WC 2014 - Match 7 - England vs Italy

[AbovetheI]

**escapegoat time**

Rooney was shit.

[Royal Ginger]

So, after the first round of games Costa Rica top the group.

[Ian Royal]

Fair play. I think we could have had that if we'd started Lallana, an actual midfielder, out on the left in place of the typically ineffectual and defensively horrendous Rooney.

.......Henderson, Gerrard
Welbeck....Stirling....Lallana
...............Sturridge

Please.

[Whatevs]

Barkley and Wilshere did f¨ck all

[wingnut]

We were better in the first half. Played with pace and much more direct. Second half we were way too slow and allowed Italy to get men behind the ball and close down the space.

[Whatevs]

All the players looked fecked after about 65 mins

[AthleticoSpizz]

and deservedly so Ginge.

We are not bottom wahey

[6ft Kerplunk]

Encouraging performance. But neither Wellbeck nor Rooney should be playing on the left.

[sandman]

Oh Rio, you were doing so well.

[Cripple Creek]

I have not followed England closely in the past few years and that was a far, far better performance than I remember from 2010 - although it would be hard to be worse. The downsides were Rooney and Glen Johnson really isn't a great right back. Sterling showed all the indications, I thought, that if England progress he could be one of the highlights of the World Cup. Pirlo's almost goal at the end would have been harsh on England but, goodness me, what a player. Wish we had him.

[AthleticoSpizz]

'Enery seems more p1ssed off with the result than they (the English pundits) do

[Libertine]

There was some encouraging stuff from England but Italy were clearly the better team and deserved the 3 points. As Mr Angry said all England have to do is take care of business against Costa Rica and Uruguay (which is easier said than done but definitely doable) then it is off to the knock-out rounds. I do worry about how they are going to hold up in the Brazilian heat though, that was one gassed group of players at the end...and this was only their first game.

[AthleticoSpizz]

yep...words are easy

[Libertine]

And for the sake of disclosure, after the US the other nations I pull for in the World Cup are Italy (where my ancestors are from) and England. So even as a "neutral" this was a tough game for me to watch...I would have preferred a draw. So having a bit of interest in how England do I wasn't too discouraged by what I saw tonight. Opening games are always tricky and even more so when you have to play a team like Italy. They played far worse in their opening game in 2010 against the US and still got out of the group. The left side is a concern though...

[melonhead]

Half decent performance, encouraging in parts
Cole wouldn't have allowed those crosses to come in for the goals
Rooney played wide as he is the most disciplined, but he's wasted out there

Much less painful a loss than I remember in the past

[Millsy]

To be fair we were unlucky (and Rooney was not finishing) but we dominated that match.

50% more shots on goal
70% more shots on target
50% less fouls
Infinitely less offsides
4.5x the number of corners

In my (biased but defendable) view

WE WOZ ROBBED

and I'm very excited about the next two games that we can win. Delighted Sterling started.

Overall positive. Come on England!!!!!!!

[genome]

Hart 6
Johnson 6
Cahill 6
Jagielka 6
Baines 5
Gerrard 6
Henderson 6
Rooney 5
Sterling 8
Welbeck 6
Sturridge 7

[Flyingkiwi]

**escapegoat time**

Rooney was shit.

No he wasn't! He had a perfectly reasonable game. Supplied the cross for the goal. Wasn't particularly effective in front of goal, true, and should never be allowed to take another corner again in his career though.

As others have said on this page (Haven't looked at the rest), that was an encouraging performance and, with a bit more incisiveness up-front, who knows?

[Ouroboros]

That was extremely entertaining, and for that I'm grateful.

Probably have to go back to Croatia away in qualifying for 2010 for a more pleasing England performance.

[davidstarkey]

Another good game in what is a great World Cup so far.

Encouraging first-half performance from England, but things dropped off very quickly after the break and we were well beaten in the end. What on earth was going on with our left-hand side? - Darmian (sp) had ridiculous amounts of space time and again, and Baines got no help from the left-sided players. At first I thought it was the plan to allow him a bit of space and defend narrowly, but I'm baffled that Hodgson and his staff were unable to see that we were getting rinsed down that side after a few minutes. Was absolutely no surprise that the decisive goal came down that side, cracking goal from Balotelli but you have to look at our defensive positioning.

Time to be adventurous and drop Rooney for Uruguay - got nothing against the guy but he was a passenger today (excellent assist aside) and we look best when moving the ball at pace whereas he was ponderous today. I reckon that we have the nucleus of a good young team which a) would be well served by getting some World Cup experience and b) is our best hope of doing well at this World Cup.