Monday 5pm-England v France-Preview/Match Thread

Scoham

Thought the team did well. We were organised, had a game plan, had experience in the key areas and legs elsewhere. I agree that we don't have the ability of the top sides and anybody arguing still arguing that we do needs to take a look at the fact that we are not one of the usual suspects who nearly always finish in the quarters, semi's and beyond - in Europe that would be Germany, Italy, France and Holland and now Spain. I'd say that we are in the second tier with the likes of Portugal, Russia, the Cechs etc. That's not crticism , thats facing facts. If we could buy in the bits we don't have (the creativity, penetration and flair) like we do in the prem, then we'd be at the top table as well but we can't so i'm happy that as a nation we seem to have come to terms with that and we have a manager who is cutting his cloth to suit. It reminded me of a battling Curbishley side - doing a job! And that's good enough for me and gives us a chance.

Completely agree. Was happy to see us play cautious football. Defend well and we'll only need to score 1 or 2 goals a game.

Bedsaddick

If we had played like that against Germany in the World cup we may well have qualified . You have to do what need to do depending on your opposition - even if it's not pretty. I think we will see much more attacking football on friday.

Rob

It was important that we didn't lose the first game and Hodgson accomplished that. Job done. We can build on that and Rooney's back in game 3 so that should help. Hodgson's got a wise head and if we had gone out guns blazing in game 1 and lost by 2 or 3 goals he would have got lambasted. His approach worked perfectly.

oohaahmortimer

Went down to Ladbrokes on my road to go and collect the £180 and they realised there was something wrong with their print out. It was meant to be 8/1. Thought it was too good to be true.

Don't they have to honour it, if it's there in B&W?

They don't have to honour it due to a "palpable" error , which is what they use as their get out clause

dizzee

Scott Parker wouldn't make it in to any of top international teams midfields

Disagree. He works his ass off, puts important tackles in, and is effective at what he does.

He might not be as flash as other central midfieders, but I reckon he would be picked for a German or even French midfield.

I doubt that very very much.

He can work his ass off as much as he wants but he just doesn't have the quality these foreign players do.