Football World Cup 2014

[Lethul]

Take off Baines and put Flanni Alves on!

 

[Madmaxx]

I'm also not to keen on Henderson and Gerrard just because they are doing the same thing sitting in front of the defence, doing an all right job but 2 defense mids are a bit much vs italy when losing.

 

[soze]

Johnson really is rather bad.

 

[Job]

New stratergy from England..all goal shots will be bounced off passing jumbo jets.

 

[Calaen]

wilshere just runs into fucking people, and we havent got anyone in the box at all. Hodgson needs to pull Rooney if he's not going to play him as cenger forward

 

[Lethul]

Lost a lot of penetration when sturridge went off. Still they played better than i expected

 

[Madmaxx]

England are a good squad just not good enough tonight, loads of skyward crosses, mismatch on the left with Baines isolated alot vs 2; I would've took Rooney off earlier personally but still some good performances elsewhere.

 

[Calaen]

played better than we usually do and created a good few chances. You simply have to score when you create chances though, rather lose like that than they way we did in the last competition!

 

[Embattle]

I think we played fairly well in a number of areas, we played better in this game compared to the 2 friendly games even though this result was worse.

 

[Ch3tan]

That's the best England have played for a while and Roy is sticking with giving the future if the team a chance. The core of this team will still be around in 2016. The loss was hard to take because the goals were both soft though.

 

[ileks]

Decent performance. I thought we were very unlucky. I don't want to hear about how promising the future is though. Say that when we're out.

 

[miri]

Shows why every member of that back line is suspect other than Cahill imo. Jagielka has no aerial presence, Johnson is woeful and Baines isn't good enough at actually defending (wonderful going forward though and a shame his free kick didn't go in).

All in all I thought it was a very positive performance. Henderson and Welbeck especially impressed me, but the stand out was obviously Sterling. If we play like that against Uruguay and Costa Rica we will go through to the next round I should think.

 

[ileks]

I just hope Suarez isn't fit to play. Shit even if he comes on as a sub I'm going to be bricking it.

 

[MYstIC G]

Sterling was absolutely brilliant to watch, every time he had the ball I was hoping he'd have a crack at getting past his Italian counterpart and boy did he manage to!

 

[Calaen]

Final balls though, they have to be better against the top teams. The whole team were guilty of being wasteful in the final third.

Id of liked to see Lambert on to link up with Barkley, Lallana and Stirling. Because hes the only real striker we have that links up and creates space for runners.

 

[Calaen]

Japan all over ivory coast

 

[Bigmac]

Gerrard played dogshit. Best player was Rooney, not for his striking but for his passing. England played shit and deserved to lose.

 

[Olgaline]

so many wasted chances for the Ivory Coast

 

[BloodOmen]

https://vine.co/v/MIqup0UpdpK

what a useless cunt, lol.

 

[Job]

Game of two halves..Hodgson saw his chance and was brave enough to take it...the team rallied under pressure and didnt let the occasion overwhelm them..good solid performance and used the first half experience to up their game to match the vitality of Italy in the second half.

 

[Raven]

A few positives (as usual) a few old guard showing why its time we dumped the lot of them and started a fresh with youngsters.

We aren't going to be winning shit in the next 10 years, we can at least try to get a good team of youngsters playing with each other. The only way to get international tournament experience is to actually play.

Rooney needs to start doing his job or get dropped. Actually fuck it, he has had plenty of chances. Drop him straight away.

 

[Billargh]

I'm currently in Greece, the bar I was in went fucking off it after 3 minutes, we all thought Sterling had scored until we seen an alternate angle.

Wilshire is total dog shit, shouldn't be anywhere near the England team. Baines, while he didn't have his best night defensively, was also wank going forward. Rooney, meh. Gerrard seemed incapable of making a long pass.

It was positive from us though, Sterling was sensational, Sturridge also made some decent runs and efforts. I was pleased with the performance, obviously not so much the result.

 

[MYstIC G]

Rooney needs to start doing his job or get dropped. Actually fuck it, he has had plenty of chances. Drop him straight away.

Except without him we wouldn't have had our goal. His problem is he needs to do what he's told and play where he's been put. I got so tired of hearing "play him where he wants to play" fuck that he's never scored at a world cup, he clearly choked whenever he went for goal directly.

 

[Vladamir]

Would like to see more of Lallana and Barkley after last night, can't help but feel we would've looked a bit more solid at the back at Ashley Cole been there. Encouraging performance though, plenty of optimism for going through still if Roy gets his selections right.

 

[soze]

They should have put Henderson on the left and told him to start tracking back to cover for Rooney and Baines being shit. The midfield battle was lost overall as I think Italy were just better. Gerrard did not really seem to have much about him at the end and I think I would have left Henderson on and taken him off.

 

[Tuthmes]

From what I saw England actually played well (very good goal aswell). Any team will struggle against Italy. I love to watch Pierlo play. Whenever he gets the ball, the whole world just seems to calm down. See: http://nos.nl/wk2014/video/661319-wk-2014-engeland--italie.html @ 1:30. The ball bounces up, but he isnt bothered at all.

I should mention I was wrong about the Netherlands aswell. For the 2nd halve anyway. I'm really enjoying the worldcup so far.

 

[Shagrat]

At this level you have to take the chance when it comes to you, and that was the difference last night. Balotelli had one chance and scored, Rooney had probably an easier chance and missed it.

 

[Chilly]

I had a good night overall. The England bet lost, but that's how gambling is. Overall I was about a grand up for the day. I'll post up my next tranche of bets later before today's games.

 

[Hawkwind]

Thought England played OK. Strange setup that was very attack motivated. Biggest problem was on the left with Baines being constantly left to try and stop two players. Rooney tried to support but often was nowhere to be seen and leaving them with a 2v1 and easy penetration down the left. You could see that before halftime yet we did nothing about it. The Italian second goal was always going to come from that left side. I thought we were tactically naive and should have done something more down the left. With Rooney and pushing too far up we were left open constantly.

Once they got the second goal they parked the bus and let us come at a 10 man defense. Don't think Wilshire or Lallana played badly but being asked to try and breakdown that defense and chase a goal was never going to happen. Far too crowded around the 18 yard line. The only way I did see it happening was with Sterling running into the box at their left back and getting a pen. He (IT left back) was quite shocking and we did not take advantage of that at all.

The only England player who looked bad was Johnson, poor touch and bad decisions. Rooney's movement was not good and he was easily marked for much of the game. Sterling was amazing, he looked calm and was terrifying their defense every time he got the ball.

 

[ileks]

Thought England played OK. Strange setup that was very attack motivated. Biggest problem was on the left with Baines being constantly left to try and stop two players. Rooney tried to support but often was nowhere to be seen and leaving them with a 2v1 and easy penetration down the left. You could see that before halftime yet we did nothing about it. The Italian second goal was always going to come from that left side. I thought we were tactically naive and should have done something more down the left. With Rooney and pushing too far up we were left open constantly.

Once they got the second goal they parked the bus and let us come at a 10 man defense. Don't think Wilshire or Lallana played badly but being asked to try and breakdown that defense and chase a goal was never going to happen. Far too crowded around the 18 yard line. The only way I did see it happening was with Sterling running into the box at their left back and getting a pen. He (IT left back) was quite shocking and we did not take advantage of that at all.

The only England player who looked bad was Johnson, poor touch and bad decisions. Rooney's movement was not good and he was easily marked for much of the game. Sterling was amazing, he looked calm and was terrifying their defense every time he got the ball.

Pretty much my thoughts as well. Welbeck is worth a mention - he was great in the first half when the game was more open. I must admit I thought he was poor in the friendlies but he showed some real quality last night, particularly in winning the ball back and starting breaks.

If we line up like that again do you think Barkley should start ahead of Rooney down the left? Or would that leave us even more exposed? I think he's better at taking the ball forward and beating a man, but won't make the same intelligent runs into the box or have the same range of passing as Wayne.