Slovenia, quite a few places above Ireland. Must be a really ****e Slovenia, higher than Ireland in the rankings. A country which can't beat Ireland must be really ****e.
Pundits calling it right there, Lallana needs to start, no creativity without him. Starting with a proper right back would also be a half decent idea.
My thought on the game; Gibbs is the new Smalling, absolutely ****ing useless. Going forward and in defence he was awful, should never start again. Wilshere did well, obviously. Smalling, say no more. Not up to standard. Rooney should have been subbed on 60 minutes but I'm glad he wasn't. Delph, has his critics but I like him at this level and thought he played well. Lallana looked the best player on the pitch and should be played in that role from the off. Henderson, decent enough in centre mid but what the **** was the Owl thinking? That brings me onto the Owl. Clueless but lucky. We've walked this group, Scotlands wait will have to stretch a bit longer. It's been 17 years since they last qualified, another two won't make any difference.
Great game. Our defence is a bit suspect but it's just not very good on paper is it. Midfield and attack look way better. Smalling just relies on being able to climb all over people. He's quite good at getting away with it but that's hardly worthy of an England spot.
Our defence was **** today. Against a decent team we'd get shown up for the second rate mugs we are. Unless we become the 1970 Brazil team we'll win nowt.
With such a suspect defence trying to play cautiously is futile. We should take a more cavalier attitude, knowing we're likely to concede, but allow the attack to flourish and just try to out score all our enemies.
The result would suggest we did exactly that. We didn't win through cautious play did we? We outscored them through a few moments of brilliance.
The score line? Maybe. Two ****ty errors gave away two ****ty goals. We were hardly cutting through them creating chance after chance, two goals game from picking up loose balls after tackles, one was just extraordinary. It was still quite reserved and cautious football.
Half decent game with two half decent teams. I think Woy got what he wanted out of it and now we have to see what the next part of his game-plan is. Give the guy and the lads a chance. I watched it in a local pub and it was brilliant to hear the cheers when we scored - were they really watching England!!!
Nice to see someone establish himself as a must-start England regular today. Wilshere? Well, I suppose so - but I was thinking of Nathaniel Clyne.
For once was a reasonable performance, and as others have said we looked much better when Lallana came on, has to start.
