England-2014 World Cup.

[VantaaVale]

Holland's 2nd half performance was awesome, Robben was outstanding.

 

Robben is right up there with the best in the world right now. Much talk about Messi, Ronaldo, Ribery as to who is the best, but Robben for me is as dangerous as any of those. I wish he'd cut the diving out of his game though, he doesn't need it.

 

The pundits here in Finland comment on Robben by saying everyone knows what he's going to do, but they are still powerless to prevent it.

 

From the match, Spain look like a team past their prime.

[valiant_593]

You may disagree JA but I think you've got that one totally wrong. Costa clearly looked at the defender sliding a good foot away from him, stretched his leg out and stood on top of the defender and then went down. You could argue it was a free kick to the Dutch. Same thing happened to Chelsea at the end of last season, against Southampton I think. Very clever and quick thinking play by Costa but cheating non the less.

 

I completely agree, clever from Costa but still never a penalty, it's technically cheating.

[matt 381]

Costa Rica!! Didn't see that coming, should we be happy with the result or scared of playing them?

[For Us All]

I completely agree, clever from Costa but still never a penalty, it's technically cheating.

 

Talking of Costa,Rica have just beaten Uruguay 3-1?

[Paul6754]

Everyone was concerned about England's defense....schoolboy errors again.

[valiant_593]

Thought we were really good, just made silly mistakes and were punished. If we play like that we will beat Costa Rica and Uruguay. Thought Baines, Gerrard and Rooney were poor and Sturridge, sterling and welbeck were fantastic. Italy didn't know what to do with them and we deserved a point. Oh well onto Uruguay!

[soothsayer]

No a bad performance from England but how long must we keep carrying Rooney? Bar his assist he was useless, didn't track back, tackle or work hard just ambled around with a scowl on his face. Time to get rid Roy. Johnson, Welbeck and Henderson all surprised me with their efforts last night. Same again Thursday and we should be ok.

[SourceOfTheTrent]

Hmmmmm......... frustrating night that was. Generally we didn't play too badly and there were some very good performances, Stirling in particular, but there were one or two who just weren't at the races, Gerrard being the most surprising of those. He was virtually anonymous for lots of the game and I was wondering if he was struggling with the heat and humidity.

Our demons came out to haunt us with defensive frailties costing us two goals. Where was the marking for the first goal? He hit it well enough but most people could given the time and space he had. Second goal was just an example of Cahill losing his man and getting done at the far post which will happen to him at this level because he isn't a very top level defender, decent but not great.

It was a classic Italian performance, ultra tight across midfield and the back, loads of men behind the ball, nick a goal and defend the lead. Having let their lead slip once they certainly weren't going to do the same again if they could help it. The worst bit was they only had five decent attempts on goal and from that scored two and hit the woodwork twice. Wayne Rooney wouldn't have done that well from five penalties how he played last night, apart from crossing for Sturridge he was woeful and I'd bve tempted to drop him.

 

Best thing is it's now a knock out competition for us after just one game and that suits our style better than thinking about draws and goal differences. I said before the tournament I'd be very happy if we just got out of the group and I feel even more like that now, a draw last night would have been great for us but we just weren't good enough.

[Little_Al]

Honestly the Rooney knockers having a go again without any justification. What is it: jealousy or a lack of vision. I was particularly disappointed with the fullbacks, particularly Baines who stood on the touchline halfway inside the Italy half and destroyed many England attacks. Johnson should have been covering for the second Italy goal. Gerard is out of position as a defensive midfielder - his great virtue has always been his ability to drive the team forward.

[Guppy 4 England]

We all knew how poor we were in defence , Baines is showing he's out of his depth , good premier league player but not international class.

 

Johnson we all knew can't defend but he did ok last night bar not covering Cahill , our problem last night was tactics , silly interchanging from Rooney, sterling and welbeck meant nobody knew who was supposed to be hhelping Baines out. Should have spotted this earlier and put Luke Shaw on to double up on darmian and varetta was it ?

 

We then persist with our counter attack tactics when they are sitting back , should have thrown lambert on and got down the wings as there was no room down the middle as they sat back with 9 behind the ball. No plan b , like for like swaps, disappointing from Roy.

[Robbie Earle's Perm]

No a bad performance from England but how long must we keep carrying Rooney? Bar his assist he was useless, didn't track back, tackle or work hard just ambled around with a scowl on his face. Time to get rid Roy. Johnson, Welbeck and Henderson all surprised me with their efforts last night. Same again Thursday and we should be ok.

 

Agree with all of your post with the exception of the bit about Johnson.

 

He can't defend and he's a defender, his distribution is woeful.

 

Him being out of position also caused Sterling to pick up a yellow, if he gets another now he gets a ban!

 

Crikey I would rather have Adam Yates right back for England.

 

Baines struggled as he had little or no cover from Rooney and Roy wasted a sub putting Wilshire on when he could have used Lambert.

 

Positive signs though we must stop being so wasteful in front of goal. The Italians had five chances, scored twice, hit the bar, made Hart make a great save and we had to clear one off the line. We on the other hand wasted lots.

[matt 381]

Glen Johnson is awful, can't defend and insists on cutting in on his left and loosing the ball all the time

[For Us All]

Agree with all of your post with the exception of the bit about Johnson.

 

He can't defend and he's a defender, his distribution is woeful.

 

Him being out of position also caused Sterling to pick up a yellow, if he gets another now he gets a ban!

 

Crikey I would rather have Adam Yates right back for England.

 

Baines struggled as he had little or no cover from Rooney and Roy wasted a sub putting Wilshire on when he could have used Lambert.

 

Positive signs though we must stop being so wasteful in front of goal. The Italians had five chances, scored twice, hit the bar, made Hart make a great save and we had to clear one off the line. We on the other hand wasted lots.

 

Mistake leaving Ashley Cole at home by the look of it,I thought Johnson was the better of the two full backs,which was a surprise and spot on about Wilshere.I've never known an international midfield player lose the ball so many times when going forward.

[Robbie Earle's Perm]

Mistake leaving Ashley Cole at home by the look of it,I thought Johnson was the better of the two full backs,which was a surprise and spot on about Wilshere.I've never known an international midfield player lose the ball so many times when going forward.

 

I think that was only because the Italians targeted Baines doubling up on him, I'm amazed they didn't do the same on Johnson given how he's always out of position and constantly giving the ball away.

 

I was impressed how we tried to generally retain possession of the ball.... Until Wilshire came on!

[Guppy 4 England]

I thought we could have done with a big centre-forward at*the end. Italy were getting everyone behind the ball and became very difficult*to break down at which point we could have been thinking: ‘Let’s just cross it*rather than try and create something’. But we weren’t able to do that because*we didn’t have a big striker on the park so we weren’t going to win a header*anyway. - ex England manager Peter Taylor .

 

Seems like he agreed with me !