Will England qualify for Euro 2008?

[Schards#2]

If anyone who voted "no" fancies a wee punt, my PM doors are always open.

[Stranded]

The whole point of GD is to encourage attacking play and goals, isn't it?

It is but are you honestly saying that if we end up on the same points as say Russia having lost away and drawn at home to them, we'd deserve to qualify because we scored more goals against Andorra?

I'm not disagreeing with the concept of head-to-head especially what you said in response to my post - it does make sense, actually. I was just responding to RR to say why I thought GD was a good method.

That's not what he asked though. He asked why you thought GD should come before head to head - not if you thought it was a good method.

[LUX]

UEFA, Austria and Switzerland will be very relieved if we do not make it.

ps I reckon we'll not make it. Even Israel at home has nil nil written all over it.

But I'm very often wrong.

[bassavage]

Prediction:

6th June

Andorra v Isreal - ISREAL
Croatia v Russia - DRAW
Estonia v England - ENGLAND

22nd August

Estonia v Andorra - ESTONIA

8th September

Croatia v Estonia - CROATIA
England v Isreal - ENGLAND
Russia v Estonia - RUSSIA

12th September

Andorra v Croatia - CROATIA
England v Russia - DRAW
Macedonia v Estonia - MACEDONIA

13th October

England v Estonia - ENGLAND

17th October

Croatia v Isreal - DRAW
Macedonia v Andorra - MACEDONIA
Russia v England - RUSSIA

17th November

Andorra v Estonia - ESTONIA
England v Croatia - ENGLAND
Isreal v Macedonia - ISREAL

1. Croatia 24
2. England 24
3. Russia 22
4. Isreal 21
5. Macedonia 13
6. Estonia 6
7. Andorra 0

[Silver Fox]

I'm sure that leaves Russia with 2 more games to play and as one of those is ANdorra I reckon they'll get at least 3 more points

[Ian Royal]

Can't see us getting there without some sort of one man crusade of excellence from Beckham or Owen, who lets face it, are the only reason we made the world cup.

We might get somewhere if McLaren is sacked on thursday, but only by the skin of our teeth.

If we don't win tomorrow we need to sack Mclaren, write off the competition and start over with a fresh persepective. And when I say fresh, I don't mean the head coach under McLaren's tenure. I mean someone currently completely outside the England set up who actually knows their arse from their elbow.

[Katie Marsden]

Can't see us getting there without some sort of one man crusade of excellence from Beckham or Owen, who lets face it, are the only reason we made the world cup.
We might get somewhere if McLaren is sacked on thursday, but only by the skin of our teeth.

If we don't win tomorrow we need to sack Mclaren, write off the competition and start over with a fresh persepective. And when I say fresh, I don't mean the head coach under McLaren's tenure. I mean someone currently completely outside the England set up who actually knows their arse from their elbow.

Actually the reason was made Germany 2006 was down to the form of Lampard, believe he got 6 or 7 goals in the 12 games.

[Ian Royal]

Can't see us getting there without some sort of one man crusade of excellence from Beckham or Owen, who lets face it, are the only reason we made the world cup.
We might get somewhere if McLaren is sacked on thursday, but only by the skin of our teeth.

If we don't win tomorrow we need to sack Mclaren, write off the competition and start over with a fresh persepective. And when I say fresh, I don't mean the head coach under McLaren's tenure. I mean someone currently completely outside the England set up who actually knows their arse from their elbow.

Actually the reason was made Germany 2006 was down to the form of Lampard, believe he got 6 or 7 goals in the 12 games.

must have been thinking of the previous tournament or making it up. Wow, Frank was actually good in 04-05.

[Royal Rother]

Can't see us getting there without some sort of one man crusade of excellence from Beckham or Owen, who lets face it, are the only reason we made the world cup.

We might get somewhere if McLaren is sacked on thursday, but only by the skin of our teeth.

If we don't win tomorrow we need to sack Mclaren, write off the competition and start over with a fresh persepective. And when I say fresh, I don't mean the head coach under McLaren's tenure. I mean someone currently completely outside the England set up who actually knows their arse from their elbow.

The fresh perspective needs to start at (cliche alert) grass roots level.

But until we get a Sports Minister with real power, a truly charismatic visionary capable of putting into place a 15 year plan we will continue to lag behind other countries, and we will evermore continue to develop promising young players who, once they have been coached for 10 years will have become yet more one-dimensional workhorse clones of 21st Century English football that we have all grown to know and despair of.

[papereyes]

I'm sure that leaves Russia with 2 more games to play and as one of those is ANdorra I reckon they'll get at least 3 more points

Yup, there's games missing.

Russia have 6 to play and there's results there for 4.

I make it

17th November

Macedonia vs Croatia
Israel vs Russia
Andorra vs Estonia

21st November

England vs Croatia
Israel vs Macedonia
Andorra vs Russia

My predictions would then be

Croatia, draw, Estonia, England, draw, Russia

leaving the table

1. Croatia 27
2. Russia 26
3. England 24
4. Isreal 19
5. Macedonia 14
6. Estonia 6
7. Andorra 0

As I said, England drop any more points and they will struggle to qualify.

[URZZZZZZZZ]

Course we oxf*rd will, don't be a mug.

[Royal Rother]

I actually kind of hope we don't qualify.

And then kind of hope we don't qualify for the next World Cup.

Such disasters would be the only things likely to shake up the whole coaching system (kids up) sufficiently to bring real progress into our game.

(One disaster won't be enough to shake off the complacency. 2 should just about do it.)

[papereyes]

I actually kind of hope we don't qualify.

And then kind of hope we don't qualify for the next World Cup.

Such disasters would be the only things likely to shake up the whole coaching system (kids up) sufficiently to bring real progress into our game.

(One disaster won't be enough to shake off the complacency. 2 should just about do it.)

Did it work in the 70s?

[Vision]

I actually kind of hope we don't qualify.

And then kind of hope we don't qualify for the next World Cup.

Such disasters would be the only things likely to shake up the whole coaching system (kids up) sufficiently to bring real progress into our game.

(One disaster won't be enough to shake off the complacency. 2 should just about do it.)

We failed to qualify for 2 World Cups in the 70's. That certainly provided a shake up. We were then subjected to a barrage of Wimbledon/Watfords and an even bigger emphasis on long ball football all endorsed by FA coaching guru Charlie Hughes and reaching its nadir with the appointment of Graham Taylor as England manager.

You're right though, English football needs a shake up but not qualifying for the World Cup or European Championships won't have any bearing because in my opinion the major problem is the Premier League and most of the clubs in it whose interests are actually at odds with the National Team.

It is absolutely no coincidence as far as I'm concerned that the 2 supposedly biggest underacheivers in the European game have the strongest, richest and most powerful domestic leagues.

[weybridgewanderer]

It is absolutely no coincidence as far as I'm concerned that the 2 supposedly biggest underacheivers in the European game have the strongest, richest and most powerful domestic leagues.

With no English manager having won the premiership for how long?

England needs to develop its own top class managers and top class players instead of importing so many foreigners. I appreciate some top class players improve the game. I can't help thinking that if it was't for the ludicrous SKY money being spent on the Samaroses of this world then young English talent may get a chance to develop.

[SpaceCruiser]

I actually kind of hope we don't qualify.

And then kind of hope we don't qualify for the next World Cup.

You're not really a fan, are you?

[cmonurz]

If bassavage's predictions are true, then Israel will have lost a total of 2 qualifying matches in 2 qualfying tournaments, and failed to qualify both times.

As for RR's comments - there is nothing wrong with the ability of our current crop of players, but something is going wrong at a coaching level. I don't think failure to qualify for major tournaments is going to inspire any changes to that.

[papereyes]

there is nothing wrong with the ability of our current crop of players,

I don't think the England players are actually as good as the English media likes to portray them.

They'd like to think that they are, the media and the fans would like to think that they are but given the years of the side not performing to the levels that you might expect from such players, perhaps the truth is that they're good, very good, but not truly great?

[cmonurz]

I think on paper, the players are of equal or greater skill to previous teams - where we are lacking perhaps is on the wings. In fact, scrap 'perhaps', the wide positions is where the current England team is very poor compared to previous incarnations. Waddle, Gascoigne and Beardsley were such a cohesive attacking unit, and feeding Platt and Lineker too. If we could somehow mould Gerrard, Lampard, Beckham, Rooney and Owen into the same. Why hasn't it worked?

[sheshnu]

there is nothing wrong with the ability of our current crop of players,

I don't think the England players are actually as good as the English media likes to portray them.

They'd like to think that they are, the media and the fans would like to think that they are but given the years of the side not performing to the levels that you might expect from such players, perhaps the truth is that they're good, very good, but not truly great?

They're a pretty good bunch in the main; there are a couple of excellent players and one or two duffers but I think player for player the team compares favourably to most of the teams in Europe. As such England probably have about as much chance as, say, Germany or Spain or Holland of winning the competition - provided they qualify.

Is there really an outstanding European team full of 'World Class' players?