England v Italy

So it's down to pens. Well if we get through let's not pretend that we deserved to.

Why is it always us in these shootouts?

Hodgson out. Who the fuck would let Ashley fucking Young take a penalty kick?

Absolute shite. Half of our squad couldn't hit a cows arse with a banjo. Why the fcuk do the keepers not stay upright in the middle. Joe Hart dived the same way every time.

Professional footballers should be able to score penalties.

ha, I'm sure the inquest will start tomorrow.

I honestly think England surrendered, they started the game so well, they actually had a 5-10 minute spell where Italy were ragged.

But they sat back and reverted to type, long ball and and misplaced passes.

From about the 15th minute on Italy completely and utterly dominated England in every way.

for them to go out would have been wrong IMO.

Roy should have put Walcott on from the start and sacrificed Milner. Rooney was off the boil and once again did not live up to the hype surrounding him.

Was it just me or did Carroll look remarkably like Super Kev, back to goal, and heading the ball backwards to nobody

Rooney and Young were awful. Jordan Henderson is not an international footballer, Andy Carroll is not a footballer. No idea why he took welbeck off.

I thought Carroll offered more than Welbeck personally. But once he'd headed on or brought it down the ball didn't stick.

England were really poor tonight. 4-4-2 is just such a shit formation, we've seen that last season at Bolton. But why play Milner on the right? He's gash. I think a 4-3-3 not only makes England stronger in the centre of the park but it has more attacking threat.
I couldn't believe how bad Parker, Young and Milner were tonight. Parker couldn't even pass simple balls to his own team. Milner and Young gave the ball away almost every time they got it.
I am not sure Roy is the answer for England, his formation and line up tonight IMO was not right. Italy dominated possession, Pirlo was fantastic. But with a 4-3-3 he would have found it a lot harder to play.
I just think that the Ox and Walcott playing wide with Rooney up front would have been so much more dangerous.
Shame its all over.

We got what we deserved.

Anyway it'll be interesting to see what the manager will do now with the team. I would like to think that Gerrard and Terry have played their last game. Rooney needs to know that he is not the great world class player the 'Red Tops' tell him he is.

Problem is, who else is there. Look at Glen Johnson. Never a full-back in a million years yet he's an automatic choice.

Long term, we should limit the number of foreign player per team and try to promote the locals. Easier said than done.

I think Hodgson has performed over and above expectations on balance, there's so much wrong with this current crop of England players. I'd rather lose to Italy on penalties that be humiliated by the Germans, which was inevitable.

Michael Bolton wrote:England were really poor tonight. 4-4-2 is just such a shit formation, we've seen that last season at Bolton. But why play Milner on the right? He's gash. I think a 4-3-3 not only makes England stronger in the centre of the park but it has more attacking threat.
I couldn't believe how bad Parker, Young and Milner were tonight. Parker couldn't even pass simple balls to his own team. Milner and Young gave the ball away almost every time they got it.
I am not sure Roy is the answer for England, his formation and line up tonight IMO was not right. Italy dominated possession, Pirlo was fantastic. But with a 4-3-3 he would have found it a lot harder to play.
I just think that the Ox and Walcott playing wide with Rooney up front would have been so much more dangerous.
Shame its all over.

I agree. If we are going to get beat at least we should give ourselves a fighting chance. Oxtail-Chambermaid and Walcott are attacking players so they should be given a chance from the off.

Rooney and Young were shite but because they play for United they were a shoe-in. City won the League so I think Adam Johnson should have been selected but wtf do I know?

chipbutty - I think Wilshere and Chamberlain will become really top class international footballers but unfortunately for England I can see little else in terms of midfielders and strikers coming through or who can be brought into the team. I think the defence and keeper positions are fine.

I don't see a bright few years ahead for England.

Agree with most ..... Rooney proved once again he is not the great white hope...Young, Milner, Parker all good club players but not quality. Henderson came on and I don't believe he kicked the ball once. The defensive players all ran themsleves into the ground....good work by them.

Strangely the one player who came through for me was Lescott who I never really rated.....but to me him & Terry were our best of the tournament.

Overall the Hodgson experiment is worthless. I can't see where we go from here to be honest.

I'm not sure about the "over achieved" line.

the perception is that England have multiple world class players, Gerrard, Rooney, Hart and Cole.

surely a team with that many "world class" players should be "in" more games.

They were hampered with injuries to Lampard and the Rooney situation + of course Wilshere being out who i do think is superb.

long term England need to seriously think about ditching the likes of Terry, Lamps etc and work with players like Wilshere, Sturridge, Johnson, Ox, and start to pick on form a lot more.

Reebok Trotter - totally agree about Adam Johnston. I mean who would City play out wide - Milner or Johnston? Johnston every time. Milner is used as a central midfielder when he plays nowadays. I can't believe Roy played him out wide again.
I really like Oxtail, I can't believe he didn't get on the pitch tonight. I didn't like Welbeck in the starting line up, even though he did do quite well in the air and helping back. I just don't think he is international class, well not at this moment in time anyway.
I cannot believe Young played the whole 120 mins, god he is really shit isn't he?

Sorry - Adam Johnson, not Johnston.

Hodgson has come in and recognised that there isn't enough technical talent there to go all the way in tournaments playing a simple game, and so has put a lot of focus into making the side defensively solid and difficult to score against with a view to going into games looking to just knick a win. His approach is good - some of the players he's shown confidence in over others aren't.

What irritates me is commentators' idea that "there's just a new confidence about this England side". We've been here before. There was a "new confidence" about Eriksson's England that beat Germany 5-1 in Germany and Capello's England that beat Croatia 4-1 in Croatia. There's nothing new or exciting about Hodgson's England apart from the fact that they can defend solidly, whilst being pretty uninspiring on the attack.

Another puzzle for me was the non selection of Micah Richards. He performed really well for Man City as a good defensive wing back so why he wasn't selected is beyond me.