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

and itv's online component is uk-only i think (i can't get it to work)

there';s only ten minutes left but try here: http://www.channelsurfing.net/

fearless and forceful, eh

another player with an asset, a good asset, good in the air

boring game, more even than was being made out, although Spain were slightly on top

ITV need to die

beckham toking before the game?

that was a logistical beatdown

Slightly? They slightly had the ball for about about 80 minutes.
xxp

England actually had more chances, somehow

Big Sam: 'we'll never be as good as them'

this fellow was interviewed for England manager's job

Sheringham is surprisingly incisive, maybe - I didn't expect it

England's players are more affected by the recession than their Iberian counterparts.

Big Sam: the baby's head talks!

did any of you see the Ireland game? gotta be honest and say that was about the worst refereeing decision I've ever seen that got us the first goal. that said people say trappatoni is a lucky manager after every single game. he must be offering us something.

mcgeady had far and away his best ever game for Ireland tonight and keith andrews looks great too, doesn't make errors at least. glenn whelan v poor imo, gives the ball away non stop. keane got the goals but kevin doyle is a real Irish player, brilliant workrate.

i would have preferred that one Ro but my TV didn't pick it up. the england game was truly horrendous, like watching a heavyweight boxer toy with a punching bag.

England actually had more chances, somehow

not sure how this is measured but however it is measured it is clearly useless as far as establishing a metric for "did this team have a chance in hell".

the commentary kept speaking of "positive" moves by england, 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. or lofting long passes up to the big man which were intercepted. if that's "positive" then you can keep it.

I'm sort of hoping that this England team will get beaten 4-0 or so

It's funny, but England teams never get beat 4-0 or whatever, no matter how terrible they are. I wonder if England teams don't treated with too much respect.

Ronan/PF/Anyone that's seen the Ireland game on TV-

what was the penalty given for? or was it as unclear to TV viewers?

England did lose 4-1 to Denmark...but hey it was only a friendly...

When was that?

August 2005

heaviest defeat since Wales in 1980!

I saw the words 'Carlton Cole' and didn't bother watching. Sounds like I didn't miss a great deal.

I think Carlton Cole is unfairly saddled with the same name as Carlton Palmer.

and they both have a cousin Will

Too many Coles in general

c. cole completely whiffed england's most open shot on goal all night (on a pass from beckham, obv)

i didn't see the stats on possession.. it really felt like 90%-10% for the majority of the game.

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

Also, SWP working hard to join the All-England Divers All-Star Team, but some way to go before he can compete with Owen, Gerrard, J. Cole

he's not a diver he really can't help falling over so much

Interesting that, these days, England dive more than Spain

OK, arguable, but not much in it

Tom i of course meant "whiff" in the metaphorical sense here, but i can see how in this context it would be misleading.

I was trying to watch on a particularly jerky stream. It made for terrible watching, but it was quite interesting to see the patterns of possession without being distracted by effort and fancy tricks and that. My viewing went something like 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

uncanny!

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".