England v Lithuania

[mikeyjh]

Agreed. Delph was our worst player by far. How he stayed on while Henderson went off is beyond me. If there was an opportunity to give Barkley a full 90 minutes in midfield, this was it.

To be fair, Jones played well when called upon & Wellbeck does what he does - crops up in the right place & worked hard. I just think we need more if we're going to be a force internationally.

Agreed. Concerning Wellbeck, he's easy to knock but i thought did really well and is a dangerous player......

 

[maltaseagull]

Thats surprising as I always thought most rugby matches struggled to reach 5 figures and nearly all were less than our Amex attendences.

That is probably true but every season they have a couple of games at either Wemblely or Twickenham and get massive crowds. That is a new world record for a Club Rugby attendance.

 

[Joey Jo Jo Jr. Shabadoo]

Thats surprising as I always thought most rugby matches struggled to reach 5 figures and nearly all were less than our Amex attendences.

Not exactly true, rugby union doesn't get the attendances that football does but over half the Premiership sides get a healthy 5 figure attendance. Quins and Leicester Tigers are both averaging over 20,000 fans a match. There are 8 clubs that break the 5 figure mark, all bar 4 clubs average more than went to the Amex for the recent under 20's match. While our Amex attendances for football are better than most Union matches (save for the odd showcase game at Wembley or Twickenham) the level of support is a lot better than you've given credit for.

 

[boik]

Agreed. Concerning Wellbeck, he's easy to knock but i thought did really well and is a dangerous player......

Indeed, but if you look at the top goalscorers in Euro qualifiers, whose name is at the top?

 

[GT49er]

Yes let's create a Premier international system ,top 16 automatically qualify for tournaments and the rest do battle for places .England being 17th at the moment in the world.

Fine. We should continue to do well in the qualifiers then!

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

What is the point of nations like Lithuania not having to go through some sort of pre-qualification process or seeding?

I can see both sides of the argument. On one hand the current openness allows an easier path for aspirational nations. But on the other the bigger nations have to endure numerous leg-stretching exercises against much inferior and less technically and tactically gifted opposition. If there was pre-qualification then the England players already busy season could be swamped with even more fixtures if they made it through to qualification proper. All things considered I think we should keep things as they are.

 

[BensGrandad]

Thd reason minority countries get pushed up is to ensure they vote for Blatter.

 

[MF'84]

Hard to judge against that quality of opposition but I've witnessed many games against the lesser nations that we've struggled in so not too bad.

Right decision not to start Kane (even if he didn't score after coming on it would still have been the right thing to do). Loads of pressure on him as usual with promising youngsters, right time of the game to introduce him as well.

Assuming we play 4-3-3, Kane's not going to be picked ahead of Rooney as the central striker or ahead of Sterling / Welbeck / Sturridge / Walcott / Oxlaide-Chamberlain as the wider, mobile, pacy attacker if enough of them are fit; Lallana as another less pacy option of course. If Rooney's not fit then Kane will take his place or if we switch to a 4-5-1 in certain games Rooney could play behind Kane up top... I can see that working. I do rate Kane, just need a system that will suit him as a starter.

I think we have very good attacking options now but our current range of central midfielders are pretty average (and very similar apart from Barkley), Goalkeeper is fine but Defensive options are poor and I think that will get worse in the coming years as I can't say I've heard much about any up and coming centre backs in particular apart from Stones of Everton (no point mentioning Dunk, anybody! Nowhere near that class yet).

 

[Kinky Gerbil]

I just think if you have groups of 4 in the final stages it will give us more time to play better teams and improve and make the games interesting - we have been playing dead rubbers since the third game really.

Can anyone tell me what us playing Andorra achieves?

 

[Hampster Gull]

who gives a toss about the England footie these days. Bunch of wan&ers the lot of them.

Too many agree with you which is a shame. They are no better or worse than anyone else playing footy in the top couple of leagues. They have my support until i fall out of love with footy