My option if given the choice would have been Defoe for Milner in the last 15 minutes, to give a bit of pace and invention up front to feed off of Lambo, but it appeared that they didn't want to risk losing a point rather than trying to get all of them.
Precisely so. Walcott was pushing up with Lambert, but his control and passing was poor. Wilshere's pass selection was off. Milner was.... somewhere else. I don't think Rickie was all that impressive second half, but he won his flicks and headers - which is all he could really do. He was limited by the style too.
I think Lambert played as well as anyone else in a poor England performance. Granted he didn't have any attempts a goal, but he got very little service all night from the woeful midfield. Lambet did win most of the aerial battles, fought hard and his passes generally reached their targets. He didn't do anything wrong, even if he was better in the first half. In my opinion, I think he deserves to retain his England place. I forgot Lampard was playing until he put his header wide at the end of the match.
Rickie played a lot better than Theo and James Milner all match, for example. And there's the service gone, Despite that atrocious lack of service he was still trying to make things happen, and it was clear he had ideas. I think you're being a little harsh on him. What was he supposed to do..? I still think he played reasonably well in the 2nd half because as a CF, he is dependant upon support from other players, and he was becoming increasingly isolated. On the few occasions England did get forward in the 2nd half, the most penetrating attacks involved Rickie's positive contribution.
I think he deserves to keep his place. I think he won a lot of the arial battles. I think he worked his socks off. In the first half he was good, in fact the only player who looked like he knew what he was doing. However, despite the lack of support, etc, his touch deserted him in the second half. He was close to being England's MOM, but that doesn't stop me thinking he was not good in the second half when the ball did eventually get to him in the right manner.
London media love affair with Arsenal accounts for a lot. They think because he came through the Arsenal ranks, he must be amazing. Honestly thought that was one of the worst displays by a footballer I've ever seen tonight.
Go back and read my post before your post that I responded to. It is one sentence. He was good first half; poor second half. Yes, most England players were worse than him and there was lots of mitigation, such as being tired , poor service, etc, but if you strip it down, his touch was poor and his passing was poor in the second half. He's a Saints legend and an England hero, but I think too many here don't want to see that he wasn't on his game second half. Forget the second half though because he was very good in the first half.
I agree with Choccy too. Though I might have been less forthright about it. It does make you wonder what Wenger says to his players sometimes.
No change there. The guy is absolute rubbish. England's midfield is mostly to blame for our poor performances in recent years, despite the talk about our strikers IMO.
A bit unfair when the passes that actually did go towards him were hit with far too much pace, with a rough house CH up his backside, it was always going to be difficult to control the ball, so he was trying the one touch pass, which no one had the gumption to latch on to.
Well, we largely thought that Rickie would never get a shot or a reward from England. Just a couple of weeks later, he's got three caps and two goals, including two starts and one full-ninety. If that's it, he at least got what he had been working for. Well done Rickie Lambert.
Sounds like none of you have seen Wilshere play before! He was poor tonight but if he can stop getting injured all the time, he is vital to England's hopes of winning anything anytime soon.
That shouldn't be it, he's more than capable of being the 4th choice forward. It'd also be extremely harsh of the Owl to drop him after on average game.
I'm one of those who doesn't watch a lot of football outside of Saints. For example, watching England matches is a renewed experience for me, after years of not bothering. So I've been getting a good look at Wilshere of late and it has left me wondering why he is thought to be so special. I think he flatters to deceive a little. He bustles about and works very impressively, but the end product does not seem to win matches over anyone else in his position, at present. A work in progress, as far as I'm concerned. How old is he, by the way..?
