Err............. because he only took 4 strikers, 2 of which were crocked, one of whom fairly predictably broke down, and one of the others he refused to play. I really don't agree with your rose tinted view of how we played either. We were awful throughout the tournament.

Joking aside. he ain't going to be too popular on the first day of pre season training is he? Odds on a reprieve for Van Horseface and crybaby out?

Let's get things into perspective. Yes Rooney's sending off was VERY harsh. But then again we never looked in the least bit like scoring with 11 on the pitch. And maybe on another day Carragher's first penalty might have been allowed. BUT We've scraped through two games courtesy of free kicks without otherwise ever threatning the goal. We've been desperately unimpressive as well in the others. We've completely wasted Rooney playing him back to goal 4=5=1 without any support. Your luck can't last for ever. Our World Cup was knackered from the moment the squad was picked. Instead of two redundant selections in Jenas and Walcott, Defoe and Bent should have gone. I'm REALLY annoyed. I would like to see us lift the World Cup before I die. However, Best pool of talent available since 1970 and Mr. Burns blows it completely. Or even worse, was McClaren calling the shots all along?

Their manager made some very odd substitutions but I thought Argentina were slightly unlucky in the sense that they did at least seem to be trying to win the thing in normal time, Germany seemed to have no such desire. Small wonder after the penalty shootout. It looked as though they had been practising them with stereotypical German efficiency. Each attempt was despatched like a shell from a gun. And Lehmann proved once again adept at stopping penalties. No-one will fancy themselves against the Germans in a similar situation.

Of the four games: Germany v Argentina Desperately close call. Argentina would be clear favourites but for German home advantage. Narrow Argentina win. Portugal v England: 2 previously unimpressive teams. Too close to call imo. Extra time and penalties looms. Italy v Ukraine Virtual shoe in for the Italians Brazil v France Can't see past a comfortable Brazil win.

Just seen the penalty incident for the first time. A 50/50 one in my book but quite what Neill was doing going to ground at that stage of proceedings, heaven only knows. If he'd stayed on his feet the striker was going nowhere. Good result from a purely selfish Rovers point of view. We can now get Neill and Emerton sat down and find out what they're doing once and for all.

Edson Arantes de Revidgemento. Only joking. Simildo 10. Nice.

Ukraine v Switzerland - how bad was that? Good grief. The Swiss didn't even look like threatning the goal during the penalty shootout! Lucky boy that Shevchenko. 30m quid? ..................hmmmm.

I really don't know how you reach that conclusion unless you call a hurried half chance for Lampard from outside the area a shoe in. Yes it was a great free kick. But other than that we didn't genuinely threaten their goal once. Still as jim said after the Spurs game, better to play badly and win than play well and lose. It's just a question of whether we can go any further playing like that.

Sorry sir! 50 lines..................I must read my threads..................I must read my threads etc. (I did see it actually I was attempting to agree with you but couldn't think of a way of putting it differently. )

Scolari told us his real reasons for declining to take the England job last week. He said he could not possibly ask his players to give their all knowing that he himself was off to join another country. There was also obviously the possibility we would draw Portugal putting him in an impossible situation - and it has happened. That feeble excuse about the Press was just a smokescreen. THE FA bolluxed it up with the timing of their approach. No-one else.

Can anyone beat them? Certainly. Not least the referee in front of a hostile home crowd on Friday. Do they look the most likely winners thus far? Definitely.

Agreed. The only one I disagreed with was the Portugese player that was wrestled to the floor only to be given a second yellow for holding onto the ball.

The easier of the two options but I was hoping that Holland would win after Figo's antics. After thrusting his head into an opponent's with the referee's back turned (for which he bizarrely then got a yellow) he got another opponent sent off 5 minutes later with a terrible piece of play acting. It was only really after that that the players lost it and things went seriously pear shaped. You're right it's definitely not! And the poster above is quite right. Kuyt looks useless on the evidence of the last 2 games.

If we get much further playing like that you can say you were right!.

Yep, despite Wayne's indiscretions, she couldn't bear to split up from her soul mate. His credit card.

Absolute garbage yet again but a perfectly acceptable result. The second game along with the Paraguay game in which we've created nothing whatsoever from open play, but had to rely on a Beckham free kick. (Beckham was woeful once cagain) The Rooney back to goal experiment left him completely isolated and devoid of any support just as tnr predicted. Sven just gets luckier and luckier but surely this is the end of the line playing like this.

It's not quite that clear cut - Shearer was a sheet metal worker's son from somewhere or other wasn't he and you never saw him conducting himself like Rooney. Rooney has been blessed with sublime footballing talent but off the pich is obviously as thick as two short planks. He's only 20 but has already been caught up in the Hookers and gambling scandals. This close season he breaks his toe and presumably spends all night standing up at The Beckhams' party. You might say nothing too wrong with that , lads will be lads and all that and I'd agree to some extent. But he's still got a hell of a long way to go before he proves he's a truly great player, not just another Gazza without the cheeky charm. Or George Best without the charisma. Or looks. Or European Cup winners medal. Or European footballer of the year award. Or League titles.

I thought Sweden had a real chance of turning Germany over today and was beginning to despair when the match turned out to be as one sided as most of the action that had gone before. Then just in the nick of time along came Argentina v Mexico to rescue the tournament. One of the best World Cup games I can recall. Mexico were absolutely superb but as well as they played Argentina always seemed to have a slight edge somehow. And the strike that decided it! What's the betting on another damp squib (England v Ecuador) and another classic (Portugal v Holland) tomorrow?

Portugal have been **** poor as well so far by all accounts AS. It would be just SGE's luck for us to get them in the quarter finals. There's an old saying "It's better to have a lucky manager than a good one" and I'm starting to wonder if he's a lucky one.

Brett Emerton!

I think what Aussie is referring to is Clive Thomas famously disallowing a crucial goal in the World Cup by blowing the final whistle. Corner is taken, Thomas blows whistle, a fraction of a second later, the ball is volleyed into the net. Not sure as to the two sides but seem to think the unlucky ones were Brazil. Debate raged for ages afterwards as to whether a ref should allow the ball to go dead before blowing up.

I don't take much notice of England friendlies but hasn't Sven always slavishly adopted Mike Basset's "We're playing 4-4- ******* 2" line? And for now anyway we still have Rooney and Crouch available. Bit late to be changing it. Far from having a master plan, Sven seems to be desperately scratching around for something that actually works.

Agree totally with that Dave, by and large everything has been extremely predictable, the 16 teams we thought would reach stage 2 have, it's gone so true to form that a lot of the third matches have been "dead rubbers" and there hasn't been that much to get the pulse racing. It reminds me to a certain extent of the vastly overblown Champions League in which the group stages are usually pretty poor fare for the neutral and the knockout stages usually extremely excitiing. The World Cup has been better than that but I only expect it to really take off now.

I think jim was trying to point out that we're in the last 16 of the World Cup and we're still experimenting. Sven plainly doesn't have a clue what his best line up/formation is and has had two years to sort it out.