Can't even pass the ball to a red shirt

It's not just about foreign players its the inbalance in talent produced here and that produced abroad.

 

You're quite right Redstar, but thats the problem, they produce more because they play more, isn't there only about 30/35% of the premier league players illegible to play for england.

 

Maybe even 98 as well

 

Cos abroad they teach players to pass the ball and retain possession, and we dismiss it as tippy tappy

 

Not the same when we do it. Cos there is usually no end product as no player has the skill to beat a man.

 

What's Eileen Drury up to these days??

 

Seriously though that is the problem. Get it forward and win at all cost football from an early age.

 

I thought it was alright. Well, it was boring, but we needed a draw and we got one. We'll not win the next World Cup, but we want to be there and getting a draw in Ukraine is another step towards that. Ukraine, Montenegro and Poland have all lost a game, but we haven't. I don't think we've got players that are a whole lot better than them, particularly with all the injuries at the moment, so I think we're doing OK. We've got far more strength in depth, we've probably got 40+ players all much of a muchness capable of slotting in to an England team, but our best 11 is only on par with the others in our group as we don't have any real stars.

Having said that, Rooney was a big miss. He gets a lot of hammer on here about his England performances and it's true that his tournament football has been poor for a long time, but he scores a hell of a lot of goals in qualifying. Sturridge is probably the best English striker at the moment and he's out injured, while Welbeck was fantastic last Friday, but was harshly suspended. Take all that striking talent out of your team and you're going to struggle to score goals. Lambert has been a revelation since his inclusion in the England squad, but he needs good service to score. He's not going to get you a goal on the break, which is the type of goal we needed tonight and the type of goal all our three missing strikers are capable of.

I thought it was a decent defensive performance. What did Ukraine create? A penalty claim that wasn't, a freekick that flashed wide and one free header. That's about it. I reckon if you can limit the opposition to so few chances when you're away from home you're doing something right, even if it isn't very pleasant on the eye.

Only Germany have scored more goals than us in all 9 European qualifying groups, while only Spain and Belgium have conceded fewer. I don't think we're nearly as bad as is often made out and with just 2 home games to go, qualification is firmly in our own hands. We're a bit dull and workmanlike, but with the talent available I think the team is greater than the sum of its parts. Praise, therefore, must go to Roy Hodgson and the players for the hard work they put in.

Feel free to bring this back to the top should we fail to qualify.

 

It was actually on German TV so unless you have on DVD (which you probably have) you would have needed to learn German first. Verstanden?