Reply With QuoteHenderson you say???!! He's been told he's not allowed to vote in the EU referendum this week because he's not capable of putting a cross in the boxOriginally Posted by afcneal
My biggest concern is the lack of goals from midfield. If you look at all of our midfielders their goals to game ratio is poor at club level and non existent at international level. Strikers don't score every game - a 1 in 2 ratio is a good return so they need support from other areas of the team. I don't see that coming with our midfield or wide players.
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Henderson you say???!! He's been told he's not allowed to vote in the EU referendum this week because he's not capable of putting a cross in the box
LOL. Quality.Henderson you say???!! He's been told he's not allowed to vote in the EU referendum this week because he's not capable of putting a cross in the box
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
they will be coming straight home as soon as they face a decent team (spain/germany/france/italy/portugal) they get bigged up by the press/fans but ultimately lack world class players or the ability to follow simple instructions or think for themselves. a headless chicken can only run so far until it hits a wall.
Just watching Northern Ireland v Germany, seems the Irish are playing like the English, slow to build and hoping for an error, the Germans just scored on the break, will we and they never learn?
Germany created more clear cut chances in that first half than England did in all of their 3 group games combined.
I do though think England created loads of opportunities in all 3 games - they just had no end product whatsoever.
As it stands, it's looking like Northern Ireland vs Wales on Saturday. GAWA.
Brilliant Northern Ireland qualified :-)
As Spain just lost they face Italy!
If we'd won last night we'd have been on the easy side of the competition. Just saying.
Is it not vs Wales or France?
Bloody well done to NI.
Yeah NI play Wales or France, confirmed after tomorrows games, the system is boggling lol
Yeah, I was getting ahead of myself. Looks like Turkey could also make it depending on tomorrow's games. If they do, then it's Wales vs Turkey and N.I vs France. Although, forget about that for now. We actually are in the last 16!!!
Exactly, which is why not winning the group has effectively ended any (very) small chance of us winning the competition. It's crazy not to play your best team in those circumstances.
England would have a chance of beating one of the top teams in a one off game, but the chances of us beating 3 top teams in a row are almost zero.
Last edited by watchcollector1; 21st June 2016 at 23:29.
Well all home nations are all thorough so happy days. Congrats to Norn Iron and Wales on some great performances.
There are no easy sides now although the better teams play in a more open fashion that allows more end to end football rather than the old "park the bus" merchants who are very difficult to score against.
Even if you spend the whole game in their half you still have to shoot past eight players.
- - - Updated - - -
Yep.
Cheers,
Neil.
Robbie Brady..... legend. Come on Ireland. :)
Indeed!!! What a performance. Well done and congratulations, delighted to see both N.I and R.O.I progress.
Plus, you have done N.I a favour!! Although Wales is still a very tough match for us.
Can't wait until Saturday now.
Yep well done Ireland first class and made up for the missed penalty in the first half, England need to watch and learn, never give up !!
Great to see both teams qualify and I will gladly take France next, we owe them one for the Thierry Henry handball a few years ago.
Wales won't be too easy a match for your guys.
England teams always have the talent but somehow they leave their heart and bottle behind when they head to a tournament.
Superb! Onwards!
I see England have had a stroke of luck and play Iceland next, rather than Portugal.
A
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Watching Portugal today maybe they would have been the easier option!!!
Except the draw for England is a disaster - by not winning the group we're in the bottom half with all the other major powerhouses. Well done Woy.
Yeah, being in the other side of the draw would have presented a massive opportunity to get to the semis or even the final.
Anyone with half a brain could see that it was absolutely critical to win the group but tactical genius Woy decides to field a weakened team in the last group game (even though the best XI was struggling to score goals).
Nice one Woy!
A combination of deeprooted ignorance and lazy thinking produced this
Poland d. Switzerland
Croatia d. Portugal
Wales d. Norn
Belgium d. Hungary*
Germany d. Slovakia
Spain d. Italy*
France d. Air
England d. Iceland*
Croatia d. Poland
Wales d. Belgium*
Germany d. Spain
France d. Ingerland
Croatia d. Wales
Germany d. France
Croatia d. Germany*
* = strong sense of bad prediction
I'm amused at the assumption England will beat Iceland! I can imagine the chagrin when they go out to the smallest nation in the competition...and fail to score yet again!. Iceland are no mugs.............
Have to agree. I'm tempted to look up the odds on a 0-0 and Iceland winning on penalties!
Assumption?
I think we'll beat Iceland - I hope we've learnt our lesson against Slovakia.
But it will be another valiant quarter final effort from England against the hosts resulting in a defeat. If we're lucky we'll lose on penalties (again).
I really do think we have a good team - shame our manager is clueless as to how best to utilise them.
0-0 - Iceland to win on penalties.
Their commentator's head to explode live on air!
M.
What are you talking about?
We are experts at missing pens.
Last edited by Neil.C; 23rd June 2016 at 11:52.
Cheers,
Neil.
I'm clearly going to be in the minority but I reckon we'll do both Iceland and France, but Germany in the semis is where it will all end. I think the last couple of years worth of games has told us that on our day we can be a formidable force but Roy needs to start taking this tournament seriously or we'll be back on that plane on Tuesday morning.
I'd rather play Portugal.
They play open football and not the old "park the bus" routine and hope for a break that the "lesser" teams do that ruins the game for spectators.
Personally I wish the Netherlands were here in place of some others.
Usually great teams with a thrill a minute..........and I like the Orange.
Cheers,
Neil.
I feel the same.
All this moaning about us being in the other group. You've got to beat teams to get to the final and I'd rather we came up against France, Germany etc than Poland, Wales etc.
Cheers,
Neil.
Let's be honest regarding Eire.
Italy knew they had already qualified and put out a weakened team. They even had Ogbonna from my team (West Ham) for goodness sake!
If they had needed points it would have been a different situation entirely.
Cheers,
Neil.
If I'm not mistaken, Lagerbäck never lost to England while manager of Sweden. So expecting Iceland to put in a strong defensive effort and might steal a goal. Not an easy opponent. They also have nothing to lose. Already done more than anyone believed.
Turkish must be fuming with the Italians
Someone else has arrest mentioned it but I think we have more chance of winning, abd more chance of losing, against the better teams as they will play more open football the kind of which we need to do well. We just simply do not know how to break down teams who park the bus.
But history tells us England don't beat the best teams at major tournaments (unless we have home advantage) and we have an awful record at penalty shootouts. When we got to the Semis of the world cup in Italia 90 we had a relatively easy route there (because we won our group), other than that we've never reached the Semi Final of a major competition played outside of England.
To maximise your chances of winning you need to have a good draw. I'd love to be proved wrong but the chances of us beating both France (on home soil) and then Germany, Spain or Italy are very slim indeed.
Last edited by watchcollector1; 23rd June 2016 at 12:40.
The problem is our defence is our weakest link and the better teams will expose this.
I've been saying this for months ahead of the tournament but actually we've only scored three goals in three games so our strike force is clearly a worry too. As has been said by many, we have the best squad we've had in ages but we've not only gone into the tournament without a settled formation or Plan B, we've actually got to the knock out stage without either of those things. That is the fault of the manager.
I think we're currently keeping the ball better than we ever have. I'm impressed by how patient we've been, not resorting to long balls in desperation. Our full-backs are strong and capable of doing both elements of their role, all four of them are good players.
But putting this all together into a strategy to win games is the responsibility of the manager and he very obviously isn't capable of doing that. I'd have been more imrpessed if he'd said we were going to play 4-4-2 every game as that's where we're strongest but no, he's still fannying around with bloody diamonds and Christmas trees and all the other shite they go on and on about.
Same old England - never able to get the combination of squad and manager right (except '66 obviously).
To be honest I see Ireland surprising everyone vs France, maybe England vs Ireland to come ?
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Right let's not get carried away, I mean take nothing away from last night's performance but they were playing against the a Italian B team.
The comment was in relation to the 'general' assumption about the easiness of the draw ('could have got Portugal') not your specific projections. No criticism intended.
Very much this, it will degenerate into a 3rd round cup tie with a similar amount of poor passing and defensive errors.
Everywhere I read it's all doom and gloom about England. From what I can see though no one has exactly been that impressive. For example a couple of days ago Spain was the favourite and they lost.
I look at it that we've qualified without losing a game. We've also got an excellent chance of going to the QF. Then we've a reasonable chance and if it's our day were in the semis.
The last time we lost a competitive game was against Suarez and Co at the World Cup.
Well done Wales! Good luck in the quarter finals.
It's been fun 😀 GAWA.
Posting Permissions
