Slovakia vs England

[Cunnyfunt]

11 hours ago, Aizoon said:

Simple question. Was anybody expecting entertainment from a friendly in Slovakia? Anybody?

Even your hedgehog would have known it was a World Cup qualifier. 

[The Bard]

Just heard an interesting comment from Pat Nevin on the radio when asked about England's perceived lack of leaders.  To paraphrase him, when you have one dominant character in a team, other leaders won't necessarily emerge until that character is moved aside.  He suggested that Rooney may well be 'rested' for a few games to see what happens. Who will emerge as a leader?  It's worth remembering that our best performance by a mile recently was against Germany in March when both Rooney and Hart weren't involved.  

It's the endgame for him - he'll go to the World Cup as Captain of the squad but I don't think his place will be guaranteed as others should have supplanted him by then.

[RumRed]

If the Rooney retirement statement  wasn't sanctioned by management they should have slapped him down.  Just announce his service to England has been much appreciated but he is not in the national team's plans, send a statement that no player is bigger than the team.

 

[North London Red]

Flew home from Vienna tonight after an excellent couple of days / nights in Bratislava and Trnava. 

Reading some of the posts above, you'd think Slovakia were a bunch of amateurs or part timers who we should be beating 10-0. Fact is, they're ranked 24th in the world, they beat Spain in the last qualification campaign, and they knocked out defending champions Italy from the 2010 World Cup. Anyone who's watched Napoli in recent years will know Marek Hamsik is a very decent player. And they're very well organised defensively. Perhaps they're due a modicum of respect for the way they defended in Saint Etiennne and for 94 and a half minutes last night?

It was baking hot in Trnava and we restricted Slovakia to zero efforts on target. Zero. OK we struggled going forward for the first 70 minutes but Allardyce made 3 substitutions that all affected the game positively, and in the last 20 minutes it was one way traffic. In terms of struggling to break down a team who 'park the bus', I actually think two of the absentees last night (Barkley and Rashford) may have made a difference earlier in the game had they been picked, so it will be interesting to see if and when Allardyce brings them both back into the senior squad and starting 11. 

[Welcome To The Jungle]

So the Slovakia game was really really boring.

Can someone please explain to me then why I'm going to watch England Scotland. Football is such a drug. I hate it and love it

[Phileas Fogg]

3 minutes ago, Welcome To The Jungle said:

So the Slovakia game was really really boring.

Can someone please explain to me then why I'm going to watch England Scotland. Football is such a drug. I hate it and love it

That'll be good. The atmosphere at both games (from the respective away supports anyway) will be awesome. The game should be a better spectacle as neither team will want to draw particularly and it'll be played at a 'British pace'.

Immeasurably better than playing Slovakia, I'm jealous you're going! Enjoy it, will be a great experience. Watching England, especially away, is much more about the travel, drinking and experience rather than the football. That's why we always take thousands away even when we indefinitely fail in tournaments.