Unbelievable

Good match for the neutrals so far... Crouch looks up for it, and is troubling the Croatia defence..

Why is this match being played on a rugby pitch..?

Good chance for England, but Croatia seem to have an actual goalkeeper..

What a horrible start of the match for Carson.. Will be interesting to see if he makes any more mistakes..

Carson wtf

Fitness you mean? To answer the question, if we could sell Harper and replace him for somebody better making a bit of money in the progress that would be good wheeling and dealing imo.

Yes, lets ignore what the the professional player says. Lets ignore the decent manager who picks the team. After all, you really know more than they do. So what´s your take on that goal? Was it a shot, in which case what´s Owen got to do with it? Was it a pass, in which case it was either a bad pass or Owen didn´t have the pace to get to it? I agree Gordon probably positioned himself for the way our strikers were set up, but you could argue that everybody inside the box at the time of the pass/shot had an effect on the goal. The only noteworty thing Owen did in the Sunderland match was make a good run on a Harper long ball and miss a chance he could/should (?) have scored for a player of his stature..

My point exactly.. Besides, if a player would `only` contribute by scoring, he would have to score a hell of a lot more than Owen ever did. Van Nistelrooij is a good example. He will not create too much himself, but over the course of his career has consistently scored almost twice as many goals as Owen. We are playing Rolls Royce wages for a very untrustworthy Jaguar (sorry NE5 )..

I don't care what Milner says. It was a bad pass that turned into a fluke goal through shambolic defending. We were very fortunate because otherwise we would have lost to the Mackems, but that goal did not merit for any of our players to be lauded.. Owen has played piss poor for us since the start of the season. Most of the squad has to be fair, but a player of his proclaimed quality should be able to do better than that. I am frustrated mostly by some very soft misses in one on one situations. Some from outside of the box when he lacked the pace to take it into the box free from the last defender and some from inside of the box that an instinctive finisher as he really should have scored.. Martins has been hit and miss as well to be fair, but he isn't being picked regardless of form and you could even argue Sam's man management has been suspect on occasions where he has put Martins on the bench in favour of Owen after some good Martins performances. A world class player should be able to make the team play better. Owen is a good player and happens to be a top finisher when top fit, but when not fully fit and not put goals on a golden plate he's about as much use to us as a Petr Cech behind a Sunday league pub team's defence.

I hope this post is a piss take Obviously I'm ignoring the hideous injury record and his inability to fit in with the team's best system, but when it comes down to quality, there is only one winner. Does this mean you are seriously stating that Owen played a big part in Milner's fluke goal v Sunderland and Reading's own goal and use them to make a point that Owen has been more effective than Martins?! How exactly do you know Martins wouldn't have scored in those matches also? Or is your statement "We wouldn't have scored against Portsmouth either. Nor Reading either (iirc Owen's involvement)" meant to clarify that we have a better chance to score when we play with 11 players including Owen than 10 players with no Owen replacement..?

I think we are in agreement. Anybody saying we will not miss Owen in the next 4-6 weeks needs a reality check though. We are only one more injury away from having Shola in or around our first team.. That's not to say I think Owen is somebody who has a future here or we should build a team around..

NE5, agree with everything you say here, but what's your analysis on Owen, the current one I mean, the one we have over here? Even disregarding his injury problems, he has missed a lot of easy chances for us, mainly this season, and he certainly hasn't delivered consistently.. I think you are not giving Martins enough credit by saying he scores the odd pot shot. He's been our most consistent goal scorer since he's arrived here. You're right in saying the team doesn't create enough chanced for the strikers, but Martins has shown that he can create chances himself as well. What's to say he won't score more goals if the team provide more chances, as you suggest will be the case with Owen..?

Well, Dave. It is a response to Mick complaining about us buying Owen, I didn't see him predicting what he said was "predictable". Dare I say that its jus a swipe at the board ? Unless Mick says otherwise, and admits it was simply a case of buying a quality player, which the vast majority of people were happy with, in which case I would retract my response. Do you not think my request to name these "trophy" players - assuming they think Owen is one and is not the only one - is relevant to the thread ? I've stated my case. I think the club simply cannot be castigated in any shape or form for buying top class quality players. Who has a problem with this statement ? The problem is that you've stated your case over and over and over and over and over and over again, and frankly, the entire forum is sick of reading the same s*** argument in practically every other thread. The bickering is so f****** tedious that it defies belief, so either keep it in one f****** place or just take it somewhere else altogether. Absolutely, and I seem to remember having seen an Admin giving a last warning yesterday around this time in this very same thread (reactions have (un)fortunately been deleted), so I'm looking forward to a much improved forum shortly where when you open a thread it might actually be about the topic you expected... So. Who do you think we will replace Owen with if he goes ? The way I see it we've already got a better player for Owen's position in Martins. Now we need to find somebody to play alongside him. I had high hopes for a Martins/Owen partnershup but seeing as none of our players bar Emre seem capable to keep the ball down and provide through balls for those two to run onto the new partner will have to be somebody with the ball both in the air and on the ground and somebody we can rely on scoring a good 15 goals a season. These players are obviously hard to come by, but we can´t go too wrong with somebody like Anelka or maybe Crouch. Martins is not in the same class as Owen, or the Owen we bought, and one or two spectacular pot shots won't change that, and neither does it make up for far too many disappearing acts either. Can you enlighten me about the difference in class between Owen and Martins? For me, a big part of this supposed difference is nationality. Owen is horribly overrated, because he is English and you don't have too many class forwards. That's why he is an automatic pick for England, whether he's fit or not. He wouldn't get a look in with France, Brazil, Argentina or Holland, because in the past 3 years he has done nothing to warrant being called world class at all.. Now I can see Martins isn't world class (yet), but with him there is a small chance he will be in the future (which is what counts, isn't it?) given the right coaching. In the meantime he provides us with far more than Owen does (at this point in time)..

Well, Dave. It is a response to Mick complaining about us buying Owen, I didn't see him predicting what he said was "predictable". Dare I say that its jus a swipe at the board ? Unless Mick says otherwise, and admits it was simply a case of buying a quality player, which the vast majority of people were happy with, in which case I would retract my response. Do you not think my request to name these "trophy" players - assuming they think Owen is one and is not the only one - is relevant to the thread ? I've stated my case. I think the club simply cannot be castigated in any shape or form for buying top class quality players. Who has a problem with this statement ? The problem is that you've stated your case over and over and over and over and over and over again, and frankly, the entire forum is sick of reading the same s*** argument in practically every other thread. The bickering is so f****** tedious that it defies belief, so either keep it in one f****** place or just take it somewhere else altogether. Absolutely, and I seem to remember having seen an Admin giving a last warning yesterday around this time in this very same thread (reactions have (un)fortunately been deleted), so I'm looking forward to a much improved forum shortly where when you open a thread it might actually be about the topic you expected... So. Who do you think we will replace Owen with if he goes ? The way I see it we've already got a better player for Owen's position in Martins. Now we need to find somebody to play alongside him. I had high hopes for a Martins/Owen partnershup but seeing as none of our players bar Emre seem capable to keep the ball down and provide through balls for those two to run onto the new partner will have to be somebody with the ball both in the air and on the ground and somebody we can rely on scoring a good 15 goals a season. These players are obviously hard to come by, but we can´t go too wrong with somebody like Anelka or maybe Crouch.

Beenhakker´s done it again! (qualified for the WC with Trinidad and Tobego, so this must have been like a walk in the park for him)..

Well, Dave. It is a response to Mick complaining about us buying Owen, I didn't see him predicting what he said was "predictable". Dare I say that its jus a swipe at the board ? Unless Mick says otherwise, and admits it was simply a case of buying a quality player, which the vast majority of people were happy with, in which case I would retract my response. Do you not think my request to name these "trophy" players - assuming they think Owen is one and is not the only one - is relevant to the thread ? I've stated my case. I think the club simply cannot be castigated in any shape or form for buying top class quality players. Who has a problem with this statement ? The problem is that you've stated your case over and over and over and over and over and over again, and frankly, the entire forum is sick of reading the same s*** argument in practically every other thread. The bickering is so f****** tedious that it defies belief, so either keep it in one f****** place or just take it somewhere else altogether. Absolutely, and I seem to remember having seen an Admin giving a last warning yesterday around this time in this very same thread (reactions have (un)fortunately been deleted), so I'm looking forward to a much improved forum shortly where when you open a thread it might actually be about the topic you expected...

Holland are through as well..

How would he know what Villareal would ask?

Ah ok, sorry..

Won't it mean Croatia will need/want to win the Wednessday match though..? Would be better for England if Croatia was already qualified surely?

Harry will be livid..

Italy score in extra time.

Scotland miss an empty net.. McFadden..

See, people always say this, but surely there is no basis for this in the two and a half seasons he has been with us now? I really feel that when played and supposedly fit Owen hasn't shown to be a class above Martins at all. A lot of the people who rate him as a top quality player (and Martins as a rough diamond) are living in the past. Owen's contribution over his time here has been very, very poor, even when he's played. In fact, I'd compare the situation to Luque who was also regarded a top quality player before he came here. He also was hampered by loads of injuries and never showed his supposed class for us when he was on the pitch. The only difference seems to be the perception of quality; in most people's minds Luque was shit while Owen hasn't played well for us but that is more due to our system and bad management rather than Owen's inherent class.. I think people need to smell the coffee: Owen's days as a top class player have long gone. We have been very unfortunate to buy him at the worst time possible and will take a huge loss on it (financially and performance-wise), but this is a bullet we have to bite: get rid and find somebody who can form a partnership with Martins, who not only currently contributes more to the team (as you correctly point out), but sadly is also a better player than Michael Owen Mk 2007.

Mackems looking the better team vs Man City.. Not very confident for the derby game at all.. They´ve condeded now.. That´s more like it!