World Cup Qualifiers

Excellent result for Australia. 1-0 in Uzbekistan.

Wales lose 2-1 in Russia.

England kick off in an hour.

Anything other than a defeat has to be a good result, confidence is so low.

James; Brown, Ferdinand, Terry, A Cole; Walcott, Barry, Lampard, J Cole; Rooney, Heskey.

Beckham & G Johnson left out.

Emile Heskey?

Toshack really hates Earnshaw. Tw@t.

Rooney puts in a brilliant performance for England and I bet he will still get criticised.

Croatia 1 England 4 FT.

Walcott hat-trick.....

Golden generation etc...

Swallows, summer etc....

They were even playing decent football too.

Not got Sultana, so I'll just have to take your word for it.

Does anyone else wish that Setanta would just f*ck off and stop buying the rights to big football matches? I've missed what seems to be the best England performance since 2001, it's fecking annoying.

vilkrang wrote:Does anyone else wish that Setanta would just f*ck off and stop buying the rights to big football matches? I've missed what seems to be the best England performance since 2001, it's fecking annoying.

It's rather ironic that our best performance since the 3-2 win over the Argies was not avaialable to the masses and had to be watched via dodgy internet linkage.

Goals are here if you didn't catch them...
http://www.livescore99.com/

I listened to the commentary on Radio 5.
WTF are the two goons that did the commentary.
Patronising prats - samples ....

" The Croatian defender didn't even touch Joe Cole but he's been sent off ... something strange going on there with Cole ..."
"Oh look, Joe Cole's collapsed to the ground - something must have happened which I didn't see .."
"Isn't Theo a lovely lad, Alan" ...
"This boy Walcott has arrived" ...
"Arsene Wenger must be a very proud man..."
"Now why would Capello want to bring on Beckham for this young England hero..."
"Yes, I agree Alan, this is probably Beckhams last game for England, but who knows... I certainly can't read the managers mind."

FFS do these ars*s get paid lumps to churn out that kind of crap on a regular basis?

The sooner the Internationals return to terrestial TV the better - it's the last time I'm farking tuning in to Radio 5 .... certainly whilst those two prats are still alive and ranting like performing gibbons.



Anyway ... nice to see an Arsenal man finally bagging a hat trick in an important International!
Good man Theo ... Arsene would be proud!

JKLever wrote:Goals are here if you didn't catch them...
http://www.livescore99.com/

Thanks JK ... nicely taken goals ... Theo's first two were almost identical.
Great win ... now if only England can keep the momentum going.

For those bothered, you can watch free highlights on setanta online at 11.30pm
http://www.setanta.com/upload/virtualdirectory/qualifiers/stream-med.htm

Just got back from the pub....

What a game - England's best performance since Euro 2004 when we were equally magnificent against the Croats and a dogged Swiss team in the group stages.

What struck me was in the first half how composed we were on the ball. Very rarely did we resort to blind paniced clearances or hopeful 50 yard long balls. We absorbed the pressure in the first half and scored on the counter. Then in the second half, we started brilliantly. Croatia barely touched the ball for 5 minutes, you could see the frustration rising and the tackles getting nastier until the red card incident.

After that with Walcott's lightning pace, and Rooney's intelligent link-up play we had all the time and space they needed to pick Croatia off at will. England's best goal of the match was actually the one that was disallowed. A wonderful move and fantastic play by Lampard, bursting into the box, passing and then finishing with aplomb. The fact the ref disallowed it was a joke, but we were 3-0 up by then anyway.

Walcott gave a real 'coming of age' performance. Always dangerous in possession and his finishing so clinical. 3 chances... 3 goals. I hope the hype he gets from here onwards doesn't destroy him.

Okay, we're not going to win the world cup.... But at least we have a decent team again. One that can play good football and will test the best sides - like we had under Sven.

Didn't Croatia only have 10 men for most of the game?

JGK wrote:Didn't Croatia only have 10 men for most of the game?

It was 1-0 when they were reduced to 10.

Just saw the highlights, few worries about our defence in the first half but we still managed to play decent attacking football even when they still had 11 men.

PearlJ wrote:Excellent result for Australia. 1-0 in Uzbekistan.

Hmmmm.....England beating Croatia 4 - 1 away, sort of takes the shine off that just a tad.

It's good for Australia though, Uzbekistan are a mighty 59 in the FIFA world rankings.

JGK wrote:Didn't Croatia only have 10 men for most of the game?

From the start of the second half

Basil wrote:

PearlJ wrote:Excellent result for Australia. 1-0 in Uzbekistan.

Hmmmm.....England beating Croatia 4 - 1 away, sort of takes the shine off that just a tad.

Hmmm.... not really. I don't see how either results effects each other really.

Basil wrote:

PearlJ wrote:Excellent result for Australia. 1-0 in Uzbekistan.

Hmmmm.....England beating Croatia 4 - 1 away, sort of takes the shine off that just a tad.

I don't see how. Why can't two things be shiny at the same time?

Excellent result for Aus v Uzbeks, and an apparently outstanding performance by Eng v Croats.

Huzzah all round.

Croatian team talk before the game started: " if you see anything wearing white - kick it"

Hehehe, noice.