Come anticipate Fabio Capello's two years as England manager with me

Darragh the penalty was given for a handball apparently. It was outrageous, the ball skimmed the top of one of the defenders shoulders on its way to Keane in an offside position. The linesman flagged, presumably for the offside, but the ref gave a penalty. It's unclear if the ref responded to the linesman or not but they had a bit of a chat with the ref seemingly standing firm.

V v strange.

it looked exactly like that level of a fuckup from the stands, but without the benefit of replays it left us clueless.

v v welcome tho.

He didn't really "whiff" it, Reina saved it.

didn't marchena block it? I thought Carlton Cole did v well with that chance.

x-post yeah it was utterly insane, like people say worst decision they've ever seen all the time but that really was. some of the papers today say Keane scored the second with the same part of his shoulder. is it true there were about 20,000 empty seats? Irish sports teams are really stepping up to the recession plate.

which as far as i could see meant various attempts to make solo runs against three defenders and then losing the ball or falling down.

I noticed this too, very annoying

xpost

short of hill 16 being empty (i assumed this was for regulation reasons about terraces myself) there didn't seem to be too many. plenty of tickets bought on the door at knockdown prices i'd say.

starting to really fancy us for second place. i was working through the game, so could only dip in and out of the action. everyone seemed to agree mcgeady did very well, which i find hard to believe but will grudgingly accept. never rated him before.

from the bits i did see, doyle looked to be playing well and robbie keane looked to be doing very little. these may have been unrepresentative passages of play tho, and credit to robbie for getting the 2 goals. andrews is a welcome addition i think, given that trap would play gibson and whelan otherwise - not a huge fan of whelan and *certainly* not a fan of gibson. we could still really do with trap getting over his dislike of andy reid, stephen reid getting over his injuries, or daddy dick getting over his, eh, issues.

robbie had a bad game. was more noticeable for his incessant harrassment of the ref while the ball bounced a yard in fornt of him than anything else. but that seemed to work, and doyle didn't look like getting two goals for all his work rate.

mcgeady was pretty good all night, apart from a 15 minute period in the second half when he was brilliant.

centre mid was poor both off and on the ball all night. for all that both lads are temporary stopgaps, italy could inflict huge damage on confidence against a pairing like gibson and andrews/whelan.

I see McGeady play every week and he's easily the most talented/skilful player in Scotland and possibly the most infuriating at the same time. It's good that he can transfer that to the international arena :)

last night was impressive all round, but yeah he's had his off nights for the boys in green alright.

stephen hunt must feel hard done by, but can't see where he fits in with duff, keane, doyle, and mcgeady all fit. trap isn't going to introduce an in-the-hole-paul-scholes-goals-against-the-poles position just for him.

hunt's always best off the bench for us anyway. he can still play a big part, but not in the starting xi. damien duff is well past his best, but he does seem to take almost all of the creative responsibility (tho maybe mcgeady is now ready to share this burden). a contrast with robbie keane, who is usually hiding when the going gets tough.

Heskey!

Amazing piece of skill by Gerrard to set that one up.

LOL the duality of Heskey

also that was a *fabulous* goal

if it wasn't an og

Green's ire at the new strip and delayed KO actually entertaining in a way.

Speaking of Green, why does he keep dropping the word "quote" into the middle of sentences?

he does?

Just now: poor corner from new sub Beckham.

Lawro: "Get 'im off ... he's never been a crosser".

In the Northern Ireland game NI have just scored after Boruc took a fresh air swipe after a backpass. He's been making howlers all game after costing the 1st goal.

xp yeah I think it's and indicator he's dropping some challops. And I think Lawro was attempting irony there.

"substitutes are a big part of the game these days!"

partnering rooney has been a poisoned chalice today

So is Rooney the only fit English striker left in the country?

i've been calling for lampard-rooney partnership for ages

meanwhile, UFO spotted in Belfast:

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/45612000/gif/_45612138_atrouble.gif

Surely just play Rooney as Gerrard's Torres w/ Lamps and Barry behind (and Young/Joe Clole on the left and whoever's playing best out of Lennon/Theo/SWP/Beckham) and you'd finally have everyone playing where they play best together? There is no striker in the country bar Rooney who is actually of an international grade, although if Ablongahor/Defoe have good seasons next year they can be back-up to him.

Rooney isn't very good as a lone striker though. You never see him play that role for Man United and he's never done it very well for England. Not that we'll have any choice against Ukraine barring a recovery from one of the others.

Maybe Owen will get a call up

True but I think with a very attacking, fast midfield behind him that's encouraged to go join him and be part of the action, Rooney could be a very good lone striker. The only times I ever really seen him in the role it was McLaren's insipid side with Lampard and Gerrard getting confused who should go forward with neither actually doing so + no real help from the wings, or a United side that's kind of slow (Scholes, Giggs), likes to sit back and do the playmaker thing (Anderson, Carrick) or just isn't focused in the art of attacking because he's busy doing the other stuff (Fletcher, Park) and Ronaldo having a free role.

A fast, attacking minded midfield - hell even Barry is a box to box guy trying to get in on the action when he plays at his best - would be a lot different.

This is going to be a bit embarassing, isn't it?

stream i'm on is totally fuxored since the goal

another boring goal hurrah!

God, this is the shittest rout ever.

totally ok with not watching or listening to this

frame 1 - Spain comfortably in possession on the halfway line
frame 2 - Xavi gets the ball midway inside the England half
frames 3 to 7 - sideways passes as the white shirts are pulled about in pursuit of the ball, red shirts interchanging at will
frame 8 - red shirt turning on the edge of the box
frame 9 - forward breaking past last man
(unseen - last-ditch tackle)
frame 10 - white shirt on the ball, looking for options
frame 11 - as frame 1

this is a blow-by-blow description of the champions league final as well

if Croatia v Ukraine stays a draw looks like England could qualify by beating Croatia in September with two games remaining but i'm sure it won't be as easy as that

IRIOT!

RIO! RIIIIO!

One of the best center backs in the world.

Rob Green, you got merked.

lol twice

Maybe they just dont like Rob Green

WILL'EM DEFOE

The idea of Carlton Cole and James Milner looking totally comfortable on the international stage would have been hilarious three years ago. Carlton Cole is a thing. Carlton Cole is better at Didier Drogba than Didier Drogba.

It may have been hilarious one year ago to be fair. It also might just have been a friendly to be fair.

I was wondering what wing demon the fuck that was laying on Defoe's 2nd (a friend and I watched most of the 2nd half in a pub after a cricket match). Then, the glimpse of an impossibly jutted chin, set-back eyes, expression of grim determination...it could only be he

lololol "Carlton Cole is a thing"...to use Pro Evo parlance, he did Post Player better than almost anyone else I've seen today

It's just a friendly. Luckily for both Carlton Cole and James Milner both are in a position with half-decent clubs where there'll be able to play pretty much every game this season, fitness permitting. Be interesting to see how they turn out, Cole especially.

Overjoyed at Defoe goals obviously, good to be going into the season with an in-form striker for once.

His first goal had such a ridiculously small margin of error, but it was just three touches and in.

Cole's miss was my favorite thing in the game.

What's a post player?

Defoe's first was classy.

very dissapointing performance from our boys. ;) Englad actually seemed a much better team. this cannot be true. (seemed to me Capello played with a lot better players in 2nd half, he should stick with those)

Post Player in Pro Evo is a skill some strikers have; generally big target men who knock it down or hold it up for little quick dudes to run onto and score.

I was actually really impressed with Cole's first touch and control, there was one shot he made with just a couple of swift touches that was great. I'd kind of assumed he was a bit of a joke before but hey you never know...