International Football thread

[sussexpob]

but we should beat Poland comfortably home or away. Their top defender cant get into the Leicester starting XI this year, and the rest of their squad barring the two Dortmund lads(and they play B?aszczykowski out of his usual position) is a mixture of second rate pros and completely untested 19-22 year olds. Their most capped player when they played England was playing in the Ukrainian 2nd Division!!!!

How dare you forget/not mention Boruc, hes probably the most inform Goalkeeper in the world atm.

The Denmark v Poland friendly last month was shown on TV here and Sczezesny played.... and I have seen Boruc make some horrible mistakes in his career, I remember one clanger at Celtic which I will have to find on youtube, it is funny....

Boruc is erratic....

[Durhamfootman]

We had an easy group, as easy as we could have ever hoped for

we certainly did. Amazing that this qualifying campaign is going down to the last match. Too many draws against the other challenging teams, all of whom are very modest teams, and in the three 1-1 draws England were leading in all of them, I think.

There are positive signs though, imo, with the emergence of some of the newer players, although I'm still not fully convinced by our pool of central defenders, and surely there must be better strikers than Wellbeck, Sturridge and Defoe..... If they are the best we've got, then we are really in trouble.

[SaintPowelly]

but we should beat Poland comfortably home or away. Their top defender cant get into the Leicester starting XI this year, and the rest of their squad barring the two Dortmund lads(and they play B?aszczykowski out of his usual position) is a mixture of second rate pros and completely untested 19-22 year olds. Their most capped player when they played England was playing in the Ukrainian 2nd Division!!!!

How dare you forget/not mention Boruc, hes probably the most inform Goalkeeper in the world atm.

[Alviro Patterson]

We had an easy group, as easy as we could have ever hoped for

we certainly did. Amazing that this qualifying campaign is going down to the last match. Too many draws against the other challenging teams, all of whom are very modest teams, and in the three 1-1 draws England were leading in all of them, I think.

There are positive signs though, imo, with the emergence of some of the newer players, although I'm still not fully convinced by our pool of central defenders, and surely there must be better strikers than Wellbeck, Sturridge and Defoe..... If they are the best we've got, then we are really in trouble.

Next striker on the list is Gary Hooper, then for further players you're looking at The Football League.

Interesting article by Matt Slater, in fairness he has a point as the majority of England internationals have originally come from Football League teams which puts the Premier League to shame.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/24471034

[st_brendy]

Hooper has no chance of ever getting into the England squad whilst he's sitting on Norwich's bench.

Jay Rodriguez, Fraizer Campbell, Gabby Agbonlahor, and Darren Bent I would say are ahead of him in the pecking order. And obviously Andy Carroll, once he returns from injury ("obviously" not because of his ability, or lack of, but because Roy has previously called him up). Maybe even Saido Berahino, if he can get a proper run in the WBA team.

As for Boruc, the man is a complete fruit loop. But he's also in some serious, serious form. Obviously I'm biased, but he's probably been the best goalkeeper in the PL so far this season. That said, Poland may well rest one or two players, Boruc included.

[sussexpob]

Hooper has no chance of ever getting into the England squad whilst he's sitting on Norwich's bench.

Jay Rodriguez, Fraizer Campbell, Gabby Agbonlahor, and Darren Bent I would say are ahead of him in the pecking order

He was bought with an injury, and when he scored his two goals against Watford the other week Houghton was quoted as saying that he didnt really care about the goals, he was just delighted to see Hooper looking like he could get through some game time because he was desperate to get him involved more.... its would seem that VW and GH will play up top for Norwich when Hooper is back to fitness, because Houghton has also indicated he wants to be more positive this year and switch formations..... always has looked a good player, but not sure if he can displace any of those in the squad.....

[Gingerfinch]

Big game tonight. Might be the odd mention of 1973 from Chiles and co, but we have beaten them a few times since then, including a last game qualifier in 1989. Should win, but like with Greece in 2001, things may not be easy.

[Chris de Burgh]

It is nice being able t watch tonights match as a neutral, thankfully the Team I supported were one of the first to make Brazil.

[yuppie]

Well England heading to Brazil.

Very entertaining last 2 games. Credit to Roy with his selections in these last 2 games. Team is playing well considering the pressure. Seems like the players want to play for England which has to be a good thing.

Baines looks good and will probably be number 1at LB now after this. Still not sure on Sturridge.

[sussexpob]

Sturridge and Welbeck were terrible.... Lambert is a better pick than those two, both of them have the deft touch of a rapist....

Other than that I was impressed with Townsend... didnt think he deserved the hype on Friday because apart from the goal he did things wrong, but this time he looked a threat everytime the ball came to him, and although he did some things wrong, he looks a threat.... Gerrard had a good game, and to be fair Roy surely now has to see that playing Lampard and Gerrard together is not the way.

The sad thing is if England had a striker half the quality of the Polish number 9, we would have gone into half time at 6-0... Rooney played well but I really couldnt work out what role he is playing.

If he going to stick with 4-4-2 then Carrick and Gerrard in CM(id pick Wilshere over Gerrard but it wont happen) and Rooney and Lambert up front...

But obviously we cant drop that many United players, even if they have only scored 13 goals in 6 and a half seasons as a professional

[Alviro Patterson]

Final touch was lacking from England, otherwise it would've been a one sided affair but the performance was full of intent.

Starting to like this England side who are playing without fear and able to express themselves without the nations weight on their shoulders.

[Gingerfinch]

A very good attacking performance last night, only blighted by some poor finishing. Really enjoyed the way we played, which was a refreshing change. having two wide men like Baines and Townsend suits us perfectly. The English way.

[Gingerfinch]

Sturridge and Welbeck were terrible.... Lambert is a better pick than those two, both of them have the deft touch of a rapist....

Other than that I was impressed with Townsend... didnt think he deserved the hype on Friday because apart from the goal he did things wrong, but this time he looked a threat everytime the ball came to him, and although he did some things wrong, he looks a threat.... Gerrard had a good game, and to be fair Roy surely now has to see that playing Lampard and Gerrard together is not the way.

The sad thing is if England had a striker half the quality of the Polish number 9, we would have gone into half time at 6-0... Rooney played well but I really couldnt work out what role he is playing.

If he going to stick with 4-4-2 then Carrick and Gerrard in CM(id pick Wilshere over Gerrard but it wont happen) and Rooney and Lambert up front...

But obviously we cant drop that many United players, even if they have only scored 13 goals in 6 and a half seasons as a professional

Their finishing was, but their play in general was good, especially Sturridge who showed fine touches. Wellbeck's touch goes missing at times, but his positional play opened up the flank for Baines.

[Aidan11]

Possibilty of France playing Portugal in the play offs.

[Durhamfootman]

Sturridge and Welbeck were terrible

As usual, SP.

Wellbeck is just hopeless in front of goal. He reminds me of Defoe, Bent and Andy Cole.... all strikers with lots of goals in them, but needing several gilt edged chances in order to put one of them away. Sturridge is harder, because when he does put his mind to it, he can score goals... it's just he is so indecisive when he has the ball, that by the time he's examined his options, usually involving turning himself this way and that, that when he's made up his mind the defender has generally taken the ball off him. I think from here on in I'm going to call him Mavis Sturridge, in honour of Mavis from Coronation St "ooh.... I don't really knowwww"

I only saw the highlights, but I struggled to work out what Carrick offered to the team. Baines continues to impress, and I agree with whoever said that he ought to be first choice LB. Smalling isn't (or shouldn't) be our RB, even if Johnson and/or Walker is unfit. Almost all of Poland's attacking options came down their left, because Smalling always seemed to be out of position.

I'm still unconvinced by our CBs, even though I shouldn't be, given the small number of goals we conceded over the qualifying tournament. I'm not sure what it is, but I get the distinct feeling that a decent side (and there were no other decent sides in this group) will tear us to bits. Interesting that Roy H commented on what a tough group we were in. Wasn't tough at all, although a neutral could be forgiven for thinking so, given how close it all got in the end.

I'm not at all sure that Lambert is our best strike partner for Rooney, but he certainly can't be any worse than the competition for that place. I think we need to find a reliable striker fast, if we want to get anywhere near the QF's next year.

We generally perform somewhere near our world ranking in these tournaments. When we were 6th/7th/8th in the world, we almost invariably went out at the QF stage. We are now 17th in the world, and I think we'd be doing really well to get past the 2nd round, next year, based on our qualifying performances