Tonight's football thread

[Danbert Nocurry]

I predict a thrilling game of top sportsmanship this evening, with the italians showing their well renowned courage and toughness.

It will however finish 1-1, with England winning on penalties

The Daily Mail will call for John Terry to be knighted

The dads army theme tune will be re-released by The Stone Roses

[stevefoster]

Penalties, kin swear word:angry:

[biara]

Justice done. But unlucky England.

[dominion]

Pah! Can't even hit the target! Having a penalty saved is unfortunate, putting it wide, hitting the cross bar is poor!!

[Danbert Nocurry]

Thought we played the first half semi decently but then run out of puff and ideas. If you bring Carroll on you're basically giving up football in favour of a hoof. :thunbdown:

[TheReverand]

Well that was sobering, completely outplayed. I will say it again, Young was terrible, virtually all tournament. Rooney again fails to deliver in a tournament for his country. All this Gash about doing great getting out the group, feck off its the least we should expect from a group of players we are led to believe are some off the greatest in the world, that plainly is far from the truth. The lack of technical ability and skill to retain possession of the football was embarrassing in comparison to the Italians.
On the plus side we will win our world cup qualifying group easily again... and so it goes on...... We need Jack Wilshere to come in and step upto the plate, hopefully more to come from Ox.... Lescott has came good and maybe alongside cahill or phil young he can develop a good long standing partnership....

[mykind]

All you need to know is posession, posession, posesion - Italy 64% England 36%. you can't score without the ball. If you endlessly give the ball away having made fewer than five passes - you lose. It really is that simple. Did anyone tell ashley Young that he was playing for the team in White?

[Muddy Retriever]

Well that was sobering, completely outplayed. I will say it again, Young was terrible, virtually all tournament. Rooney again fails to deliver in a tournament for his country. All this Gash about doing great getting out the group, feck off its the least we should expect from a group of players we are led to believe are some off the greatest in the world, that plainly is far from the truth. The lack of technical ability and skill to retain possession of the football was embarrassing in comparison to the Italians.

I don't agree. I think getting to the quarter final and taking it to penalties was probably the best we could have hoped for from this set of players. There was plenty of honest endeavour. I don't think we could have asked for any more effort from them and we certainly weren't humiliated but hard work only takes you so far. They just weren't good enough, end of story.

[DrPatrickBarry]

Listing to the pundits at half time my thoughts were "are they watching the same game I am watching?"

[IainR]

Well that was sobering, completely outplayed. I will say it again, Young was terrible, virtually all tournament. Rooney again fails to deliver in a tournament for his country. All this Gash about doing great getting out the group, feck off its the least we should expect from a group of players we are led to believe are some off the greatest in the world, that plainly is far from the truth. The lack of technical ability and skill to retain possession of the football was embarrassing in comparison to the Italians.
On the plus side we will win our world cup qualifying group easily again... and so it goes on...... We need Jack Wilshere to come in and step upto the plate, hopefully more to come from Ox.... Lescott has came good and maybe alongside cahill or phil young he can develop a good long standing partnership....

You can't polish a turd..

Rooney world class for United.. average at best for England.. now he's either over rated... or, for England he isn't getting quality ball from Scholes or Carrick..

How do you seriously expect a forward to look good when their midfield is being dominated. We had less than 40% of possession. The abuse of Rooney is strange, he could be zidane, but until we get a working, fluid midfield nothing will change.

Promising enough. Johnson has learnt to defend. Hart is established. We need new centre halfs. Cahill + Jones or Smalling.

We need a new centre midfield partnership, cleverly, Wiltshire stand out. Ox on the wing. I still think Young has a future despite a poor tournament.