[Archived] Northern Ireland 1-0?

[adopted scouser]

England supporters chanting "what a load of rubbish" and hardly surprising.

Goodbye Sven and take your ill gotten gains with you, faria alam and that horse Nancy.

[jim mk2]

On that evidence, Eriksson has "lost" the dressing room. The players obviously do not want to play for him.

Forget the World Cup: England have a lame duck manager.

[rock steady]

would be nice for sven to resign but we know he has no dignity, and england can't afford to sack him. great night though, who knew keith gillespie could still play football? and damien johnson was good also. well done northern ireland.

[andyrovers]

Embaressed!!!

We lacked belief. Northern Ireland wanted to beat us and well done to them.

We need an English Manager !!

[Flopsy]

Bravo Northern Ireland absolutely brilliant, worked tirelessley worked together played the best football

England - Shame on you all - shame on the manager - shame on Mclaren (useless useless useless) - shame on the players

[rock steady]

i dont buy into this whole english manager thing. its not because he's foreign, he's just......................................................................................................................................crap.

[andyrovers]

We Know he's crap. He's not a motivator. We need someone with belief and passion for England. Thats only going to come from an Englishman.

[rock steady]

We Know he's crap. He's not a motivator. We need someone with belief and passion for England. Thats only going to come from an Englishman.

345411[/snapback]

didn't really work with keegan though did it?

i don't care about his nationality or passion. if he had any dignity he would offer his resignation. but then that should have happened a long time ago.

[adopted scouser]

england can't afford to sack him

345405[/snapback]

Nonsense, the FA preside over the richest league in the world. It's damage limitation now, get rid.

What formation was that ? The Great Bear? The Blancmange? Suited Beckham but noone else. Rooney on the left, no wonder he started to lose it.

Sack the turnip immediately.

[Exiled in Toronto]

Bad for England, but good for football. Good for Northern Ireland and their fans. Money and vast salaries can actually be humbled by teamwork, effort, belief and good coaching.

No reason why Rovers can't hope to tweak the noses of the top three in a similar fashion.

[rock steady]

Nonsense, the FA preside over the richest league in the world. It's damage limitation now, get rid.

What formation was that ? The Great Bear? The Blancmange? Suited Beckham but noone else. Rooney on the left, no wonder he started to lose it.

Sack the turnip immediately.

345414[/snapback]

its known as the "accomodate becks at any cost" formation.

[DE.]

Shameful. 4-5-1 is a disgusting formation to play against a team like Northern Ireland (no offence to the Northern irish, but they're on par with Azerbaijan in the FIFA rankings ffs). We deserved to lose and hopefully this is the kick up the arse they needed, as if we needed another one after Denmark! I feel sorry for the poor sods who went to watch that 'performance' tonight.

Edited September 7, 2005 by DE4life

[LeChuck]

If Sven has to go then we should bring Bobby Robson in, give him the job until after the World Cup and then look for a long term successor.

Appointing Allardyce/Curbishley or any of the inexperienced yet talented other English managers would be suicide, I'd rather stick with Sven.

[The Doctor]

I think it's time for Sven to go.

[MIROVER]

Gutless Shameless could go on. What does Owen Hargreaves to deserve a place I wouldn't have him in Accy Stanley side. Rooney well how did they keep him on after that disgraceful episode with Beckham. Although he must be ###### off being put on the left hand side he was left back at times come on give me strength. I have never said this before but now I have lost patience Sven must go he doesn't get involved we need someone with passion i.e Pearce. Seems to me that Sven only has Beckham behind otherwise he has lost the support of the players.

Still beat Austria/Poland at home and we are through however is it worth it we will never do it with that Swedish knobcheese in charge.

[Scotty]

I've defended Sven in the past, and I do think he's received a lot of undue criticism over the years, but tonight was a tactical shambles from start to finish.

First of all the formation. All this talk of a holding midfield player is completely irrelevant when we're playing Northern Ireland. What the #### do we need a holding midfield player for? None of their midfielders were remotely interested in attacking, something we all knew before the start, so why play anyone defensive in there?

Northern Ireland were always going to line-up with two banks of four across their defence and it was up to us to break it down. The best way to do that is to play two forwards, four attacking midfielders, and two attacking full-backs. Instead, we only had one forward, one midfielder so deep that no matter how good his passes were they didn't hurt the opposition, and two full-backs who hardly got forward at all.

Secondly the personnel. Our best forward, ever since he made his debut, is Wayne Rooney. He's brilliant at playing just behind the main striker, linking up with our midfield, and running at the opposition defence. So we played him on the left wing!! ###### stupid.

Beckham was our best player and played some sublime passes at times. However, he was so deep for most of the game that his passes didn't hurt anyone. Even when he managed to release one of the wide men behind the defence (usually Wright-Phillips) they looked up and only saw a closely marked Owen in the middle. No-one from midfield supported, and I can't remember a single midfielder making a run ahead of the forwards all match.

Thirdly the substitutions. SWP was our main attacking threat in the first half so why was he subbed early in the second? Just senseless. Bringing Defoe on gave us nothing as he's so similar to Owen. At that stage we needed a big lump a la Heskey or Crouch (or yes, even Davies Theno) to come on and give us a different option. Sadly we had no-one like that on the bench. And then, after we were a goal down with 10 minutes to go, Sven takes off our main goalscoring midfielder Lampard and replaces him with a defensive midfielder in Hargreaves. Clueless.

Every substitution, instead of fixing things, just seemed to bring more confusion to the team. Our midfield in particular didn't seem to have a clue where they should be playing for most of the second half, and consequently the Irish gained confidence and could have won by more in the end. They were the better team and thoroughly deserved their win.

We can talk about tactics and formations all we want but tonight too many individuals just weren't up to it. Too many of them didn't seem as committed as their opposite numbers and the whole team collectively didn't work hard enough all game.

It's not a disaster yet as we can still win our remaining two games and top the group. However, how confident can we be that we can do that? I know I'm not confident now, and I just wonder if the team have lost confidence in the manager.

[des]

just watched the game and what a mess, wrong formation and wrong players playing in the wrong postions.

I think that if he wants to play a five midfield them he as to play a 3-5-2 I think that rovers should play this but that is another story.

The weak part of this is the width both in defence and attack, but with cole on one side and backs on the other it could work, that means that the team should rule the middle ofthe park and still have options up front, with the 4-5-1 you rule the middel of the park, but have no or very little options up front and hence what will not work is the 4-5-1 so boys its back to the drawing board again

[S15]

The players are just as spineless as the manager..

Do they have no pride..

To quote an old Rovers boss,.. ''I could smell a little bit of fear, there was no fire in their bellies.''

[den]

Footballs rubbish, bring on the cricket.

[McClarky]

Does anyone know what Owen Hargreaves has over Sven, pictures of him in Nancy's underwear maybe. The bloke comes on in every game and yet I couldn't tell you anything about him as a player, other than that he's crap.

I am getting obsessed about this and have just checked the FA website and found out that Hargreaves has 29 caps and yet has only started 2 games since the last World Cup. There must be legendary English players who have far less than 29 caps. There must be something going on.

Congrats to Ireland by the way.

Can't wait for real football to return at the weekend, but then again......

[Alex Rover]

Surely the same applies to anyone working in an office (like me), if you have no respect for your manager.....

[Jan]

Didn't see your game. Couldn't watch mine. (well only through my hands). David Healy, eh??? Who'd have thought it. Combined cost of NI-= almost £0 Combined cost of England £millions. Combined worth of England £0. Combined worth of NI= priceless!!!

Now all that's got to happen is that Scotland need to keep rememebring how to play footy, and someone else in the group needs to beat Norway. OK not likely but at least we're in a better shape than we were. Maybe Walter Smith isn't that bad a manager.

[philipl]

Have they sacked SGE yet?

[Jan]

I don't think you can afford to (financially) can you???

[blubawls]

SGE, Tactics, Formations?????

We were playing Norn Iron ffs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!