Well Twisty’s normal bugbear about BBC commentators being a wee bit prejudiced towards England was in no way highlighted on Saturday.
Honest.
Good game though, and i think personally if i was Beckham i’d have “accidentally” got myself a yellow too - Pjamastan in the winter ain’t gonna be fun.
One thing that did bug me though was the massive amounts of praise heaped upon King Roo of Chavchester. Granted he played well, but he was a greedily little bastard.
He needs a clip round the ear and someone to explain to him that strikers are allowed to pass occasionally.
The disparity between BBC Wales and BBC England was quite noticeable actually (which I can compare via a simple channel flick) - if anyone told Motty that this was a Wales away game as much as it was an England home game it had little effect.
This Englishman supported Wales actually (started off in the rugby as a class thing and I’ve just got used to it), but they struggled without Robbie “Gucci-Tattoo” Chavage and any recognisable defence (Simon Davies at right back??). Old Sol and Rio (sta 'nfronte a te) handled Hartson well enough and neither Giggs nor Bellamy simultaneously showed pace and control enough to be dangerous. The first goal was lucky and the second undefendable, but England were always going to win in the end given their midfield dominance.
I’m from Liverpool originally, rog - not a hotbed of patriotism in my formative years and so I’ve never really been arsed about this flag/tune/piece-of-soil nonsense, preferring to pick and choose. As for English Rugby Union, well, call it inverted snobbery or a tirade against nepotistic plutocracy and privilege - I even supported Australia against that boy-band of the inbred Barbour-clad bumpkinside.
Looks like there will be three lilywhites starting tonight - Defoe, Robinson and king (at left back if the “lying bastard standard” is to be believed).
I think we’ll stff 'em. This is the sort of game that makes all that tosh about how “there are no easy games in international football anymore” look like what it is - tosh.
You try telling that to Liechtenstein. After a pulsating comeback against Euro finalists Portugal (2-2) in Vaduz, they proved they’re equally dangerous on the road with a 4-0 thumping of Luxembourg. Meanwhile, Portugal bounced back with a 7-1 win over minnows Russia.
That is quite possibly the worst game of football I have ever seen (and I have seen teams managed by Terry Neil, george Graham and Gerry Francis).
The three strikers doesn’t work does it? It appears that England can ONLY play 4 4 2 so we should stick with it.
We’ll murder 'em in England though.
Well done Robbie Keane, and oh dear to the Scots (I have been to Moldova to watch a football match - Spurs v Chisnau in 2000, and if you are familiar with the spoof travel guide “Molvania; The land dentistry Forgot” you are alaready familiar with Modova.)
Vogts must go and he must go now. Give someone new (like Gordon Strachen) a chance to settle in before next spring’s games.
Scotland have been rubbish for the last 15 years because we’ve had poor players. But now we’ve got mediocre players, some of whom show promise, but a coach whose tactics mystify everyone. And the results show that. The players simply don’t understand what he wants them to do, so you have 11 headless chickens cutting about the pitch. Yesterday’s game was mind-numbingly pitiful, after a long line of dreadful, god awful, performances.
Yet still he hangs grimly on, earning an absolute packet and the SFA are relunctant to give him the shove because they know it’ll cost them to terminate his contract.
Given that it seems Vogt’s time is up, unless the SFA have made the same schoolboy error as the FA and put their coach on a wage and contract so high that they cant afford to sack him. What next?
The obvious replacement is wee ginger Strachan, and he’s stated that he’d be interested.
So what should he do?
One possibility is that he should drop everyone over 25, and try to develop some younger players himself; after all it really can’t get any worse. This has worked elsewhere. It would give him two years to get a team ready for the EC qualifiers.
Does Scotland have an equivalent of Bisham Abbey (Buckfast Abbey would be fitting)? If not it should get one and get one now.
Any other ideas? Because as things stand even the English can’t be bothered to laugh anymore. Now that’s as bad as it can get.
It would be worth biting the bullet and admitting that the potential losses that could result from that are worth it as a sacrifice for long-term improvement.
Hehe. We had one of our young ones, Eddie Johnson, come in at the 60th minute last night and record a hat trick. It was his second cap, following his debut last game in which he also notched a goal. Not bad. Donovan also scored a couple. The final result was 6-0 and we’re through to the final round of qualifying.
It was the first hat trick for the USA in qualifying since 1968 and the only time it’s ever been done for us by a sub. I’m liking our youth movement, perhaps England would benefit from the same as suggested above.
We’ve got all sorts of youth stuff here - all professional clubs have a youth system with many of them having an “academy” set up (there is a difference but it would take a week to explain). Also we put out England schoolboys, u15, u17, 19 u21 teams.
All in all youth provision is a lot better than it was for a long time.
By youth movement, I meant doing a better job of integrating younger players into the national side, not the U teams. Our last qualifier of this round is “meaningless” since we’re already in so there’s speculation on who is going to play that might not normally see the pitch. I imagine the team might consistent entirely of U-23s.
It might be meaningless to your team, but not necessarily to the other teams in the group. If too weak a team is fielded that means that whoever plays you in the last game has an advantage over those who have already played you. if they are jockeying for second place then the other contenders for the spot will want to see you treating the game seriously.
Pleaty may not be a football genius but he’s got a good sense of humour. And one of the defining moments in football must be his jig on the pitch when Luton Town, um, won a game.
Right up there in the pantheon with Bob Stokoe and 1973.
I don’t watch Spurs any more on the telly here since they got rid of Stephan Freund. Quality entertainment whenever he was on the park.
