But he's only "experimenting" because three of his first choice players are injured. However, I'd agree that he could have played 4-1-4-1 more often than he has.

I can understand Sven's reasoning. It looks like both Neville and Ferdinand will be missing on Sunday so he's trying to cover for those two. The only attacking right-back we have is Neville. We've missed him in the last couple of games, and one of the reasons Beckham didn't play well against Sweden was that he didn't have Neville to link up with down the right. Carragher's a good defender but limited in the opposition's half. Sven obviously feels that Hargreaves will be better going forward and will be capable of linking with Beckham better. Not sure he will be but I guess it's worth a try. Would have been nice if he'd tried it earlier though. Ferdinand is our main distributor of the ball from the back - none of the other centre-halves are as comfortable in possession as he is. By putting Carrick in the "holding role" Sven'll be asking his defence to play short passes to Carrick who'll then distribute the ball to the rest of the team (like Tugay does for us). He'll also allow both Gerrard and Lampard to get forward and do what they do best. Not sure Rooney can play the lone striker role to be honest, but it wouldn't surprise me if he can. He's one of the best players in the world. I guess we'll find out on Sunday.

"We"?

There are apparently 4 Aussies with Croatian heritage (according to the latest edition of World Soccer magazine): Tony Popovic Jason Culina Josip Skoko Mark Viduka and 3 Croatians with Aussie heritage: Joey Didulica Josip Simunic Anthony Seric

Usual bizarre responses on here I see. I thought we took a while to recover from Owen's injury in the first half, understandably so, as I'm sure an injury to a key player like that in the first minute would rock any team. However, once we regained our composure we looked much the better team. We kept possession well, mixed up our passing with long and short balls, and had easily the best player on the pitch in Joe Cole. He fully deserved his goal. Hargreaves played the holding role well, his distribution was excellent, and he broke up a number of attacks. Rooney looked a threat and nearly scored a wonder goal, and it's only a matter of time before Lampard scores a screamer. No idea how many shots we had in that first half but it must have been getting on for double figures. For some reason we started off flat in the second half and forgot how to defend set-pieces - which was unfortunate as Sweden are particularly strong on them. They capitalised when Allback scored and could easily have had two or three more. We weren't helped by a further injury to Ferdinand - someone who'd been doing an excellent job up to then of distributing the ball from the back. Slowly though we recovered and the substitution bringing Gerrard on for the tiring Rooney gave us the upper hand again I thought. No surprise to see Gerrard score what looked like the winner, I didn't think it was against the run of play at all at that time. Sadly though, our defending let us down again as Sweden scored a comical equaliser. I didn't think England seemed any more tired than Sweden in the second half, other than Rooney who is still getting his match fitness back, and I thought we showed a lot of character to overcome two injuries to key players - especially one as early and severe as Owen's seems to be. Obviously our set-piece defending was diabolical but I'm sure that's something that can be sorted on the training ground in the coming days. I'd be more concerned if we'd allowed Sweden chances from open-play but I don't remember them having any. It's worrying that we started the second half so poorly and forgot how to defend corners, and it's obviously also worrying that two of our key players appear to be injured, but all in all I thought we showed some improvement today - particularly in the first half. We've finished top of the group and have given ourselves, on paper at least, an easier route through the competition. Bring on Ecuador on Sunday!

Question for the convicts: Why did that Bresciano (sp?) fella start on the bench when he's one of your best players? Especially as that Chipperfield bloke who did start looks like he's never seen a footy in his life and has just been recruited from behind a London bar. Thought Neill was outstanding and Emerton was good defensively. Bit worried that a few scouts may have noticed Neill's performances so far. The Aussies were a tad unlucky today - shame Kewell's a bit @#/? overwise there was a point there for the taking.

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There's some very strange comments on this thread (aside from the predictable rubbish from the Neekoy numpty). First of all I didn't see too much wrong with England's central midfield pairing. It's not as if T & T were winning lots of tackles in midfield and carving through us at regular intervals. All T & T did was sit deep - frequently having 9 or 10 players behind the ball. So the game almost became a training exercise, our attack against their defence. The thing we lacked I thought was width. Beckham and Cole roamed infield too much into already congested areas and, dare I say it, we missed Neville's attacking runs down the right. Carragher's a great defender but he's not the best going forward. Only Ashley Cole consistently supplied any width for the first hour. It was noticeable that we started to create chances towards the end of the first half when Beckham stayed wide. In addition, we played the long ball to Crouch's head too often. We need to mix it up more, play the ball into the striker's feet, and link up midfield and attack more often. In the second half the much maligned Sven sorted this out with his substitutions. He put on Lennon, Downing and Rooney, and suddenly we had genuine width down both flanks and had someone dropping deep to link play up. We battered T & T in that last half hour and fully deserved the two goals we got. There's no doubt in my mind that we'll play better against a team that's prepared to attack us rather than just defend for 90 minutes. England good points: Our defence looks as solid as any team's I've seen so far. Ashley Cole showed signs that he was coming back to form last night. Beckham, in the main, is playing well and his crossing is superb. Crouch has caused both the teams he's faced so far lots of problems and took his goal superbly yesterday. Rooney's back. I thought Gerrard was our man of the match yesterday and has played well in both games. We finished the game strongly and there were no questions about our fitness or stamina. We have substitutes who are capable of changing a game. Bad points: Both Lampard and Owen look out of form. The midfield balance could be a problem when we play against a good team. Robinson seems to have been taking lessons from James when it comes to dealing with crosses. Overall we've played 2 and won 2 without playing anything like our best. We're already through to the last 16 and our best player is back from injury. Personally, I'm just really looking forward to the next games, I think we've got a real chance in this competition.

As a committee member of BRISA, and I stress this is only my personal view, I'd say that anyone who wants to pass on their best wishes to Cisse should do so individually. BRISA are there to represent the wishes of the majority of Rovers fans - I'm not sure you'd get a majority here.

We'll pi55 it. 1966 - 2006.

Cheers Philly for all your hard work. I'd love to make out that I've got some sort of system, but I'm afraid it's all pot luck. If I win it next year do I get to keep the trophy?

This sum's up my feelings about the squad

The circus continues

Peter Taylor.

Not sure if this has been mentioned yet: What happens if Arsenal win the Champions League? Let's hope Arsenal don't win it.

A number of people have said BRISA should be looking into this (incidentally - have you all joined BRISA yet? ). Well, one of the things we're going to be looking at in the near future is how to increase the atmosphere in general at Ewood. Obviously, the whole question regarding the drummer(s) fits into this category. In time we will be asking you all to put forward your ideas and suggestions and, like we did with the attendance topic (an update of which will be available soon), we will then present these ideas to the club.

First of all we need to give Everton tremendous credit. They were magnificent from the first minute to the last and fully deserved the points. They worked tirelessly, defended superbly, and broke well whenever thay were given the opportunity. They passed the ball far better than we did and were always a threat at set-pieces. And in Beattie they had easily the best player on the pitch. He won everything - in the air, on the ground - and he worked his socks off all afternoon. However, Everton were helped enormously by playing a team that put in as poor an individual and collective display as I can remember since Hughes took over. Our defence was a shambles. Both Todd and Nelsen failed to cope physically with Beattie, there was a continual lack of communication and understanding between Friedel and his defence, and both full backs offered nothing in either defence or attack. Our midfield wasn't much better either. Savage was totally anonymous (other than giving the free-kick away that led to the goal), Bentley and Emerton hardly created anything, and only Reid really emerged with any credit, but even he didn't show much quality. Up front Bellamy lacked his usual sharpness and Pongolle was just awful. No first touch, no dribbling ability, no physical prescence. I know it's early days for him but he's going to have to improve quickly. Again, I have to question Hughes's tactics. We needed Tugay on sooner once Everton's keeper was sent off, and I'd have also brought Kuqi on earlier. It was clearly not working from an attacking point of view and we needed the extra options that Kuqi can give us. I can only remember us getting behind Everton's defence once in the whole match and, more damningly, we seemed strangely reluctant to shoot even though their keeper was only about 12. Sunderland on Wednesday has now become a huge game. We just need to win it, I don't care how, and hopefully the forthcoming break will be enough to recharge our batteries and get back to the sort of form we were showing a month ago. We're still in a decent position, we could go 6th if we win on Wednesday, but we've no chance of staying there if we keep playing like we have done in the last two games.

I think we all need to realise that BRISA intend to be in it for the long haul. And yes, while we maybe didn't get the comprehensive answers we'd have liked at the last meeting, we will continue to communicate with the club and will hopefully get answers in due course. Obviously, the club receiving the document at short notice didn't help either. Our intention now is to focus in on some of the points in the document, perhaps look into them in more detail, and then give the club plenty of time to hopefully answer our questions regarding these points at our next meeting. As for our relationship with the club, I think it's pretty good. Both sides have shown a willingness to work together and help each other, and the club seem to genuinely want BRISA to succeed. We also agreed at the outset that we'd help provide feedback to the club if they wanted us to, and that's what they've asked for regarding the smoking issue. As for the looking at ways of improving the matchday atmosphere, I'd say that was a pretty important issue and is exactly the sort of thing BRISA should be doing.

They are all awful and I wonder who bloody designs these things. If I had to choose I'd go for 3 & 3 - best of a terrible bunch.

Peter Taylor would be my choice. Done a great job with the under 21s, obviously has loads of international experience, most of the players will know him already (and he them) from that level, and he's already an employee at the FA. Get some good coaches in alongside him and I think he'd be ideal.

Delighted for Wigan - thought they really deserved it. They've done their bit, let's do our bit tomorrow and make it the dream final for us and Wigan and the nightmare final for everyone else. Can't wait for tomorrow now.

Er, where did I say that? I was commenting on who's the better player out of Gray and Neill, not whether Gray's good enough for the team or not. For what it's worth I'd like to think that Hughes could get someone better at left back next season and, if Taylor is considered good enough, we could then get rid of Gray, Gresko and Matteo. If not though I'd be happy if Gray stayed - as long as it was on a short-term deal.

Neill's been twice the player Gray has this season. In fact neill's probably up there as a contender for our player of the season so far.

I thought Hughes got his tactics badly wrong yesterday. The minute Nakata (quite rightly) got sent off we should have replaced one of our hard-working midfielders (either Reid or Savage) with Tugay so that we could have exploited the extra space available. If not then it should definately have been done at half-time. The way to play against ten men is to stretch the pitch. Play down the wings, look to switch the attack from one side to another as often as possible, and basically get Bolton to run their arses off. Tugay is the one player we have who's capable of dictating this type of play. Which also means the decision to substitute Emerton for Kuqi was completely unfathomable to me. In the previous five minutes Emerton had got behind the Bolton defence a couple of times and whipped in decent crosses, we didn't come close to getting behind them once he'd gone off. Instead we simply humped the ball down the middle towards Kuqi, a tactic that was meat and drink to the Bolton defence. We didn't do enough to win the game and I partially blame Hughes for that - although too many of our players were off form as well. It was almost ten against ten anyway as Pedersen may as well have been sat in the stands. Bentley was poor, as was Savage from an attacking point of view, and Dickov did little. I thought we looked tired yeaterday and we're a different team when Bellamy doesn't start. However, we've got a week off now and we're more than capable of beating newcastle, even without Bellamy.

Todd and Nelsen are easily our best central-defensive partnership. They are both mobile, they are both physical, and they both read the game well. They aren't bad footballers for centre-halves either (although Nelsen was fairly shocking against United). And I think Hughes is in the best position to select the captaincy, and the fact that he's given it to Todd when we've probably got half a dozen other contenders in the first team squad (Nelsen, Friedel, Savage, Neill, Mokoena, Bellamy) says everything to me.