Hasta

I'm too rough to read back though the thread sorry but judging by this page obviously opinion differs. A few quick points though. Rooney was being fouled before the 'incident'. Rooney put his foot on the guy but I don't believe he stamped on him. He didnt really have anywhere else to put his foot. The referee looked like he was taking no action whatsoever until Rooney pushed Ronaldo. The ref may well say he sent him off for a stamp after reviewing the pictures but I think the reaction of the Portuguese and the push where what go the red card. Errikson has been a complete failure. His reluctance to drop his favourites has cost us. To sum it up we played better and looked more threatening with 10 men than we had done in any of the other 4 games. Why? Because Beckham was out, Lennon was in and suddenly we had genuine threatening pace. At the start of the tournament I knew we couldnt win it, as I did in 2004, with SGE in charge. If Mclaren gets it right this group of England players will go very close in 2008. Unlike Rover6, I will reserve judgement on Steve Mclaren. He took risks to chase games at Boro during the UEFA cup last season that Sven wouldnt even dream of. Put it this way, its certainly not a backward step. Forgot to say , that Hargreaves can play a bit too.

I've been hounding and abusing him long before this world cup!

I'd prefer England to be playing France than Portugal. I think they're not technically as good and that they are one of the few teams that England may have the legs over in this tournament. Just my opinion.

Theyure average odds from an English bookie. Dont know many continental bookies to check. Dopnt get me worng though, at them odds the value is all with the Portuguese.

England are 5/4 to win in 90 minutes. Portugal 9/4

Fair play to France. They have slowly improved throughout the tournament and did so again in that game. Spain, despite haveing most of the ball, looked lacking in ideas and nouse to create anything (think rovers away at 10 man Everton!). Good to see ZZ being as cool as ever with his goal at the end. Have to say though Eddie, the penalty was nailed on. I wouldnt use the word stamped, but the defender just clumsily came down hard on the back of the spaniards ankle.

Come on Fernando

Gerrard is actually still available at 43/1 on BF which, given your logic Eddie and if he was to switch to a more attacking role, is a decent price. He was generally around 65/1 before the tournament but has been backed as high as 300/1 - presumably late during the Trinidad game before he rifled in his first.

I just hope he doesnt rest Torres for the next game now they have won the group. He could easy bag another brace against the Saudis

Good news for me after the Spain game tonight. Torres now top scorer with three although he really should have scored a couple more. Now trading at 4/1 on Betfair and I've just laid my stake back.

How come when I listen to Martin O'Neil I don't get the urge to think "stop stating the bleeding obvious , I can see that" Most pundits talk like they're talking to the 3% of the population who've only tuned in cos its the world cup and know nothing about football whereas the other 97% of us have to sit and suffer. At least on BBC if you press the red button on digi you can knock Motson off and get either Five Live commentary or just crowd noise. Bliss.

Thought the Italians looked quite classy and very dangerous when they went forward. As good a team as I've seen yet (but I missed the Argie game). Ghana were OK but their attacks seemed to break down at crucial times in silly ways. They were also by far the dirtiest team yet. Good job the ref from the England game wasnt in charge of their game tonight. They'd have been down to 8 or 9 men.

The only bright thing I can say from that is that there's now a decent chance we get to play Ecuador in the 2nd round.

Ecuador apparantly only qualify for the World Cup because they win every home game in their group as they play many many moons above sea level. However the only competitive game they won away from home since the last world cup was against Bolivia who are even higher above sea level than they are. Their recent friendly results are defeats to Holland, Japan, Macedonia (!) and Uganda (!!) with a draw against Columbia and a win over Honduras (yipee). Poland on the other hand chased England home in the qualifyers and made us sweat a bit. They scored 10 more goals than England in our group and won every other game apart from the two against the Three Lions. They played Ecuador in a friendly on neutral ground at the back end of last year, won 3-0, yet are 11/10 to win this game. As it's the first day of the World cup and it's an otherwise dull game I'm sticking my neck out and sticking £30 on the Poles. (I've also backed 0-0 just incase Ecuador pack defence!) Poland will stroll it - wont they ????

Won't be Djibril Cisse as he's just been very unlucky and seems to have broken his leg in a friendly. Luca Toni scored 31 goals in Serie A this year which is the first time thats happened since the 50's. However I think Spain have a very easy group and could rattle in a few goals. A lot of people are tipping Villa to be their main man but in qualifying it was Fernando Torres. He's tipped to move this summer from Athletico Madrid (I think) and I find that players in that situation tend to thrive. Although he's struggled in the friendlies, I've backed him to come good at 33/1. Best Odds for Top Goalscorer

Prem league final tonight although I do feel the competition has lost the gloss it had in the early weeks. Problem tonight is that the hype surrounding Taylor V Barney has been done twice before (even though there was only pride at stake). Also, having Scholton and Lloyd as the other two players lacks the hpye of say Mardle or Manley. To increase interest I've had a bet on the highest checkout in the Taylor V Lloyd game being under 145 at Evs.

That's this years car insurance paid.

Henrys interview was very bitter. However I dont think the ref favoured Barca, he was just plain bad. For all the mistakes against Arsenal, he also disallowed a Barca goal, give Arsenal the freekick they scored from for a dive, failed to book Ebouie a second time and booked their full back for nowt. Very very poor. We'll have to get used to it for the UEFA next year. With regard to the sending off, it did run the game. Also, the foul didn't prevent a clear scoring chance as the ball rolled to a guy who knocked it into an open goal.

Bit of info on the New Zealand game here.

Give or take a few mill, if we add Grabbi's wages onto his transfer fee, probably about 3 years ago.

Any chance of turning into a poll like the Hughes thread using the same choices. Yes - He was my first choice Yes Undecided No Angry I wanted Grooby

I had a bit of a rant at him after the Brum game but to be fair he also looks knackered. Also teams may be finding him out more by analysing his game, picking up his runs into the box etc... It's like when strikers (kevin phillips and Marcus Stewart sprint got mind) get second season-itis in the Prem. I large bid £5mill upwards would be tempting but anything less would be silly. However I don't know what joey_big_nose has been taking if he thinkgs MGP tackles better than Reid.

Misplaced frustration due to the circumstaqnces of the game, returining to the first team and getting injured. He didnt throw it down with veno, just tossed it away. Edit - just read blueboys slightly incamparable comparisons. )

Having watched the game in the pub all I can say was MGP was for the god knows how many games in a row awful. Peter did more in 10 mins than Morten did in the first half. Hughes has a tough decision to make in the summer as to whether he overpeformed earlier or is underperforming now. I felt sorry for Reid as he carried the midfield all on his own.