Justice is served tonight, love it!

Crap game and France were poor but...RESULT~!

Portugal were, yet again, utterly disgraceful.

Pleeeeeeeeeeeease GOD let France win this.

If there's any justice in the world...

Another thing that concerns me about Jeffers is his tendancy to dive...

So he scored a few goals...and?

The guy is still rubbish.

What? You think the man is the next Totti because he put away a few? What about all the chances he fluffed because of an extreme lack of finishing talent for instance?

Looking at what Hughes has done with players of limited talent like Kuqi, you have to hope he can get something out of Jeffers; and judgement calls on the like of Stead and Jansen have proved the manager's tactical accumen. Nevertheless I'm still highly sceptical - the guy couldn't even hack it at Rangers. Hopefully Hughes will prove me wrong but the nagging thought is as he was available earlier why didn't Hughes go for him then?

Yeah...he's done sod all with Kuqi.

He signed a crap player and guess what...he's still a crap player.

He runs around a lot though I'll give him that much.

Bellamy goes, and we get Jeffers and Roberts. I'm finding it hard to feel anything but negative about that.

Jeffers was horrendous for Rangers last year, an absolute abomination. I rate Roberts but replacement for Bellamy? I think not.

We need to splash some cash on a big big signing up front. I'm not even sure Mido would be the answer.

Disappointed tonight.

Well put and I feel exactly the same way.

I'm also with Krislu on being worried that these signings are infact our new strikers for the coming season.

The problem I have with people calling us for being "gloomy" and then saying how we "punched above our weight" by getting Bellamy and having a good season by getting into Europe is that when you say stuff like that you're not giving the club any credit. Is it so wrong to be ambitious for your club and the future after such a great season? I'm not saying we should automatically challange for the Champions League spots or something but at the very least you should expect us to defend the 6th place and get back into the UEFA cup. Doesn't fill you with confidence when you sell Bellamy and bring in Jeffers and Roberts.

I feel totally underwhelmed by todays news. After a disappointing world cup and the disappointment of selling Bellamy the fans need something to lift their spirits.

This isn't it.

He's here on a free, obviously bigger signings will follow.

I'm not actually sure that it is "obvious" that bigger signings will follow. That's just the problem. We can hope yes but I've not heard anything promising as far as rumours are concerned.

Astonishing the number of people who know better than Mark Hughes, keep faith with the Manager, give the player a chance.

Same old Rovers fans, one long whinge.

It's a completely natural reaction considering how we were forced to sell our big star player. You want to see an uplifting signing after something like that, something that gives you hope and shows a little ambition. Francis Jeffers doesn't do anything like that. An neither does Jason Roberts for that matter.

You could even make the case that you could put Beckham at right back against some teams. Not the greatest tackler but makes for it with a high work rate. He tends to cross from deep anyway and it would be interesting to see him link up with Lennon in front of him.

You have to drop either Lampard or Gerrard though and it will be interesting to see if McLaren has the stones to do this. Hargreaves should be a given from now on, but i expect everybody to get on his case again as soon as he has a sub-par performance...

But then Lampard and Gerrard can play very poorly and not get booed so that's ok then.

Something to think over for all England fans who are quick to criticise Ronaldo:

What exactly was Ronaldo supposed to do? Rooney stamped on a team-mate of his. Was he supposed to stand and admire it? Chuckle at the bulldog spirit of his Manchester United colleague? If Ronaldo had stamped on Gary Neville in similar circumstances and Rooney had piled in, we'd have salivated over the all-for-one-one-for-all spirit of England What exactly was Ronaldo supposed to do? Rooney stamped on a team-mate of his. Was he supposed to stand and admire it? Chuckle at the bulldog spirit of his Manchester United colleague? If Ronaldo had stamped on Gary Neville in similar circumstances and Rooney had piled in, we'd have salivated over the all-for-one-one-for-all spirit of England

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/worldcup06/200...me_ronaldo.html

See, the problem with that is that it is extremely unsporting/dishonourable to appeal to the referee or put pressure on the referee to have a fellow competitor sent off. And this is by far the only example of this in this tournament so far. Particularly the Germans have been doing it, in some occations actually patting the referee on the back after a booking. It's extremely distasteful and something really needs to be done about it.

Imo this England 'failure' boils down to his spineless nature which prevented him from choosing one from Gerrard and Lampard . They can't play together, how many bleedin matches do they need to play before that is concluded?

And do you think McLaren will do anything about it?

He won't have the balls to drop one of the two "stars" either.

Rooney stood on the Portugese player's crotch with the ref just feet away. What did he expect to happen?

I agree but it seemed to me that the ref missed it. Didn't look like he was about to book anyone for it until C. Ronaldo came up to him and demanded a card, at which point Rooney gave him a little push which the referee clearly reacted to and then produced the red card. If the sending off was for the little push then it's a shocking decision.

Owen Hargreaves was an absolute hero out there today and if people are still going to question his talent, commitment or englishness after this...he can't do more than what he did today. Brilliant defensivly and worked his socks off. Had nothing left to give and STILL scored on his penalty. Lampard and Gerrard take note...

Shame the sending off happened when it did, thought the game might be opening up a little at that stage. A good, solid performance by England though.

Didn't Ashley Cole say recently that is was impossible for the players to enjoy the World Cup due to the insane amount of pressure? The press certainly aren't helping...

Lucky boy that Shevchenko.

30m quid? ..................hmmmm.

Worth every penny too.

I dread the day we have to play Chelsea with Shevchenko in their side

Jeto #7

Not bad.

Yet, the England job is one of the most challenging jobs to take in football...because of the media. They seem hellbent on digging up dirt on anyone near the team, particularly if he happens to be foreign. The tabloids would have been all over Scolari and wasn't it so that he was going to accept until he had countless journalists camped outside his house for days? It apparently made him reconsider, and who can blame him.

The worrying thing about the game against Ecuador was the lack of inititive and the complete lack of movement infront of the ball. This could very well be down to the heat but this has been Englands problem throughout the tournament. If you look at Germany and their willingness to run, to move, where every player wants the ball all the time, to keep it moving forward as quickly as possible and to push up after the ball as much as possible...and compare that to England where no one but Rooney really seems to want the ball, where the midfield hardly wanted to walk let alone run, where there's a lack of willingness to do something...well, it just means that while Germany are passing the ball forward and creating chances, all England is doing is passing it sideways in defence, since no one is open up field.

How can you win football matches when no one wants to run, or maybe when they can't?

Scolari gave a coaching masterclass against Holland, having to reorganise his team three times owing to the sendings-off but always his players knew exactly what he wanted and what they were supposed to do.

Even with two of his best players suspended on Saturday, Scolari have his team set up and organised properly to beat England's confused and bewildered team.

Scolari would have been a fantastic manager for England but the FA bungled it by insisting that they had to make an appointment before the World Cup. Instead, we will have Steve McClaren.

Was thinking the exact same thing while watching the debacle last night. Scolari was constantly making adjustments and was on the touchline motivating and spurring his players on. What a manager! And what a huge coup it would have been for England to get him. Yet again though England are shooting themselves in the foot thanks to the media.

Such a shame.

Good preview.

England need to finish this in the first half, before they start the usual fade in the second half. They can not take 120 mins of football here though, that's for sure.

Great goal to win it but i feel sorry for Mexico tonight. They were easily just as good as the argies today who failed to impress as much as they have done earlier in the competition. Could have gone either way really and I have to admit I was supporting the Mexicans tonight. Germany vs Argentina should be a cracking game though.

It's been variable. Most of the "big teams" and favorites have been pretty poor so far and not lived up to expectations so there have been a few dull games. Argentina, Spain and Ivory Coast have been good to watch. Brazil started to show some of their potential last night. It's been a decent tournament so far but for some reason I remember 2002 as better.

This guy had to go off injured with a thigh injury after that particular challenge. Their striker also went down towards the end and had to struggle through the last 10 mins injured since Ghana had at that point made three substitutions. He was basically stood round the center circle and couldn't do much. Effectivly, they played with 10 men towards the end.

Well done Ghana

Harsh penalty but the US were awful. Just for the people moaning about the ref, the guy who scored the first for Ghana was absolutely pancaked when he was nearly clean through down the left flank. He was actually kicked AND held at the same time and was carried off injured. No freekick.

Well I've recently had a great save game going with Rovers, got the Portugal job and was about to take them to the world cup 2010 when the game decides it can't load the save anymore. Gutted.

So I started a new game with Rovers and now the trusted tactics won't work anymore, strikers won't score and I keep conceeding belters from 35 yards against crap shooters. It's frustrating like hell, I don't get it and I have no idea how to fix it.

Thank you FM, for being the most annoying but addictive game ever.

I hate you.

Thought Hargreaves did very well tonight and I hope some people will start to understand what a good player he is. Interesting wasn't it, to see how much more balanced the midfield looked without both Gerrard and Lampard in it. England were very good first half. They played with pace, movement and enthousiasm and they exploited Swedens big weakness down the right of their defence to good effect. Joe Cole was fantastic.

It's a worry for England that they can't keep up the tempo as the game goes on and I don't think it's anything to do with tactics. The movement stops and so the passing becomes ineffective. Most of these players are in the champions league teams and are having to play a lot of matches during a season. It's costing England now. Defending on set pieces was awful and they were lucky to get away with it.

I really thought England had found a worthy goalkeeper in Robinson, but not anymore. He doesn't exactly fill you with confidence the way he's playing at the moment.