Football.

[leddy]

i personaly blame his ginger hair

cant argue with that i suppose

[Gibbeth!]

i was thinking just the same, all the men here saying football is a girls sport and rugby is for men, yet you drive lupo's??

so hypocritical.

if anyone had noticed, the only players that are wimps, are the foreign footballers coming and playing in our league, excluding tonight and our england team in recent times, we have lion hearts in players coming through the english ranks.

YES a lot of premiership players lose the passion when the pennies start to come in..

NO that does not happen to a player who you see in the national team.

there is always passion in beckham, gerrard, rooney, crouch, cole and the new arrivals such as lescott and richards.

i dont understand why people are so against ENGLISH football?? i'm not talking about your ronaldo's, fabregas' etc.

discuss why you girlies are so against english football and footballers??

What a load of twonk. I wouldn't of sat for 90 minutes and watched it if i didnt like it, but I only realy watch the international stuff. All I said is we were ****. It may have been an injury problem, but we played every ball over the top, to which Crotch was poor, lampard and gerrard had terrible games, and McClaren hasn't done anything right. We were crap, and I wont miss it next summer.

[Adam]

I am a total football fanatic, more so Newcastle United than England though, England always seem to let us, the fans down. Whenever we play there is this huge expectation that we are going to be the next world/euro champions, yet we never deliver. Where i think Mclaren was never the right man for the job, we have to ask ourselves was it all down to him? The players in at least 5 of the group games totally under achieved. I could go on and on about each player, but at the end of the day it won't achieve anything and frankly they don't deserve my time.

One thing about Scott Carson though, i feel a bit sorry for him, yes the first goal was his fault but he can't be blamed for the others and i would have him nets again and again over Paul Robinson aka Mr Potato Head who is possibly one of the most overated goalkeepers of our time.

[IDGM]

I didn't watch it, I haven't seen the other qualifiers so wasn't 'jumping on the band wagon' for this.

Some things did get me thinking about the whole 'four nations' attitude we have.

1. Steve McClaren seemed quite pleased that the crunch came in the last match - just what he'd hoped for. This is a bad way of thinking.

2. I cannot believe that the England Squad as a whole are made up of the best 20-odd players eligible to play. McClaren told David Nugent that if he wanted to be picked for England he had to play in the Premiership. WTF? Just because that's where the money is, doesn't mean it's the best football. At the end of the day, the Premiership is largely populated by foreign players on the presumption that our own are crap. By definition, the FA must look beyond the Premiership in order to maximise talent and ability.

3. If that's what £100k a week delivers, they deserve whatever is on the back pages today.

4. Alan Hansen et al looked like they were at Gary Linekers funeral in that commentary box.

5. Why the hell can't we have a GB team? We manage it in Rugby.

[Adam]

The reason we don't have a GB team is because i can only think of one player off the top of my head who would get into the England squad; Gareth Bale. In other areas England have better players than the other nations. They just can't play well as a team, which is unfortunate as individually for the clubs they are very good players, or is it the foreigners who make them look good and compliment there style of play?

[Max69vk]

Why was Mclaren ever made manager?

Surely if a manager (i.e Sven) does not perform the assistant manager should hold some of the responsibility too & also be sacked?! Not in England of course, we'll promote them to the top job instead! Im glad this has happened, maybe it will give the FA a boot up the ass to employ a manager who is passionate about the game rather than some utter fool who knows the team well enough to 'fill the gap'.

Edited November 22, 2007 by Max69vk

[andyp]

We arent good enough end of.

too many changes, bring back el tel.

[Max69vk]

bring back el tel.

The only exception to what I've said above. Statisticly he was Englands best ever manager!

[andyp]

Trouble is with this nation is that we overhype everything in terms of sports.....

[Adam]

Although Sven was never really that bad either was he, at least in competitive games? One loss in qualification and a loss in the World Cup and one in Euro 2004? Not bad going really. Although his friendlies were a bit wrong and pointless, having said that he would never have lost against Croatia at Wembley.

[Picola]

Breaking news: Mclaren has been sacked

I know this as it came up on Lorraine Kelly lol

[Adam]

Just heard it on the Radio aswell, it was inevitable really.

[IDGM]

Good.

They should replace him with a girl out of the office. Why? In the fantasy football sweeps at work, Blondie picks the fittest players for her team and usually wins. No skill, just "he's got a nice ass" or "I think I'd do more for him than that skinny bitch".

A winning formula I think.

[Kieron]

It was just poor. No passion, no flair, no drive, standing off attacking players, failing to support our lone striker. In short we did everything wrong and I'm amazed we managed to cobble together 2 goals. It really annoys me that the English Football team have such a high profile when they have consistently proved over the past 40 odd years we are not up to the highest world standard which is why there are so many foreigners in the premiership. All disheartened English football fans should turn to boxing. We have more world champions across all weights than at any time in history at the moment and not enough is made of the success of the best British boxer to ever step in the ring in Joe Calzaghe. But then it is a very British thing to set ourselves up for a fall and then moan about it when it happens so talking about a sport in which we have great success will be just boring I guess!!!!

[Crusoe]

was trying to resist posting in here but it's just too much lol.

TRIBUTES are being paid to Scotland this morning after the entire country laughed itself to death.

The alarm was first raised at around 10pm last night as thousands of phone calls and text messages went unanswered.

Small groups of volunteers from Berwick-Upon-Tweed and Carlisle ventured north just after midnight only to find houses full of dead people gathered around still blaring television sets.

By dawn, as RAF helicopters flew over deserted city streets, it was clear that the whole country had suffered a catastrophic abdominal rupture.

Wayne Hayes, a special constable from Northumberland, said: "We went into one house in Dunbar and found three men sitting on the sofa with huge smiles on their faces, still holding cans of 70 shilling. They seemed to be at peace."

He added: "In a house near Edinburgh we found a man face down on the living room floor with his trousers and pants round his knees.

"It seems he may have been showing his bare buttocks to the television when he keeled over."

Roy Hobbs, a civil engineer from Northampton, said: "I got a call from my friend Ian in Stirling at about 9.50pm.

"He was already laughing when I answered the phone, but after about 25 minutes of the most vigorous and uncontrollable hilarity, everything suddenly went very quiet."

Moving tributes are already being placed along the Scotland-England border with many mourners opting to leave a simple bag of chips or a deep fried bunch of flowers.

[Crusoe]

best British boxer to ever step in the ring in Joe Calzaghe.

Not english though really lol, half Welsh half Sardinian

[zippy]

bring back el tel.

He was part of the management team you're all slagging off, and also got fired today!

The problem is not the manager. You went through the same with Sven, Keegan etc - all proven to be good managers.

The problem is the media portrayal of victory is everything. The fans pick up on this nonsense & get on the teams backs at the slightest opportunity.

For example - Saturday.. Scotland go 1-0 down against Italy after 1 min. Crowd quietens for 20 seconds then erupts & gets back behind the team. Team gives it everything they have - and subsequently their efforts get them back in the game, buoyed by the crowd. We lost the game late on, but we're still proud of our team's efforts.

England last night, go 1-0 down. Crowd quietens, then goes for their own teams blood. England go 2-0 down. Only with the dubious penalty did te crowd stop booing.

Until the fans stop listening to idiots like Motson, laurenson, Wriiiighty, & stop reading the tabloids, then England will always be jittery & nervous. The English players are exceptionally talented, but fail because they are so terrified at the nationwide retribution they will face if they make a solitary mistake - this inevitably leads to mistakes being made.

Zippy has spoken.

[Grapo]

I dont think the fans booing was just because of that match.

[zippy]

I dont think the fans booing was just because of that match.

But if the fans got properly behind their team, I believe they would have gone through to the finals.

[Adam]

I agree with you in a way Zippy, i don't think booing any team helps the players, especially in a crunch qualifying game for England or any team for that matter. If you were a player and you went off at half time to 80,000 plus people boo-ing and jeering you, you are going to be a bit gutted. Although i must admit the fans did start to get behind them from the start of the 2nd half, which was reflected with the way the players started to play. What i don't understand is why they didn't have that urgency from the start of the game, or at least when they went 1-0 down.

[andyp]

Again it shows that we dont perform on the pitch when we need to. Look at the results this year, drawing against teams which we should be beating, if you go out onto the pitch with the wrong attitude then you wont play to your abilities etc. The media has always been like that and always will. If your team is playing crap then you obv will get frustrated

Edited November 22, 2007 by andyp

[L119 UPO]

Breaking news: Mclaren has been sackedI know this as it came up on Lorraine Kelly lol

And Terry Venables got the chop too Good work

Bring on Jose Mourinho

Edited November 22, 2007 by L119 UPO

[Fran]

Not english though really lol, half Welsh half Sardinian

I was going to say something similar Crusoe - note the word in there "Welsh", thats why you hear feck all about it.

But we have had a good chuckle in the office today. Ahhhhh no TV stations thinking we all care about England and the football for months up to the championships!

[ArosaScotty]

started to feel that sick feelin when i thought england were going to go through after the "penalty", nothing againest english, but you's should have sailed through that group without any queations being asked off you. and if england did qualify and scotland hadn't after all they'd done, well

[MartyP]

it's going to cost england's economy a billion quid!¬

Think of how many coilovers and eaton chargers we could have all bought for that