Maybe the most sensible thing i have read on the England game.

BTW Is there nothing worse than people who clearly haven't watched the game commenting on it (see Daily Mail comments page)

You can tell who actually did see the game and who are just putting the usual generalisation about the players "not caring/being a disgrace"

Cannot say that was the case last night.

And they are South American Champions.

Their philosophy is what is being blamed, it is their buy best the players rather than develop the best which is leading England to its doom.

How many homegrown players are their in Spanish league teams or Italian ones ? It is a lot more than English teams.

The like of Real Madrid don't buy many English players because the best players in the world don't come the this country.

Uruguay were poor. They are very reliant on Suarez. Think England will beat them. England got a lot right last night.
Pirlo was wonderful. (although Phil Neville insisted on calling him Andreas all night). I'm sorry his freekick hit the bar as what a goal that would have been in one of his final appearances for Italy. The Italian back 4 looked dodgy at times - don't think they have played together before? It was such an open game, which surprised me.
Either way, this World Cup has been great so far. I'm going to have to get by on 5 hours' kip a night.

Good performance by England despite the narrow loss. Italy + England are definitely the two best teams in the group, they'll both go through to the next round.

Thought England were good, Italy were just better.

A lot of panicking. It's the first game and they played well I am sure they can get better.

I would be more upset if I was Spain and Uruguay fan who played badly.

Italy will win the group it seems.

However all depends what they do in the last match against Uruguay and if anything is at stake.

Someone could qualify on just three points , although 4 may be enough

Pirlo was masterful for the Italians and Gerrard really should be taking notes as to the sort of role he needs to be doing for the team now. We gave up far too much ground in midfield, too quickly and seemed to always drop off to defensive line in front of the penalty area,

I just hope we don't play Rooney out on the left again. Baines was left far too exposed and the team was unbalanced as a result.

Still the pace we have in attack has a lot of possibilities, if we can produce an end product more often. The Italian defence was there for the taking but we didn't exploit their weaknesses as much as we should of.

Welshman here but England world cup supporter until we qualify for a tournament. Enjoyed last nights game. England played a positive game and created a lot of chances. Sterling looked good. World cups of old I'm used to watching England go out and just try their hardest to not lose a game. Last night they went out and tried to win a game. Looking forward to next game, I'm a little more optomistic now.

The general public who never watch football seem to base their assessment solely on whether England win or lose.

England win: brilliant play
England lose: terrible! over-paid and lazy blah blah.

Last night they played well, the equal of Italy in my view. It could just as easily have been 2-1 to England.

Gerrard is not Pirlo they are different types of players you cannot expect him to have that depth of vision and control. Gerrard has to be Gerrard and play the way he does at Liverpool in that holding role to protect the back 4.

Part of the problem last night was Pirlo was just bypassing whole sections of our midfield in one pass so Gerrard was just being cut out of the game. We could have tried man marking Pirlo out of the game but I am not sure we have a player of that level of ability to do it.

I actually think we where unlucky on the night. All the talk was of the goal keeper switch but I think the made 2-3 great saves and we should have scored another goal. the goals we let in are a worry I dont think we can play Rooney out left again Baines needs someone to cover in front of him. Aside that it was a good performance and a close game. I still think we can win the next 2 games and get out of the group.

Not sure but in the same way we have Liverpool fans defending and wanting Gerrard, Henderson and Johnson to be in the starting line up on every occasion. Chuck in Lambert and their target Lallana and we may as well play in red.
So club allegiances on this thread are very obvious.

I'm glad that Liverpool now provide so many of the squad, in time it may stop it all being Rooney's fault (especially when he is dropped as so many wish to happen)

My biggest concern is that Uruguay can't play that badly again. They will surely put in a better performance against England than yesterday - especially if Suarez is there. On the other hand, I'm not sure if England will improve on yesterday - both Gerrard and Rooney have flattered to deceive far too many times in an England shirt, Johnson is pretty poor defensively and our formation automatically leaves him and Baines exposed. We'll give them chances. It's a shame this young squad got a such a difficult group to start with but the more I think about the more I think Greg Dyke's cutthroat gesture was spot on.

For my two penneth, maybe the best England WC performance in 16 years or more, a dozen good chances. The game could've gone any way, ended any score.

Unfortunately there are teams which manage to find a way to win most of those games and teams which find a way to lose them and we more often do the latter.

First hour was good, Wellbeck was brilliant, all the front 5 played well bar Rooney. After all the talk of the importance of the substitutions, they were main disappointment and looked more tired and off the pace for the last 20 minutes than the 8 starters, even Barkley bar the first 30 seconds.

There's no great analysis on either side from last night from the result alone. Balotelli had one difficult chance all night and took it. Rooney had a far more straightforward one and couldn't even force a save. Small margins.

I didn't watch Mrs Teapot, I lost my nerve However, given the result, I now feel obliged to watch their next game no matter what. From behind the sofa

I totally agree. Despite the loss England have played better in 90 minutes then they did for the entirety of the last world cup.

I thought Italy and Uruguay were a done deal to go through, I still think that (lets face it, there is no way Uruguay can play that badly again, especially if they have the pressure of being knocked out), but I don't think England are going to be quite the walkover everyone expected.

England played much better than most people expected and they were a vast improvement on four years ago, not that they could have been any worse, so I can't understand all the negativety, it's Italy they lost to, not San Marino.
They now need Italy to beat Costa Rica, then a draw against Uruguay means they will go into the Costa Rica game having it in their own hands to qualify, though I think they are capable of beating Uruguay based on yesterdays performances.

Seemed to play well for 60-70 mins then ran out of steam/ideas. Our goal was brilliant, but in these big games you have to put your chances away, too many didn't even trouble the keeper, and towards the end it got a little embarrassing (wtf was that corner from rooney?).

Pirlo is such an incredible player, that dummy for the first goal, taking sturridge out of the equation and leaving acres of space was world class.

I was really happy with what I saw last night. I'm not convinced Italy deserved to win, and I really don't think we deserved to lose. Unfortunately, we lost concentration at the back on 2 occasions, and we got punished both times. Harsh, but that's what happens when you're against world class opposition.

I would be happy to see Roy play the same starting XI against Uruguay. I feel like if we perform like that again, we can beat them. And Costa Rica. What's important now is the mentality of the England camp. They need to shake this off, and go into the next game with as much positivity and hunger as we did for this one.

Either way, it was the best England performance I've seen under Hodgson. Shame it was marred by defeat.

Do only the group winners go through or the top two?
I'm sure Uruguay cant play as badly again but on the other hand, isnt Suarez still missing? The team will have no pace without him.

Pretty sure he will be fit

I haven't seen much mention of Joe Hart either. I've always rated, of course still retain him but was not impressed last night.

One bad fumble which thankfully only Cahill and no Italians followed up on, almost took out Balotelli but didn't retreat and saved by Jagielka, which was worth a goal.

The first Italian goal you could fault 3 or 4 outfield players more, but from a long way out it was disappointing. But with the Baloteli goal, he didn't attack it at all and when you watch the replay, even if he had have saved the header it was a goal as he was in the net.

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