It makes you think after a match like that though, just how far England are behind nations like that! Superb match, superb football, superb spirit and superb goals. Delighted that i was able to witness a match like that, every player gave their all for the cause and no player let themselves down. Italy were my dark horse tip before the event and remain it now!

Great stuff!! Allez les blues

Exactly what i thought! Apart from missing those chances against Togo, i think hes been their best player so far. Henry and others have missed far more than him anyway, i have no idea what M O'neill has against him, maybe hes not such a good pundit after all. Did he reject celtic a coupla yrs ago or summit?!

He had his arms out wide and the ghana player actually jumped into him. Totally ridiculus imo.

Thought the Italiens were on cruise control tonight and still easily brushed aside an ordinary czech team. Could be a v decent team if they actually bother with a performance!

Emerton played pretty well from what i could judge witching between the 2 games. Involved in both goals, and worked his socks off at the back. Red was irrelevant as he was already suspended for the last 16 anyway isnt he?

Dissapointing world cup all in all. I felt that Arena got his selections wrong and then we were catching up from the first game. An all honesty, the Czechs are a pretty ordinary team, but we just made them look good by standing off, not playing fast and agressive like ghana did when they played him. Lewis, just as i feared before the championships is not good enough at left back. Sure, against St Kitts and Nevis at home in qualifying he'll do fine but on the world stage, it should have been boconegra from the start. A number of US players were disappointing also, Beasley didnt really play till the last game, neither did Donavan. A new quality striker must be found for 4 years time as Mcbride wont be there. Hopefully Adu will have matured into something special and with him playing behind Johnson with a more experienced 28 yr old Donavan will see a better U.S world cup. Despite saying all this, the ref's both italy and ghana games were both very dodgy. I didnt think that the first red was a red in the italy match, and the pen today was a joke, 1 of the worst decesions ever ive seen in football. Pressure on the refs for an African team to qualify?! Some hard work needed to be ready in 4 years time, oh and a Mexico style group wouldnt go amiss either

Yep, the first of 4 times that Liverpool screwed us over this past season. 2 ref decisions in the matches (1&2) taking the p1ss re fixture date (3) and now bellamy (4).

2-0 U.S. Italy to beat the Czechs and so leave us with qualification in 2nc place to be knocked out by brazil in the next round. Deserved passage after that Italy game, 9 men and all!

Terrible fixture list for me persnally, couldnt have wished for it to go any worse 2bh! Im studying abroad in America for the first semester, so will miss the fixtures up unitl fa cup rd round day. Unfortunatly, that includes not only most of the Northen teams at Ewood, and Wigan away on the first, but also Sheff U and Reading away, where ive never been before and Arsenal's new ground.

Surely Luca Toni is in with a decent chance, hes defo gonna be my little effort esp at 20/1. Natural goalscorer who is in the first team at the moment!

A bit of tongue in cheek if you ask me.

Im not convinced with Lewis at left back, i think he is too attacking. A coupla times when ive watched him out there, he has seemed a bit dodgy, much better at left wing. However we have got Convey out there. As for the rest of the team i pretty much agree with that. Although, i would like to see John O'B in the team if possible, he has good european experience. Good to see a win against Latvia, although we must be more clinicle up front. Role on the Czechs

Much better result and performance last night, with a 2-0 win over Ven in front of 30k. Anybody on here see the match and can comment on the match and how we played etc?

World cup warm up match this evening vs Morrocco, will be interesting to see what kinda team Mr Arena puts out. Presumably with only a couple more friendles before the world cup he will put our strongest side out? Interesting use of Lewis as a left back in recent matches, good to see he can adapt from his club career. Hopefully there will a decent crowd in tonight to cheer the boys towards victory and confidence before that vital group game vs Czech!

Where is Vincente, he is a wonderful winger? I know he is only just coming back from a long term injury but surely he is worth a gamble. Him and Jaoquin on the wings is postitively frightning!

Yeh exactly Mb, its a bit of a pointless discussion. Still, hopefully we can change our awful record of never having won a outright uefa cup match in our history! Hughes will be different, we hope!

Its not quite as simple as that. We get our optimum crowds (forgetting size of opposition and away support etc) when we have a.) cat b prices b.) saturday game c.) not on tv (by definition 3pm kick off) Chels just arent a big enough club for Rovers to go against all 3 of the above. a.) Cat A+ b.) Midweek c.) On tv Thats the big and the small of it im afraid! Besides everyone is saving for city!

Maybe its just me or something, but went to Charlton on sat and thought that Pongolle was abosultley bloody awful, as did many people around me. Poor control, didnt hold the ball up, couldnt find a blue and white shirt with a pass and looked completely unthreatning! The amount of times we made 15 passes amongst our players holding onto the ball for like 2 mins or something, only for it to immediatly break down once it got to Pongollle. Enough of the negatives tho, it was exactly the kind of victory we needed. Everybody was talking about Chels winning the league, Rooneys injury or blues going down etc.. whilst we quietly almost garanteed ourself 6th place at the end of the season. Great atmosphere from our fans and a good turn out, although there were tickets on sale on the day, contrary to some people on here. Tugay was superb and was the difference today and its good to see Reid scoring from midfield. A point against Chels would be good enough to get uefa, cos i cant see us loosing to man city! 8th place garanteed Finally, a big round of applause to Curbs who has been a terrific manager for the past 15 yrs. For someone my age, when i first got into football as a 6yr old 13 years ago, its amazing to have a manager from then still managing now. Curbs take a bow, you have taken Charlton miles!

Big Steven Reid for me. Has improved so much from the lost little boy who we first saw under Souness when he signed! Superb fitness, has played in every game, tackles well, box to box every game superb. Thought he was excellent against Liverpool. I would have gone for Bellamy, but dont think you can pick a player who has only half the season.

Or in other words, an almightly cock-up

I got one of them on thurs myself. It made we wanna ring back and say, 'look im terribly sorry, i really wanna get another s/t, but im studying abroad from uni from august till december, so can only get a half 1'. Rovers are becoming good at making you fell guilty for not buying one thats for sure!

NOPE ITS NOT ON TV. The only way of seeing the match is getting your ass down to St andrews!! Unless you know of a dodgy away pub.........

As myelf and someone else on here predicted, (not sure who) its been Wigans own bad crowds in these last 3 games (all sub 19k) which have given us the lead! We will push on and comfortably finish ahead with chels and city to come!

A VERY frustrating day all round really, i was left kicking the living day-lights out of the seat in front of me in the bbe lower when the final whistle went There have only been 2 occasions that ive been really angry at a Rovers match this yr, out of the 30 odd ive seen (inc cups), the first was that pathetic failure to create a chance against 10 men for 80 mins against everton and y'sday was the 2nd. However whereas the first was Rovers fault, the blame is FULLY on the linesman and will be sending him a bill for my transport and ticket. ANYBODY GOT HIS NAME AND ADDRESS?? It was nice to see a packed out Ewood Park, i heard at the ticket office when i was getting my brum tickets that it was a complete sell out although i did see some gaps in the JW upper and behind the poles of the RS. Heard some reports of scouse in our ends, didnt see any in the bbe tho, but thats par really. Onto the match. Dont think that we deserved to loose the game. Alot of points have been made that luck evens itself out and that liverpool had the better of the chances. Liverpool have already screwd us over once this season at Anfield so for luck to even out we derserved a coupla of lucky descions. Instead we will prob get lucky against b'ham or summit which is unfortunate for them! Secondly the point about them creating more chances than us. Completley irrelevant, as they were on the counter attack. Had that ludicrus goal not been given in the first half they wouldnt have had anywhere near as much space going forward. It was so important that we got the first goal, but alas couldnt get it Though Reid was terrific and we passed the ball around very well. We got some decent crosses in from both sides and pressed forward well in the second half, but hypia and carra were immense, unbeliveible performance from those 2! A coupla other notes. Atmosphere wasnt too bad at the start, but deflated when we went 1 nil down as expected. liverpool fans were crap for 7k, we made much more noise at anfield! Another ###### taking thing is the way we've bent over backwards for this lot, changing the kick off, giving them loads of tickets, only for them to score a goal that wasnt and go and bore us to death after that! What the hell is going on FFS? 4th has gone im afraid, but lets stay positive, a win against Brum is enough for 6th place!!