England v Moldova/Ukraine - WCQ

[Extended-Phenotype]

I didn't really notice him, to be honest.

Me either. He contributed nothing. Agree with most of the paper reports; not a good game for to mark his 100.

Gerrard was pretty good though.

[No Fixed Abode]

[6ft Kerplunk]

I didn't really notice him, to be honest.

Me either. He contributed nothing.

Noticed him right at the end missing a sitter but then it wasn't at shin height. etc etc

[Silver Fox]

There wasn't anyone to deflect it off wither

[LUX]

Watching England on ITV makes it an experience ten times more annoying than it already is.

[stealthpapes]

After the 'milner and walcott have linked well' comment (Walcott passed it to Milner, who controlled it, and looked up ), I turned the volume off.

[genome]

I considered turning the game off altogether when we had the 3-on-3 near the end, and Walcott just passed it straight to one of the defenders

[stealthpapes]

"Ah, this looks danger ... oh ... "

[stealthpapes]

My other favourite bit was Gerrard ducking under a cross with the right back running in behind him.

[stealthpapes]

Some stats from midweek games

Total Passes attempted
Germany 848
France 650
Holland 646
Italy 625
England 351

Total Pass success rate
Germany 91.8%
Italy 89.8%
Holland 87%
France 86.9%
England 73.8%

Total Pass success rate (ball in opposition half)
Germany 91.27%
Italy 85.88%
Holland 83.91%
France 82.96%
England 60.71%

Its not skill or creativity thats the problem. Its the basics.

[Hoop Blah]

To be fair, those stats for Germany are against the Faroe Islands in a pretty inconsquential game that they were only winning 1-0 until a Faroe Island player got sent off in the 73rd minute conceeding a penalty for Germany's 2nd goal.

If that was England there would be an amazing amount of criticism for the result and performance. 800'odd passes and only a few goals against 10 man Faroe Islands, the Red Tops would go mental!

France were playing Belarus (4-2), Holland Andorra (2-0) and Italy the Czech Rep. None of those oppositions are anywhere near the quality of the Ukraine at the moment (even the Czech side seem to be struggling during this qualification campaign).

I do agree that the England performance, especially the basics of passing and moving, was pretty dire though.

[TBM]

To be fair, those stats for Germany are against the Faroe Islands in a pretty inconsquential game that they were only winning 1-0 until a Faroe Island player got sent off in the 73rd minute conceeding a penalty for Germany's 2nd goal.

If that was England there would be an amazing amount of criticism for the result and performance. 800'odd passes and only a few goals against 10 man Faroe Islands, the Red Tops would go mental!

France were playing Belarus (4-2), Holland Andorra (2-0) and Italy the Czech Rep. None of those oppositions are anywhere near the quality of the Ukraine at the moment (even the Czech side seem to be struggling during this qualification campaign).

I do agree that the England performance, especially the basics of passing and moving, was pretty dire though.

Yeah - what were our stats for the Moldova game, then compare it to those

[Extended-Phenotype]

Must admit the mere presence of a slightly better footballer makes me pass the football 6 or 7 metres further than intended.

[Royalclapper]

To be fair, those stats for Germany are against the Faroe Islands in a pretty inconsquential game that they were only winning 1-0 until a Faroe Island player got sent off in the 73rd minute conceeding a penalty for Germany's 2nd goal.

If that was England there would be an amazing amount of criticism for the result and performance. 800'odd passes and only a few goals against 10 man Faroe Islands, the Red Tops would go mental!

France were playing Belarus (4-2), Holland Andorra (2-0) and Italy the Czech Rep. None of those oppositions are anywhere near the quality of the Ukraine at the moment (even the Czech side seem to be struggling during this qualification campaign).

I do agree that the England performance, especially the basics of passing and moving, was pretty dire though.

And England were constrained by their injuries and absentees from an attacking perspective, we also didn't get to see what may have happened had Ukraine scored. The emphasis was bound to be on hold and contain until we were forced to do otherwise. It's reasonable to think however that Germany, Italy, Spain etc would probably have had a comfortable win in Kiev which would highlight the gulf between an average England and the top notch sides.

You could also see why Welbeck plays as he's pretty much the only England forward (Rooney aside) who's that bit smarter and sharper with the ball at his feet. He does at least provide something other than the midfield and defence having to hoof it to whichever two dimensional random carthorse is grafting away up front for England in any particular game.

[Hoop Blah]

I don't know where Paps got the stats from, but I did find a possession stat of 68% for the Moldova game, as opposed to 46% on Tuesday night.

I'd imagine with that level of possession our number of passes, and the completed ones, would be much better.

[stealthpapes]

Guardian, I think. FWIW, a simple average of the numbers above is about 74 % so not very different to the number in the original statistics.

I guess I've been told and everything's OK, just like it was 2 years ago. And 2 years before that.

[stealthpapes]

And 2 years before that.

[Hoop Blah]

I really thought your reading and comprehsion was better than that and you'd have been able to spot the bit where I was saying the performance was pretty dire.

We have some players good enough to play a much better brand of football but for a mulitiude of reasons we fail to do that consistently.

There's little to be gained in comparing a very good German sides performance (albeit what sounds like a shite performance) against a pub team to our dire performance aimed at just getting a point against a side ranked something like 24th in the world.

[southbank1871]

Must admit the mere presence of a slightly better footballer makes me pass the football 6 or 7 metres further than intended.

You don't think the increased pressure on the ball you tend to get from better teams, may affect pass completion r8s?

[Hoop Blah]

Must admit the mere presence of a slightly better footballer makes me pass the football 6 or 7 metres further than intended.

You don't think the increased pressure on the ball you tend to get from better teams, may affect pass completion r8s?

Not to mention the better organisation, marking and reading of the game that results in more interceptions and tackles being made by better players.

Giving EP the benefit of the doubt he knows that though, he's just trying hard to be clever and funny again.