England predictions

[Icecream Snow 761]

[quote user="mrs miggins"]Can someone in the ground shoot phil neville for me.[/quote]Any particular reason or just because he''s Phil Neville? :P

[Branston Pickle 3,659]

Well that was pretty ordinary all round, I don''t know what they do in training but maybe a bit more effort on corners/crossing might be in order, along with shooting, passing and moving the ball around at something more than walking pace. And perhaps it might have been an idea to plug the gap that was there on our left for almost the entire 90 minutes and cost us the game.....

[Levi Stubbs 0]

If there was to be only one ''Drone'' strike at this years World Cup. let it be Phil Neville!!! [:#]

[Yellowbeagle 0]

Result aside I thought it was a good performance 100% better than Anything in South Africa. We went forward and created chances, the passing was good I only saw 1 or 2 misplaced passes all night. Second half delivery from the left was abit poor but IMO I thought we played better attacking football than Italy with some much better technique than we''ve seen from a lot of recent England teams.

[Guest]

At least it was exciting. And in the World Cup, I think that is all you can ask for.

Much of our tactical awareness was naive to say the least. And as soon as Italy plugged the middle up after their second goal, Hodgson brought on players to attack-up the middle?

Where was Lambert to gel it together in the middle when it was obvious for the last 25 minutes that Italy were just going to counter attack.

Lessons to be learned obviously but some individual highlights from players and nothing to really have a go at. We just lag behind when it comes to reading match situations.

[GJP 79]

Thought the better side lost tbh.

[Mr Brownstone 0]

Final ball and set piece delivery were awful all night (why is that familiar?!), the 2 full backs were poor and Rooney was largely ineffective in that role apart from the excellent ball he put in for Sturridge, but apart from that there were plenty of positives to take. It''s a young side and they''ll be a lot stronger in 2-4 years, this was never going to be our World Cup.

[It's Character Forming 1,161]

Solid performance and we created the better chances.

Sloppy defending at the corner for the first goal - the guy had forever to tee up his shot.

And yes we did leave Leighton Baines unsupported all game and that led to the second goal - how on earth did they not change that?

[Sing up the river end 0]

Same old story in that to many players played out of position.

Solid performance but shows we come up short at the very top level.

Set peaces attacking and defending are shocking.

[mrs miggins 0]

"I think it is harsh to say he didn''t look comfortable on the left. I thought he did quite well and he set up our goal," - Quote from Roy Hodgson

I personally don''t think Rooney had a bad game, the decision to stick him up top was woeful and it showed in the first 10 minutes. He didn''t look comfortable on the left and was their main outlet. For me Rooney played some great passes and should have scored his sitter, but it can''t be a shock for the manager when that striker who is being played on the left can''t defend effectively. Overall I thought we did alright though, it''s nice to see people in our team running at the opposition with pace instead of our ''golden generation'' passing the team to death round our defenders

[Guest]

I don''t understand the Rooney saga.

It seems he isn''t the man to lead the line anymore but a position has to be found for him.

England have had managers who had their favourites and according to the camp "Rooney is the first name on the team sheet".

But it appears not in his best position but on the left.

I believe Hodgson should bite the bullet and leave him out and put somebody out there who would do the job.I never thought I would say it but on last nights performance I would even rather see Milner!

[Phillip J Fry 0]

It''s Character Forming: "And yes we did leave Leighton Baines unsupported all game and that led to the second goal - how on earth did they not change that?"

Hodgson tired to address it. He moved the more disciplined Welbeck onto the left for the beginning of the 2nd half, hoping that his defensive diligence would help limit Italy''s progress down the left. 

Unfortunately, Welbeck failed to track his man on Italy''s first real attack down the English left in the 2nd half and Italy scored from the resulting cross. After that, England saw alot more of the ball and Italy''s threat down the English left declined substantially.

Hodgson definitely saw the issue, but Welbeck forgot to track his man once and Italy scored. 

[mrs miggins 0]

But baines still looked lost and Hodgson didn''t sort the problem out, he didn''t tell baines what to do when on the defensive and he still put a striker in an area where Italy were strongest in that game.