Sunday, March 18, 2007
We could be out of Euro 2008 inside 2 weeks
A belated Happy New Year although as the Ginger Sven is still in charge, it can't be that happy. The less said about last months friendly at home to Spain, the better. All I'll say is that I wasn't surprised by anything with the possible exception of Ferdinand claiming we lost to a wonder goal. No it wasn't a wonder goal. It was a decent strike but the lad was 16 yards out with no defenders anywhere near him. Pathetic excuses trying to justify under performances that we've heard so many times in the past.
On 24th March, England travel to Tel Aviv to take on Israel in a Euro 2008 qualifier. Before we look at the current Group E table, I should just mention that Israel have only lost 1 home qualifier in the last 7 years. That was to Croatia recently when they went down 4-3. They scored 3 more goals than we had shots against Croatia in Zagreb. So lets look at the table with the top 4 teams all having played 4 matches.
Croatia, 10 points
Russia, 8 points
England, 7 points
Israel, 7 points
Macedonia also have 7 points but have played 5 games. The fixtures on 24th March are
Israel v England
Croatia v Macedonia
Estonia v Russia
Croatia and Russia should both win so defeat in Israel will be a serious set back to England's chances. It's true that all 3 teams would still have to come to England at the new Wembley but playing at a stadium like that can often act as a boost to the visiting side to plus these would be games that Israel, Russia and Croatia would be looking to make sure they don't lose.
The injuries are mounting already with Owen, Ashton, Crouch (hurrah), J Cole, Beckham (not that he would have been picked by the Ginger clown) and now Gary Neville are all definitely out. There are also FA Cup replays tomorrow night involving a lot of the remaining players. So it looks like an experimentatl line up for us. There is talk of Lennon playing left. Now, if the Ginger Sven had done his job properly and tried different players in their natural positions in the friendlies instead of the same old crap, we'd be in a position to handle this situation a lot more comfortably.
The following Wednesday, we all head off to the away game against Andorra which is being played in Espanyols stadium in Barcelona. Andorra aren't any better than a pub team. They are probably worse than San Marino and even Graham Taylor's no-hopers managed to score 7 away to San Marino in the 1994 World Cup qualifiers. Now we have a team packed with superstars so anything less than 6-0 is totally unacceptable but I won't hold my breath.
Next posting will be after the Israel and Andorra games.
On 24th March, England travel to Tel Aviv to take on Israel in a Euro 2008 qualifier. Before we look at the current Group E table, I should just mention that Israel have only lost 1 home qualifier in the last 7 years. That was to Croatia recently when they went down 4-3. They scored 3 more goals than we had shots against Croatia in Zagreb. So lets look at the table with the top 4 teams all having played 4 matches.
Croatia, 10 points
Russia, 8 points
England, 7 points
Israel, 7 points
Macedonia also have 7 points but have played 5 games. The fixtures on 24th March are
Israel v England
Croatia v Macedonia
Estonia v Russia
Croatia and Russia should both win so defeat in Israel will be a serious set back to England's chances. It's true that all 3 teams would still have to come to England at the new Wembley but playing at a stadium like that can often act as a boost to the visiting side to plus these would be games that Israel, Russia and Croatia would be looking to make sure they don't lose.
The injuries are mounting already with Owen, Ashton, Crouch (hurrah), J Cole, Beckham (not that he would have been picked by the Ginger clown) and now Gary Neville are all definitely out. There are also FA Cup replays tomorrow night involving a lot of the remaining players. So it looks like an experimentatl line up for us. There is talk of Lennon playing left. Now, if the Ginger Sven had done his job properly and tried different players in their natural positions in the friendlies instead of the same old crap, we'd be in a position to handle this situation a lot more comfortably.
The following Wednesday, we all head off to the away game against Andorra which is being played in Espanyols stadium in Barcelona. Andorra aren't any better than a pub team. They are probably worse than San Marino and even Graham Taylor's no-hopers managed to score 7 away to San Marino in the 1994 World Cup qualifiers. Now we have a team packed with superstars so anything less than 6-0 is totally unacceptable but I won't hold my breath.
Next posting will be after the Israel and Andorra games.
