England V Sweden

Match tonight! No prizes for guessing who I'll be cheering on, although I would not be surprised if England don't play to the standard we know they can and Sweden get a result.

What worries me is that there is a chap in my town who has his house decorated with Swedish flags. Given that this house is close to the local barracks I think this guy deserves a medal for bravery! I certainly admire his courage in doing that!

Rooney's back! And Sweden can't find the net to save their lives these days.

Maybe more importantly for England, Owen went down (not from a foul) in the 1st minute, with what looks like a knee injury - I'm afraid he won't be able to play the next game. And Eriksson sent on Crouch, despite his yellow card. Then after 70 minutes, he takes Rooney off, and puts on a 5th midfielder. So what possible situation does he think Walcott will be useful? He went into the competition with 1 fit forward, 1 with an injury that has luckily recovered in record-breaking time - but still can't play 90 minutes, it seems (God help us if we get extra time in the future rounds), 1 who had hardly played since December, and has now been injured, probably for the rest of the competition (possibly because he wasn't 100% fit), and 1 that Sven won't play in any circumstances, it seems. If he won't use Walcott iin a match we don't have to win, when the only other fit forward is on a yellow card, then when will he use him? When all 3 forwards are injured? :eyes:

argh. damn Beckham.

is horrendous. That second goal was absurd. It limits how far the team can advance, similar to 2002 when a routine free kick by Ronaldino turned into the game winner.

Call me what you will be I cannot see us making it anywhere past the quarter finals, especially with Peter Crouch as our only 100% match fit striker. (I'm not sure that Theo Walcott can be counted if he's not going to be given a run-out, why on earth did Sven pick him?)

before exiting in the quarter final just as they do in most World Cups. The shame is that they actually have some world class players in the likes of Gerrard and Rooney but injury and some bizarre selections by Sven mean that they are really going to struggle from now on. Quite why we had to bring a squad consisting almost entirely of midfield players is beyond me. The forward line of two crocks, a beanpole and a child is just barking. What on earth was the point of bringing the 17 year old Walcott who has hardly played for his club to the World Cup while leaving more experienced strikers behind. If Crouch gets another booking and Rooney breaks down then the kid would have to lead the attack. In fact I think we may yet end up seeing someone like Terry actually forced to play as centre forward with England reverting to route one crosses into the penalty box. God we might wind up with David James coming out of goal to join the attack as he did for Manchester City last season. As for Beckham he really does survive in the team purely on past reputation. No wonder Real Madrid struggle to win anything nowdays.

When he was at Southampton he came on as a sub against Wednesday and completly terrorized our defence with his pace. He is REALLY fast but is still very raw. It's impossible to see any good reason for throwing him into the England squad, especially when he has no premiership experice in Arsenal's first team. He needs first team football and experience first.

why Defoe is constantly ignored. He is a quality striker IMO. Taking Walcott was just a bad decision, if he can't break into the Arsenal first team how is he going to play in the World Cup? Sven hasn't made very good moves, but they'll be his last for England anyway.

He needs to step up and score on those set pieces.