll sort it out.

 

One perfectly good goal disallowed for no reason and 2 shocking misses by Tom Cleverley and one by Danny Welbeck regradless of the fact DW effort hit the post. England chucked away 2 points but i dont expect it to be that costly by the end of the group.

As for the referee he is good enough for the PL list. What an arse he was. Nevermind over fussy more like..........