Japan v England

[paultheroyal]

We walked qualifying in a way no other England team has in my memory.

We have the best manager for the job, a system that he proved in qualifying works and a player who can win the thing on his own. Play the same team who he played in qualifying, Crouch isn't mobile enough and it doesn't matter if Heskey scores the system is set up for Rooney or Gerrard to get the goals and we're always great at set plays.

Think people like writting off England's chances in a snobbish nature, I feel good going into this as qualifying proved we should.

On the middies debate it will have to be Milner or Gerrard with Lampard. Actually think Gerrard's better at he role but obviously u take away his attacking qualites, might have to make do though. Huddlestone or Carrick aren't good enough.

Pretty much spot on and a big LOL at all the numpties on here saying not enthused with the world cup or England's matches etc. Embarrassing!!

[Row Z Royal]

Since when did BR take over as manager?

Bobby Robson's dead you sick fuck

brendon rodgers maybe?..i will take the whooosh!!!

[Rev Algenon Stickleback H]

Nothing about this England team/squad is convincing going into the world cup. Rooney is our only world class player. The defence is suspect, the midfield is ok but nothing special. Not one player in the middle really stands out as a game changer, and the strikers are the most average we've had for many years. Minus Rooney through injury or red mist, we're up shit street.

Is that news to you? The majority of the country already thinks that and has done for many years, many of which are satisfied knowing that is England's level. Only ever the tabloids that appear to think we are better than that and let's be honest, they only do that to justify the outrage they can then appear to have when England don't win.

I can never work out why so many go on about the media hyping England as being really good bets to win - you almost never see such articles these days. Similarly, I can never work out why the media seems to insist that England supporters have unrealistically high expectation levels - most fans seem to think we'll get to the quarter finals and lose on penalties like normal, although maybe Capello can push us another round.

Go back 20 years and you could pretty much guarantee the likes of John Sadler predicting and English win, mainly on the back of basis of never having heard of the foreign players, but things have changed a bit since then.

[FiNeRaIn]

Posting on the Rangers forum regarding this topic, started off with a good 70% supporting England. Now down to about 50% after constant references to 1966 ( its been more than 40 years you sad oxf*rd) rubbish about rooney being MOM after a woeful performances today and the constant drivel about beating the best teams in the world. English commentates = oxf*rd, English press = oxf*rd and to top it off, rooney, cole, gerrard, terry,etc are all absolute c**nts. No wonder the football world wants England to fail. Football owe's england NOTHING, england are SHITE compared to the top teams, stop having a oxf*rd fest over an average side and accept England are the aston villa/tottenham of the international scene,England are not not winning anything anytime soon.

I accept a lot of England fans are decent normal people with non-biased views, but the papers and commentators which frequent the England games are so crigne worthy it leaves everyone in the home nations hoping England fail miserably. C**ts.

" back in 1966..."...

Fvck off you mugs, that was 40+ years ago, no one cares, get over yourselves. You think burnley or preston bang on about winning titles back then...do they oxf*rd. They are bothered about the league they are currently in. Why do England constantly reference something which happened decades before a lot of their fans were born?

To quote Reading fans when playing forest who won something far more recently than England, " you're not famous anymore".

[Compo's Hat]

Against the teams in the current top nine of FIFA's World Rankings, England (Rank have won just two of their last 18 matches.

Says it all really.

[hiro]

I watched the game in the Sports bar in Osaka. Everybody wear Japan's blue kit expect me (in England white kit) and my wife (in England Red kit).
Our(Japan's) recent two friendlies were awful as we welcomed home to Serbia who beat us 3-0, and Korea who beat us 2-0.
So playing against England after such a bad run and performance, many of us thought it is like committing suicide! We could only lose confidence further more.
Well, we know we will lose, so what we were disappointed most after the game were Not two own goals (which even if our defender did not touch, there were England FW behind, so they will score anyway), but performance of England.
England is of course one of favourite to win the World Cup, but like us Japanese National team, England did not seems to work as a team.
That worries me and many Japanese football fans who are looking forward England's success in coming WC.

[Gordons Cumming]

What annoys me most are these cretinous interviewers after the game.

Stupid questions they ask.

To Lampard:-

"Do you think you'll be on the plane?'' ( )

Lampard:- " You'll have to ask the manager"

To Capello:-

"Do you know who your 23 players will be?"

What did he think he'd do, pass him a sheet with the 23 names on? Here go and publish this on your website as you obviously can't wait 2 days!!"

Why do they ask such inane questions?

[Barry the bird boggler]

Is anyone the remotest surprised? Firstly these are friendlies and who gives a flying **** about any of them.

Secondly, whether we look world beaters or a stack of **** we're going to be done in the first knockout game (probably on penalties) by either Germany or Serbia so what the **** does any of it matter anyway?

[Smoking Kills Dancing Doe]

Why though Barry?

I'll leave it to my brother in law to sum up Englands chances.

'we're fookin shite, Cappello dunno what he's doing, Heskeys a donkey and Lampard is a fat useless Cnut.'

He currently has 4 (yes four) England flags on his corsa. Says it all...

[Gordons Cumming]

Why though Barry?

I'll leave it to my brother in law to sum up Englands chances.

'we're fookin shite, Cappello dunno what he's doing, Heskeys a donkey and Lampard is a fat useless Cnut.'

He currently has 4 (yes four) England flags on his corsa. Says it all...

Brilliant!

[Rev Algenon Stickleback H]

" back in 1966..."...

Fvck off you mugs, that was 40+ years ago, no one cares, get over yourselves..

In some ways winning that was about the worst thing that could have happened to English football. It cemented a belief for decades after that the English way of doing things really was best and we didn't have anything to learn from foreign types.

That's a pretty big reason why we have one-trick ponies like Walcott in the squad, and a worryingly thin squad overall. A country of 50 million people should be able to produce far better players than we do.

[Terminal Boardom]

What annoys me most are these cretinous interviewers after the game.

Stupid questions they ask.

To Lampard:-

"Do you think you'll be on the plane?'' ( )

Lampard:- " You'll have to ask the manager"

To Capello:-

"Do you know who your 23 players will be?"

What did he think he'd do, pass him a sheet with the 23 names on? Here go and publish this on your website as you obviously can't wait 2 days!!"

Why do they ask such inane questions?

What do you expect? The majority of people who are interested in the interviews are no neck - single brain cell thugs.

[PlasticRoyale]

Against the teams in the current top nine of FIFA's World Rankings, England (Rank have won just two of their last 18 matches.

Says it all really.

Over which time frame?

[PlasticRoyale]

Posting on the Rangers forum regarding this topic, started off with a good 70% supporting England. Now down to about 50% after constant references to 1966 ( its been more than 40 years you sad oxf*rd) rubbish about rooney being MOM after a woeful performances today and the constant drivel about beating the best teams in the world. English commentates = oxf*rd, English press = oxf*rd and to top it off, rooney, cole, gerrard, terry,etc are all absolute c**nts. No wonder the football world wants England to fail. Football owe's england NOTHING, england are SHITE compared to the top teams, stop having a oxf*rd fest over an average side and accept England are the aston villa/tottenham of the international scene,England are not not winning anything anytime soon.

I accept a lot of England fans are decent normal people with non-biased views, but the papers and commentators which frequent the England games are so crigne worthy it leaves everyone in the home nations hoping England fail miserably. C**ts.

" back in 1966..."...

Fvck off you mugs, that was 40+ years ago, no one cares, get over yourselves. You think burnley or preston bang on about winning titles back then...do they oxf*rd. They are bothered about the league they are currently in. Why do England constantly reference something which happened decades before a lot of their fans were born?

To quote Reading fans when playing forest who won something far more recently than England, " you're not famous anymore".

Don't really give a flying fcuk what some Jock pcunt thinks tbf

England have a fairly decent chance of winning this. <<<<<<<<<<<------Someone better quote this before i come to my senses

[buzzby]

Posting on the Rangers forum regarding this topic, started off with a good 70% supporting England. Now down to about 50% after constant references to 1966 ( its been more than 40 years you sad oxf*rd) rubbish about rooney being MOM after a woeful performances today and the constant drivel about beating the best teams in the world. English commentates = oxf*rd, English press = oxf*rd and to top it off, rooney, cole, gerrard, terry,etc are all absolute c**nts. No wonder the football world wants England to fail. Football owe's england NOTHING, england are SHITE compared to the top teams, stop having a oxf*rd fest over an average side and accept England are the aston villa/tottenham of the international scene,England are not not winning anything anytime soon.

I accept a lot of England fans are decent normal people with non-biased views, but the papers and commentators which frequent the England games are so crigne worthy it leaves everyone in the home nations hoping England fail miserably. C**ts.

" back in 1966..."...

Fvck off you mugs, that was 40+ years ago, no one cares, get over yourselves. You think burnley or preston bang on about winning titles back then...do they oxf*rd. They are bothered about the league they are currently in. Why do England constantly reference something which happened decades before a lot of their fans were born?

To quote Reading fans when playing forest who won something far more recently than England, " you're not famous anymore".

Don't really give a flying fcuk what some Jock pcunt thinks tbf

England have a fairly decent chance of winning this. <<<<<<<<<<<------Someone better quote this before i come to my senses

More chance of winning it than the Jocks!!

[Ian Royal]

Gotta use Crouch where he's best. Knocking in comedy goals against shit opposition.

He'll get us through the group stage fairly easily with Rooney. Then get down to a more serious game, changing from a standard 4-4-2 to one with Cole, Lampard or Gerrard operating in the hole behind Rooney and able to bolster our midfield against proper good teams.

We've got quite a few handy strikers, but not many goalscorers amongst them. Crouch won't score against good defenders, Heskey will do an excellent job but isn't a goalscorer, Defoe & Bent can't make the step up.

It's odd, we've always had plenty of top goalscorers to choose from in the past.

[Hoop Blah]

Gotta use Crouch where he's best. Knocking in comedy goals against shit opposition.

He'll get us through the group stage fairly easily with Rooney. Then get down to a more serious game, changing from a standard 4-4-2 to one with Cole, Lampard or Gerrard operating in the hole behind Rooney and able to bolster our midfield against proper good teams.

We've got quite a few handy strikers, but not many goalscorers amongst them. Crouch won't score against good defenders, Heskey will do an excellent job but isn't a goalscorer, Defoe & Bent can't make the step up.

It's odd, we've always had plenty of top goalscorers to choose from in the past.

Plenty? Really?

We're in pretty much the same position as we ever are, in that we have one outstanding forward but nobody quite good enough to cement a place alongside them. That's been the same since the Beardsley and Linekar partnership.

[Ian Royal]

Sheringham or Wright certainly better than Crouch or Heskey though.

[Fox Talbot]

I don't know why all the pundits think Walcott will get on the plane. Maybe he will but he doesn't deserve it. Rather take a chance on Johnson than the very timid, predictable Theo. Rather have Kebe than Theo in the Reading team.

I'd like Hart in goal - he's never mucked up yet and looks the part.

Hart

Carragher
Fedrinand
Terry (gritted teeth)
A Cole (same as ^)

Lennon
Lampard
Gerrard
J Cole

Crouch
Rooney

Barry for Crouch and 4 2 3 1 when it gets serious.

And yeah still excited - when you get older you realise you haven't got many more WC left

[Hoop Blah]

Sheringham or Wright certainly better than Crouch or Heskey though.

Top goalscorers you said. Crouch has a much better scoring record than both of them.

Bent is pretty much the same as Wright too, just not quite cut out for international football.

Sheringham was a good partner for Shearer, but we still relied on Shearer for the goals.