France-Serbia : 2-0

Ribéry looked like his former self, and Malouda scored too.
Clichy was involved in the first goal; I hope Blanc will consider this when it comes to the left flank berth.

Glad to hear Parker is expected to be fully fit in time for the france game

But disapointed to read that roy might keep the door open for michael carrick. Fuck michael carric i'd rather have Jordan Henderson. Fuck michael carrick and his sulky "im not playing unless im first choice" bollocks. Hes not even that good. James Milner is miles ahead of michael fucking carrick.

I'm not sure about Parker. He'll go but he won't play full games. He's already on injections. We are well and truly fucked. The squad is shit. A midfield that includes Downing and Henderson as potential starters is just embarrassing. We're back to the dark days when the likes of Carlton Palmer were getting England caps. All this talk about doing a Greece, I don't even think we look good enough to do a Greece at the moment. Looking at us now I honestly think we'll have done well if we get past the group stage.

i saw part of this game and then the summary-- awesome goals!

Scott Parker is knackered, if he really was the WW1 fighter pilot his haircut suggests he would have been shot down by the Red Baron in about April.

All this talk of the war, the thing I'm definitely not looking forward to in the Euros is having to listen to that fucking brass band playing The Great Escape during every bastard England game. I'd be going absolutely mental if I was sat near those cunts. And besides that, they're just embarrassing. I can barely stomach the Three Lions thing but that brass band make me cringe every time I hear them. Let them spoil the Olympics if they want but I hope the FA sees sense and breaks all ties with the fuckers.

Everyones been fed up of the brass band for years, but its the kind of thing the FA loves to latch onto as if it signifies a great English tradition or something, and now that theyve been around for so long they cant let them go. Especially over fucking Jubilee weekend.

Well, England v Belgium this evening so we'll see if they serenade us through that.

I got tickets through a friend for the swiss qualifier at wembley and the seats were a few rows forward from them in the next block along.
I was suprised as to how little it bothered me. On tv they are more annoying than mark lawrenceson but in the flesh they just blended into the background noise.
Or maybe my irritability and annoyance was taken up by the poor football? (Until ashley young came on...)

oh damn, austria 1 ahead barely 2 minutes on. not that i expect either team to be a star, but eh. game is on right now.

England v Belgium

A decent win and we seem pretty well organised, but we're still giving possession away far too easily. A win is a win but I dunno, I just can't summon any kind of enthusiasm for this England side. Cole and Parker were their usual solid selves and Welbeck surely has to be picked ahead of Carroll but Oxlade-Chamberlain was quiet, and fuck knows how Gerrard got man of the match.

This was the first time I'd seen Eden Hazard and thought he was pretty meh, really, although I appreciate he's probably a different player altogether when he's with Lille.

Oxlade Chamberlain showed how he isnt ready to start games.
Wellbeck deserved MOTM

If we remember before Capello quit the big complaint was "Oh we're so shit we cant keep posession". Now for the most part people are saying "Yeah, we're shit and we cant keep posession. Lets just try and work around it". Ths pessimism is much more productive than overplaying how good the team is, they havent got the talent at the moment, but they can be organised and grind it out.

Yeah, I agree about being able to grind it out. Two clean sheets can't be sniffed at either. We still haven't seen how Hodgeson would react to having to chase a game, though. Hardly his fault but it's all been a bit too according-to-plan so far.

Hopefully of interest to some of you, the people at that ZonalMarking website I linked the other day have come up with their own European team of the season. I don't know all the players listed but it's definitely a far more interesting line-up than the other one I linked.




First Team:

Joe Hart, Manchester City
Stephan Lichtsteiner, Juventus
Vincent Kompany, Manchester City
Mats Hummels, Dortmund
Jordi Alba, Valencia
Andrea Pirlo, Juventus
Yaya Touré, Manchester City
Santi Cazorla, Málaga
Cristiano Ronaldo, Real Madrid
Lionel Messi, Barcelona
Falcao, Atlético Madrid


Substitutes:

Gianluigi Buffon, Juventus
Lukasz Piszczek, Dortmund
Thiago Silva, Milan
Sergio Ramos, Real Madrid
Giorgio Chiellini, Juventus
Xavi Hernandez, Barcelona
Arturo Vidal, Juventus
Marco Reus, Borussia Mönchengladbach
David Silva, Manchester City
Robin van Persie, Arsenal
Olivier Giroud, Montpellier


Here's the link for more info ...

http://www.zonalmarking.net/2012/05/...e-year-201112/

Hard to know how to feel after that. So far all 3 strikers look ok. Defoe will always be dangerous, welbeck had a good game and took a very good goal, and i thought carrol looked good against Norway, linking up with ashley young nicely. Young looked rubbish today though, slow and easily gave away possesion.
I dont think we have a problem defensively and up front we are dangerous. We just cant seem to get the ball up to our strickers. Which is odd because gerrard, parker and milner are really good too.
Im gonna blame walcot and downing

I think our defence looks ok. Ashley Cole is obviously superb and I really rate Cahill. Personally I'd start Lescott ahead of Terry but so long as he stays fit and behaves himself, he does work well with Cahill and is greatly helped by Parker sitting just behind the midfield. I still don't like Glenn Johnson. A strong winger will tear him apart. He's fine when we're chasing a game but I don't trust him if we're trying to defend a lead. I think we still really miss Gary Neville in that position.

Our forwards will always score if given the chance but the problem, as you say, is our midfield. Gerrard's not the player he was and Milner's decent but not one to turn a game around. I still have a soft spot for Wallcot but he's obviously not a player you can rely on, and Oxlade Chamberlain seems another tournament away from showing his real potential. Young does go missing and makes mistakes but (as we saw today) he's always capable of doing something out of the blue, making him probably our most dangerous midfielder at the moment. But I think the midfield will generally struggle to create chances and likely get heavily overrun by the better teams. Our best bet may be with set-pieces. We have a fair bit of height and Terry, Cahill, Carroll, etc are always dangerous when it comes to corners.

Cahill is out, and Martin Kelley is in. Apparently Micah Richards also ruled himself out when he wasn't picked first time. Prick.
Still think we'll be ok with Lescott and Jagielca. It is a shame though

Id have Lescott and Cahill all day, they both play understudy in their club life but they rise to the challenge for England. If Kyle Walker was fit he's my no1 all day long, he isnt a great defender like Cole yet but he seems like much more of a live wire who's ready to learn and get better than Glen Johnson who just looks comfy as fuck

and youre singing my tune about Gary Neville, ive always loved him. He has the kind of face that people dislike, but he's a thousand times more passionate than some prat like Phil Jones.