England vs Moldova; Ukraine vs England

[Simon]

Anyone care? :dunno:

[Andy]

I'll probably watch. Walcott is in consistently good form for the first time in his career which is good for England obviously. Did Sturridge pull out in the end? Those are the two I'm probably most interested in.

[son_of_foley]

No I care more about the mighty Norn Iron.

Hopefully not getting raped by Portugal but lets be honest here

[turdpower]

Going to France this weekend, so I'd be surprised if they had it anywhere and I'm not going out of my way to find an English pub.

[Bad Collin]

You guys are dicks. If we don't get at least four points from these games then we are likely to be sat around next summer wishing England were at the world cup.

Come on you En-ger-land! :england:

[StevieV]

England will be amazing.

I predict massive drubbings.

Townsend debut goal from 30 yards.

[Bennedy]

Anyone care? :dunno:

You always say this.

If you are more interested in watching Ireland then off you pop. Of course people are interested in a World Cup Qualifier.

[turdpower]

He doesn't care Bennedy.

That's why he made a thread about it.

[MikeHunt]

I'll probably watch. Walcott is in consistently good form for the first time in his career which is good for England obviously. Did Sturridge pull out in the end? Those are the two I'm probably most interested in.

Good god!

[MikeHunt]

I care. I hope as always yous get fucking pumped.

[turdpower]

Good god!

AMMMMM, I'M TELLING MIK ON YOU.

[MikeHunt]

What I didn't do nothing, honest.

[Simon]

You always say this.

If you are more interested in watching Ireland then off you pop. Of course people are interested in a World Cup Qualifier.
I was more pointing out that its the day before the game and there has been no discussion of it yet. I'd like to think I'm self-aware enough not to make a thread about something claiming not to care about it.

BBC reckons Lambert is starting tomorrow. Doesn't really matter I guess as we should plow Moldova whatever team we put out...hope he bags another goal though.

Townsend isn't that great just yet but he will be a decent option off the bench, he's one of the few players we have who can make something happen on his own. Incidentally I caught the second half of the U21s tonight (even though I don't care about them either) and Nathan Redmond looks class.

[Bennedy]

Yeah, it is good to see Lambert start. I am a big fan of Townsend as well, so I hope he makes an appearance.

[Bad Collin]

Just to illustrate how big a slip up would be:

Lets give the four teams who could qualify 5-0 wins over Moldova and San Marino (because they are gash) in their upcoming games:


Ukraine 17+16 - Games left: England (h), Poland (h)
Montenegro 17+12 - England (a), Poland (a)
England 15+22 - Ukraine (a), Poland (h), Montenegro (h)
Poland 12+10 - Montenegro (h), England (a), Ukraine (a)

Poland look screwed. Let's assume that the home sides win 2-0:

Ukraine 23+20
England 21+24
Montenegro 17+8
Poland 15+8

So basically if we lose in Ukraine, even if we beat Poland and Montenegro we will likely be in a play off.

Current second place teams: Croatia, Bulgaria, Austria, Hungary, Albania, Russia, Greece and France.

I'm a bit scared :england:

[Simon]

We shouldn't lose to Ukraine though. Say what you want about England, but we rarely cock it up against those sort of nations who are weaker than us but remain a legitimate threat. In the past 15 months we've played them twice, winning one and drawing one...and when it comes to crunch games against that sort of opposition we tend to do what's needed. In all likelihood we'll come for a draw and get it, then probably take four points from our last two games and still qualify as group winners. Doing what needs to be done in a thoroughly underwhelming way, as usual. Then at the World Cup we will scrape our way past whatever mediocre teams we get in our group, then lose to the first team we play that are as good or better than us...again, this is par for the course, going back 17 years or so to Euro '96. In the intervening years we have only 'failed' (ie. not qualified or been knocked out by inferior opposition) twice:

Euro '96: Lost to a superior team, Germany
France '98: Lost to a superior team, Argentina
Euro 2000: Knocked out in the group stages, FAIL
WC2002: Lost to a superior team, Brazil
Euro 2004: Lost (on pens) to an equal, Portugal
WC2006: Lost (on pens) to an equal, Portugal
Euro 2008: Didn't qualify, FAIL
WC2010: Lost to a superior team, Germany
Euro 2012: Lost (on pens) to a superior team, Italy

So basically in nine tournaments, we have had one abject failure (2008), one significant failure (2000), and seven 'par for the course'. Our problem is not that we regularly underachieve, it's that we NEVER overachieve - not even to the extent of knocking out an equal on penalties.

[Bad Collin]

You don't remember as far back as 2008?

In our last two games against Ukraine away we lost and fluked a win. Since then they have improved and we have got worse.

Who do you think they will drop points against? Presumably Poland at home?

[Simon]

You don't remember as far back as 2008?
It's five years ago now and is a notable exception in an otherwise entirely reasonable succession of qualifications, as you can see above.


In our last two games against Ukraine away we lost and fluked a win. Since then they have improved and we have got worse.
We lost a dead rubber in which we had our goalkeeper sent off after about 10 minutes, and how did we 'fluke' the Ukraine game? We were the better team and scored three superb goals. Ukraine had a goal wrongly not considered to have crossed the line, but then the player was wrongly considered onside when he was put through. We were deserving winners from what I remember.


Who do you think they will drop points against? Presumably Poland at home?
Neither specifically, I just wouldn't trust us to beat both - I imagine we'll do just enough to beat one of them, and not enough to beat the other. I imagine we'll keep a clean sheet in both.

[Bad Collin]

I hope you are right Simon but this team has more than a whiff of 2008 about it.

My memories of the Ukraine game are that it was a nervy game that we were lucky to win. The BBC report backs this up: http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/18181971

They should have had a goal and they had 57% possession and more attempts on goal than us.

[TraXX]

Doing well do far.

:heart: Ricky.

[Peter Griffin]

That Welbeck booking was laughable, Looked like Hodgson was going to have a heart attack when talking to the 4th official.

[JP]

Wellbeck knew he was offside. Harsh yellow but can't really have any complaints, this is no RVP in Nou Camp.

[Peter Griffin]

I only saw it in real time so I may be wrong, But it seemed like the time between whistle and shot was very minimal.

[MikeHunt]

Yeah that yellow was bloody hilarious! How on earth can he be booked for that?

[Simon]

I wish Walker would attack like that for us.

Also I hope all the patronising of Lambert stops now, his goal was proper striker's instinct and his linkup play was very good even if it was against crap opposition. Ukraine will be the big test for him of course.

[Simon]

Oh also I thought Barkley looked poop when he came on. His touch was all over the place...you would put it down to nerves but he was confident enough to be demanding the ball all the time.

[Andy]

To be honest I used to think Lambert was just a clogger like Grant Holt but he was class last year and he looked very impressive in his two England games.