JWM, come & have a beer with us before the game, I can meet you in Rileys or the bar in the corner of SBR upper, let me know if you can make it.
It was a game of 2 halves for me last night, first half we looked fantastic going forward and could easily been 3 or 4 up against an alright Poland side, The worrying part for me in the first half was how slow we were getting back to defend from our own set pieces. Second half, we looked ok but we didn't hold on to the ball as well as we could, the back 5 looked pretty solid, Jags and Cahill for me look a proper partnership, one good on the ball, the other unbeatable in the air. RB could be a problem for us, im not that confident on any of the players we have at the moment. The negative for me was Michael Carrick and this myth about how well he keeps hold of the ball, to me he gave it away more than most, turned slower than steamboat and put us in trouble more times than not. We really need an enforcer in the centre, which Carrick for me isn't. A makalele type player and we would be awesome! The only other negative was the legend that is Terry Butcher didn't crack he who must not be named in the gob! But on the whole if the draw goes right for us i can see us getting to the quarters at least, I have a sneaky feeling Belgium are going to do really well this time around, perhaps get to the final.
The way Jewell set us up didn't help but it was down to Delaney and the McAuley, Delaney partnership was not a good one, if you were to go back and watch the games in which they played together, Delaney was still awful, he got caught out of position so many times it was ridiculous, it was just that McAuley knew what was going to happen and was there to mop the danger up, unfortunately after he left, people could see how poor Delaney was. I don't think Englands defence is that bad but CB IMO is the weakest area of our team and considering the CBs we've had in the past few years it looks fairly worrying especially when coming up against top top opposition.
Have to disagree with you on Carrick Hoopers, I thought he was very good and we always look much better with him in the team than Lampard. He gives us more of a balance and always offers himself for the ball which keeps us ticking over and he lets other players play to a higher standard. I was surprised when Lampard came on to replace him although his influence on the game was waining slightly but he wasn't the only one.
Think this is the 1st time I have been mistaken for Guru....I have Carrick in my starting 11 if the world cup started tomorrow
