England v Italy match thread

[fah-q]

Jesus, the abuse is really starting to crank up.

It's a lose-lose game.

IAFN.

[Imy]

ITV showed a clip of Balotelli leaving training, someone asked him a question about the game in English, his reply 'I speak Italian, not English' and strolled off

[Mr Darko]

You just know Rooney will be awful again...atm Carroll is better than Rooney in every way- it's disgusting he started instead of Carroll against Ukraine all because of how he performed in 2004...imagine if Gerrard started performing as rubbish the media would love to stick their knives in.

[SB]

I hope we Tonk them big time despite the fact the Bodge will be seen as the messiah for a short while. Although if we win it he may go down in history as the greatest saviou in our life time. That would be hard to stomach.

[Kenneth]

Yet weirdly they never once mentioned an Italian who handled his affairs in English.

i think criticism of Capello's English is one of the fairer criticisms he received. After so long in the job, his English was ****.

[danperkins]

Personally i think Hodgson has done a great job as England manager. Sure it's negative and a bit dull but it seems effective. IMO the best thing that ever happened to England was the lessening of expectation.

Anyways hope England beat Italy tonight & i think they will too.

BTW if Stevie G can carry this form into next season, happy days!

[tufty]

I'll do the same as I do when its F1 on tv

watch the first few minutes, then come back to it with a few laps/minutes left

I know I should be, but just can't get excited with England, even with our lads playing

[Shaggy]

Personally i think Hodgson has done a great job as England manager. Sure it's negative and a bit dull but it seems effective. IMO the best thing that ever happened to England was the lessening of expectation.

Anyways hope England beat Italy tonight & i think they will too.

BTW if Stevie G can carry this form into next season, happy days!

An Irishman hoping England win and an Englishman (plus many more on here I suspect) hoping Italy win 9-0.

Football eh

[Exiled_red]

I think he's actually done a pretty good job as England manager. We've become a side that knows are limitations and plays within that. The camp seems happy and together.

It remains obvious to me though that his tactics remain limited and are only applicable to some situations. In a longer league format it makes it more or less impossible to excel, in short league stages and knockout competitions it is a valid tactic.

It will be interesting to see how he does in the longer qualification group format.

I'm not sure how to assess what he's done to be honest, England have played crap football under him (which we all expected) but he has got the results. That said those results have come mostly against teams England are expected to beat, I think that the group results were on par with what we would expect from an England team.

In many ways I think that a new manager coming in just before the tournament and players being injured has removed alot of the pressure from the squad, which has just allowed them to get on with it. The newer players (and there are quite a few of them) have a point to prove so have that extra bit of determination and they have replaced the so called bigger players with bigger egos which also has to help.

Where people have been saying Roy has been unlucky with injuries, I actually think the opposite is true; he hasn't had to make any big calls they have been taken out of his hands, the team more or less picks itself.

[McDermotX]

An Irishman hoping England win and an Englishman (plus many more on here I suspect) hoping Italy win 9-0.

Football eh

[Kenneth]

I think he's actually done a pretty good job as England manager. We've become a side that knows are limitations and plays within that. The camp seems happy and together.

It remains obvious to me though that his tactics remain limited and are only applicable to some situations. In a longer league format it makes it more or less impossible to excel, in short league stages and knockout competitions it is a valid tactic.

It will be interesting to see how he does in the longer qualification group format.

International football is less dependent on the brilliance of the manager than club football imo. In terms of coaching, the players spend so little time together that there isn't time to cover anything than pretty basic set pieces, general positioning. Players bring most of it from their clubs and they either gel or they don't. Hodgson's approach is so basic that he has little more to explain than he could in a couple of weeks anyway.

[Exiled_red]

International football is less dependent on the brilliance of the manager than club football imo. In terms of coaching, the players spend so little time together that there isn't time to cover anything than pretty basic set pieces, general positioning. Players bring most of it from their clubs and they either gel or they don't. Hodgson's approach is so basic that he has little more to explain than he could in a couple of weeks anyway.

[dww]

International football is less dependent on the brilliance of the manager than club football imo. In terms of coaching, the players spend so little time together that there isn't time to cover anything than pretty basic set pieces, general positioning. Players bring most of it from their clubs and they either gel or they don't. Hodgson's approach is so basic that he has little more to explain than he could in a couple of weeks anyway.

Certainly an element of truth to that. It was the reason I thought Hodgson was a better bet than Redknapp for this tournament.

[Leyton388]

What a dickhead

[Lee]

Edit - it's not real.