Be Excellent To Each Other

That was a painful match to watch, we looked good for about 25 minutes in the first half and from then on it was dreadful.

Best team won, is the truth of the matter.

wow just got in from the pub and caught the penalty's....

The penalties did at least involve England players kicking the ball at the Italian goalkeeper, which is more than can be said for the rest of the game.

Pretty much although I think dreadful is a bit harsh. At least they played with some heart for once and put the effort in, they just weren't close to good enough.

Hope the media doesn't start getting silly towards Hodgson now. He's done all he can with limited players in a short space of time.

Oh, cheers for that.

How come Crouch didn't play?

England actually tried their best, which is more than you can say for a good few years. It still wasn't good enough, but I can behind a team of triers more than a group of lazy primadonnas.

Last eight seems about fair for this team.

Yep. No complaints here. We were outclassed and the Italians deserved it. We did well to win the group. Give Roy a chance to build the squad from youth from the academy we've apparently built. We need changes from the ground up - youth level. Take a leaf out of Spain's book. Aim to win something in 10 years or more.

At least, let's look beyond the next tournament with a plan, rather than repeatedly building a team around faded glories. I feel hopeful that Roy could get this going and the recent performances give him some leeway with the media who are always focussed on a win-now mentality.

Rooney was turd all the way through the 2 games. And if Jordan fucking Henderson is a saviour, then I'm Diego Maradona.

My Dutch uncle is an awesome text companion for football, though

He wasn't even in the squad.

Yep. And really when your Plan B is to lump it up to a lumbering donkey up front, or as you say, Henderson, then you have no Plan B.

As others have said above, the wise thing would be to scrap everything and build from scratch.

Yeah, sorry that's what I meant. Why wasn't he?

Because he's awful and Carroll is a better big man. So is Zamora actually despite his erratic shooting.

Well done Roy. Ten players unselectable, still got within two cunts of the semi final.

Rooney needs to stop being taken to these tournaments, he's shit. He did fuck all in this one and fuck all in the last one. Every team can mark him out of a game.

Can't wait to see what Hodgson does with the likes of Wilshere to build a team around.

WTF?

Have you seen his England plays/goals?

No one knows how to play him...

If Roy has a flaw it's Milner and Rooney.

Why the fuck did Milner start every game? I spent most of the time bemoaning him.

and then Rooney was out of sorts for that game.

Carroll should have come on for Rooney, not Welbeck.

To be honest, I would have taken Crouch, Bent, A. Johnson, Sturridge instead of Milner, Welbeck, Carroll, Defoe.

But then I would have taken Rio and Richards instead of Terry and Lescott

Malc

So, England Bungled through to this QF and were beaten on Pens, 2 years ago, they bungled through to the round of 16, before being beaten by the Germans, 4 years, a no show, 6 years ago bungle through til Portugal beat us on Pens, about the same 8 years ago.

So what was the last Attractive performance for England against quality opposition (I'm thinking v Holland in '96, against Germany in 2001 [5-1] against Argentina in 2002)?

Or have I just outlined them?

Malc

Fuck,

It appears that was the last time England beat anyone of note in a game that mattered

Malc

For a start, Peter Crouch has one of the best goalscoring records of any striker who's played for England. The problem is that because of his height, he was seen as a target man, when his strength was getting the ball on the ground and putting it in the back of the net (which he did with alarming regularity). I would choose him every time over Carroll.

Malc's posts just signify to me the general attitude of England fans: we didn't win the whole thing so we're terrible. We should be pleased we topped the group and finished the tournament unbeaten, with the strength of thr squad and the fact our manager had two fucking months to plan for it!

I thought you didn't have time for England?

I managed to stay reasonably dispassionate throughout the tournament, but I'll admit by the Ukraine game I was rooting for them to win.

I don't feel the crushing disappointment of yet another 'early' exit, as I did in past tournaments, though.

I thought they played well.

I missed their third game, but up until yesterday, I thought they'd been doing ok. Yesterday, particularly in the second half, they seemed to play with very little confidence. Still, hopefully it's something that Roy Hodgson can build on.

As for the Italians, Pirlo was brilliant and pretty much ran the game.

I'd honestly feel better about the whole affair if italy's goal in extra time had counted. I hate having to come so close and then having it snatched away. We were second best but for all of their dominance and chances, Italy didn't score. I was very sad to see an hour of long ball tedium after Carroll came on. Blunt force target men are useful where they belong: in the box for crosses and set pieces. Long hopeful punts down the middle may work in the qualifiers against Azerbaijan, but Italy won the world cup 6 years ago, ffs!

Not at all, I was a bit drunk last night when posting that, but I don't think England are terrible for not winning the whole thing.

I think they played well to hold on for penalties (you can't really complain at only conceding 3 goals in 4 games), but apart from 20-25 minutes in the first half, and a bit in the first half of extra time, there was no period of sustained pressure.

I thought Milner was crap all tournament and would have liked to see Theo play in his place. And Rooney was crap/tired/whatever so I would have prefered to see him come off instead of Welbeck (although I can understand the thinking that says he only needs a moment, and if he'd been 1/2 a second later to that overhead kick then I'm sure it would have all been different!)

Malc

Actually, Italy themselves played the long ball pretty effectively. Well, either that or we just defended them poorly.

Italy weren't hoofing straight goal kicks into the England half with no plan to two static forwards within five yards of each other. Every ball that went near Rooney just bounced straight off him. No first touch, no finesse.

Mark Lawrenson was being an absolutely terrible commentator last night. It was truly awful.

"West Ham reject"
"Let's hope he's seriously injured"
"Stop holding your face and get up"

Even MrsA remarked that he sounded like a bitter, jaded old man, waiting for death.

I think he's just got a very dry sense of humour - the problem being that the average football fan just doesn't get it.

"POLICE LAUNCH PROBE INTO ONLINE RACIST ABUSE OF ENGLAND'S ASHLEY COLE AND ASHLEY YOUNG AFTER EURO 2012 DEFEAT" Sky breaking news feed.

I assume this is going to be a twitter thing again?

I normally like his commentaries but yesterday was perhaps a little too much of a moan. I thought the 'reject' comment came from Guy Mowbray though?

Well duh.

I dunno, I thought he was someone else entirely for a while yesterday. neither were spectacularly good.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-be ... s-18576404

Obv.

How does one guy being a racist dick become a national news story?

Slow day. The rain stopped.

To be honest, I think the standard of commentary from both the BBC & ITV has been generally rubbish throughout.

What about the studio pundits though? I think Roy Keane's been suitably sneering and honest, and I especially enjoyed Jamie Carragher's comments last night re England, which summed it up perfectly (basically: after England exit every tournament, there is much hand-wringing for a week or so about how we can't ever master basic passing and keeping the ball, and how Something Must Be Done, and how we're going to teach ten year olds to pass the ball, etc etc, but then nothing ever really changes, and so on and on for every tournament ever).

Not all of them...


No. Clement Freud had a dry sense of humour.

Lawrenson manages to be almost devoid of insight despite a very successful playing career. And he's just a mitherer.

Spain are through. Went to penalties.

That was an interesting last 4 minutes

I hear that a lot.

I've been taking part in a dream team leaguer run by a guy at my girlfriends work. Using the Sun Dream Team site we all paid a fiver buy in. I started out rock bottom but after week one I started rising and went into the final in number one spot but 2nd and 3rd right on my heels. Was pretty tense last night since I though Fabregas could get a goal and he was on the others teams but not mine, plus I had kept faith in Torres and he hadn't started. Luckily, Fabregas got subbed off for Torres and I won the league! £70 cash prize. In an even more surprising development, my girlfriend came in second. She had been in eight place yesterday but had Silva and Jordi Alba in her team amongst others so went shooting up the rankings. Her prize was £35 so today we went and got our total winnings converted into Turkish Lira. Going all inclusive so £105 worth of Lira is the perfect amount of cash to take

What was the thinking behind those musical montages at the end of the BBC coverage of every match?

Last night's was a weird cover of "Thriller" by Michael Jackson. Odd choice.

Especially since he did the original.