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

Caldwell was impressive tonight.

hey this isn't the Burley thread (joeks)

Now, come on, I did mention England!

also, I read that as (jocks)

tartan army had a huge banner for http://www.noteamgb.com/

I has revived the Scottish football thread. Carry on, England.

Is it wrong that I laughed at Joe Cole and his bleedy head falling over? Then rewound it and laughed some more?

Youse were pish first half against Andorra, btw.

Yeah, we know

I'm actually really happy England won. Some of the utter shite coming from Bilic this week was sickening, especially for a guy who had a crap major tournament, "England are the same but we are better and better, we have the best players possible in every position". He teed up an English trouncing more than anyone. Bet he wishes the West Ham job was on the table now.

have to settle for newcastle, won't he?

So yeah England bought the ref right?

England played really well for one competitive game under Steve McClaren as well. Let's not get carried away.

(It may well be proveable that England play better with Heskey upfront, though)

Glans Christian Andersen

10/10 username, would roffle again.

not even Luxembourg monumentous victory in Switzerland can overshadow this

Oh, I don't know about that. Then there's Bosnia-Herzegovina's 7-0 walloping of Estonia.

France beat Serbia, last night.

It's a minefield in the Balkans right now.

Shame (xp)

DOMENECH DIAMOND: Plucky French hold off Serbian menace

Email I sent yesterday lunchtime:

I reckon we've got three points in the bag for tonight.

Croatia have got Eduardo and Krancjar injured, Luka Modric has been awful for Tottenham so far this season, and Niko Kovac is 37 - which is REALLY old (apologies, Marcus) - and tried to retire after the Euros.

In the two games we lost, we had no Ashley Cole, and in one of them, no Wayne Bridge either. We had no Rooney in the home game and played Crouch as a lone striker.
We played Scott Parker and Carrick in midfield in the away game, with Gary Neville as an attacking wing-back.
Just looking at the teams, it's no wonder we lost.

We'll see who plays tonight, but it'll be much more balanced. The only big player missing is Gerrard, and since we don't seem to have an effective way to play him, maybe that's no loss. Hope he plays Johnson instead of Wes Brown at RB, and that he plays Walcott and Joe Cole behind (and wide of) Rooney as a front three. Lets get at them!

Just wanted to crow, although I was wrong about the formation. I just can't bring myself to think that playing Heskey is a good idea.

Anyway, I thought it was pretty obvious we were going to win, and it's typical media reaction to say "no-one saw that coming" when they've been completely ignoring the bleeding obvious for ages, because it didn't fit the "narrative". We were alright against Andorra, and Croatia are clearly nowhere near the fifth best team in the world and have been wildly overachieving.

Yeah nobody looks good against someone like Andorra anyway.

I hate the glut of "Joe Cole must start" articles in the last week too, I mean most people I know and anyone who watches England has been saying that for ages. He's clearly one of those players who just performs and scores at international level, like Scholes used to.

Paul Scholes >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Joe Cole

I haven't enough >'s

Cole looks International class cos he's got the diving and rolling around on the floor in imaginary agony down.

Scholes is definitely better, but Cole is v good for England, he has always been good for them.

Yeah nobody looks good against someone like Andorra anyway.

Saturday, 06 September 2008
FIFA World Cup European Qualifying

Liechtenstein 0-6 Germany
Malta 0-4 Portugal

not even Luxembourg monumentous victory in Switzerland can overshadow this

Azerbaijan 0 Liechtenstein 0

Portugal 2 Denmark 3

England played really well for one competitive game under Steve McClaren as well.

not away from home against the top seed tho

Then there's Bosnia-Herzegovina's 7-0 walloping of Estonia

not a big surprise at all

xpost

I don't know, but I doubt whether those teams would play QUITE as negatively as Andorra, who had no desire to even attempt to score a lucky goal on the break or from a set piece. I've never seen anything like it. And they were then proud of their performance? They should be thrown out of football. It was despicable.

Saturday, 06 September 2008
FIFA World Cup European Qualifying

Liechtenstein 0-6 Germany
Malta 0-4 Portugal

jesus...andorra are worse than either of those too and in any case, a win is a win against a team that sets out for a 0-0.

if you really want to believe England are shit, even after last night's performance, then go ahead! I'm not even English, you'd swear half of you look forward to the post-knockout anti-prem rants...

Croatia did score 13 goals in 2 games against Andorra in the last campaign so no excuse for England really - but will be interesting to see if they can do the same this time (probably)

Garda is correct re Cole

I don't know, but I doubt whether those teams would play QUITE as negatively as Andorra, who had no desire to even attempt to score a lucky goal on the break or from a set piece. I've never seen anything like it.

You've never seen anything like it? Are you serious? All of those teams play the same.

Not even leaving one man up? playing with five in the six-yard box and the other five in the penalty area?

It took pointless, hopeless negativity to new levels.

They didn't set out for a 0-0, they set out to minimise how many they lost by. BAN ANDORRA.

Well they only lost 2-0, so it wasn't pointless or hopeless. San Marino losing 13-0 to Germany, that's hopeless!

Poland only 2-0 in San Marino. Romania only 1-0 vs Faroe Islands. someone else will go to these places and score 7 or 8 tho. there's still easy games, just not as much of the time.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/1420000/images/_1424849_green_300.jpg

THEY SHOULD BE THROWN OUT OF FOOTBALL. IT'S DESPICABLE.

OK, fair enough, but it offends my notions of sportsmanship (and now I sound like Louis).

Did anyone else actually watch the game?

I watched it, I didn't find Andorra that objectionable, I've seen worse

i think the result of the night has to be plucky team of defensive thugs andorra actually scoring a goal. just think of the joy on his face!

Rangers v Fiorentina. UEFA Cup semi-final. April 24th, 2008.

... I did something I've never ever done before while watching a football game, I fell asleep

how convenient

i mean obviously yay luxembourg woo walcott coo er jermaine jenas and all that but mario pujol will probably, and deservedly, be given a Pyrenee now

Was it a penalty?

Google tells me that of course it was!

People need to stop hating on anti-football. Catenaccio is a lot more interesting than 99.999% of other football styles. The football historian and critic Gianni Brera said the perfect game of football would end 0-0.

Tom - But Rangers at least had a vague plan to take it to penalties.

Anyway, I'm not sure about Joe Cole - he was pretty ineffectual last night before going off. I think we might end up with Walcott on the left and Gerrard on the right if everyone's fit. (Walcott is genuinely two-footed and played on the left wing for our youth team.)

Fabio Capello's faith in Theo Walcott transformed England's weather-beaten canvas into a lustrous work of art

English footballer was a low rent porno until Capello wiped the encrusted jizz from its plastic box and projected it across the London skyline in a daring Hirst like coup de grace.

seriously fucking ban richard williams

Being boring because you're too shite to do anything else is less bad than..... oh hold on, that covers Rangers too

English football was a two bit trance tune fronted by a robotic hollow diva, until Capello's picked up the Walcott trumpet and blasted colourful Charlie Parker style tones through the grey corporate world of football. BEPOP BEEDDADADADDA SKIBABABABABABABABABA

People need to stop hating on anti-football. Catenaccio is a lot more interesting than 99.999% of other football styles. The football historian and critic Gianni Brera said the perfect game of football would end 0-0.

3 points for a win. 1 for a draw. 1 for scoring, even if you lose. That would sort it out - maybe.

(So a win = 4 points, a score draw = 2 points, a scoring loss = 1 point, a 0-0 draw = 1 point, and a loss without scoring = 0 points)

joe cole >>>> gerrard as far as england is concerned, he plays well and contributes regular goalscoring

and yeah if richard williams wrote that he's even more of a self-absorbed prick than i suspected