afar

I don't have a problem with Beckham not being there, or the selection of Bellamy, but Giggs does not deserve his spot.

I think the main problem I had with us not bringing him is the fact he has far better technique and ability than Milner, he is much better placed than the Ox. He's more consistent than Walcott and evidently, he would have been a far better option than Young. I know there are a fair few people on this board that don't rate him as highly as I do but he was the one major omission for me that I really couldn't understand at all. It's rare to have a player who is a goal threat from nothing situations, can beat his man 8/10 times and can link up play well I agree, would love to see him in a NUFC shirt next season, not gonna happen though.

Just finished watching it. Had to take my daughter to a birthday party. Got to say I was hugely disappointed in the performance, it was terrible and the two Ashleys summed up the way they've played in the tournament with their penalty kicks. Got what we deserved in the end, nothing, and Italy aren't world beaters by any stretch of the imagination.

I don't think the tournament has been help by the line up of the QFs, 4 easily predictable winners (lets face it taking off our England tinted specs, no one outside our borders gives us much of a chance). The semi should be a lot better and closer games, although seeing past a Spain Germany repeat final is extremely hard.

Don't agree with that at all. In the France game we were terribly negative, but id a good defensive job on them. Sweeden we opened it up a bit more, in the first half there was only going to be one winner there, second half we conceeded a couple of extremely sloopy goals, but still found a way back into it, on the balance of the whole game we got the result we deserved. Against the Ukraine, we set out to play the host, which is effectively an away game for us a ceertain way, again negative but understandable. I saw enough of the relative potency in attack of both nations to be pretty confident in the thought that had we needed a win we would have approached it differently and we would have comfortably gotten it. England performance against Ukraine was no better or worse than Spain versus Croatia.

As far as Italy are concerned. I really don't understand the comments about how we'll get raped or such. Italy have hardly set the tournament alight themselves, and have nothing that we should fear. It'll be a close game, I think, but one we are capable of winning.

Just finished watching the game for the first time, I was at work while it was on live, and couldn't help but check on the score, so I knew the result. I read all the comments coming through about how bad we were and how lucky we were. But that's not the game I just watched, the game I saw was a team playing against a home nation who needed to win, while we only needed a draw. We played a safety first type of game, and tbh, for all the hype about how great Ukraine were, I was a little unimpressed, they created very few real chances. They haven't shown it a lot in replays but the guy looks offside when played through initially adn it's inconclusive though probably in for the ball crossing the line. We made a few chances of our own to add to the lead, and I'm pretty confident that had we needed to we could have scored again, but sensibly we just sat back and soaked up what pressure Ukraine were able to exert which to be honest wasn't much.

What's the nonsense with the blue tape on the back of the croats ?

Yep fucking idiotic.

Excellent save

Iniesta off colour today for some reason

I'm half spanish, so I say this with no bias whatsover, but that was literally the worst half of football I have watched in a long while. We offered next to no threat, there is no pace there and cutting edge, not Torres's fault, he's had nothing to work with. Need to improve in the 2nd, because it only takes one mistake or one break and Spain could be heading out.

I have never truly understood all the criticism he gets. I don't follow arsenal that closely but every time I've seen him play he looks bloody good.

Excellent finish, tremendous work by Walcott.

Get in

Trackj that on back to Milner, being shit giving up the free kick. He's bloody terrible.

Free header

Fucking hell !!!!

How that boy isn't even in the squad and Johnson is starting is completely beyond me

They are sitting back for 1-0's, just like they did against France, these guys are crap really, we should have pushed on to get a second, instead of trying to hold on to what we have.

Awful England, bloody awful

Damn these analysts on TSN here in Canada are awful, some Canadian ex player, no clue who he is and Darren fucking Anderton, lol.

Welbeck had no clue what to do there.

Sweden are a poor team really, we are no world beaters ourselves, but really should have more than enough to win this comfortably.

Just a stupid kid, who thinnks it's somehow cool to cheer against his own country.