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Scotland v England...


haggis pakora

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Charlie Mulgrew again continues to get away with it. Sometimes I think I'm the only person in the world that sees him as an absolute clogger that has no place in the international team.

He was rotten last night, but that was the first time he's had a bad game in midfield for Scotland. He was excellent there on Friday night, he's far from a clogger.

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England pressed the ball really high up the pitch and never gave us a moment on the ball. Tie into that we kept slipping and misplacing passes, it wasn't to be our night.

Make no mistake though, this is a poor England side and they'll struggle against better teams.

We gave our worst perfomance for quite a few games and still almost came back into the game.

Robertson was poor but is only 20 and will learn from his mistakes. Cracking goal aswell.

thought bringing on Bannan for Anya was weird as he offers little going forward, whereas Russell was direct took players on and ended up assisting the goal.

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Make no mistake though, this is a poor England side and they'll struggle against better teams.

We gave our worst perfomance for quite a few games and still almost came back into the game.

It wasn't a first choice England side.

Depends what you mean by poor really. How many better sides are there in world football at the minute than England? 8 maybe? Something like that.

England are poor if you compare them to Germany or Argentina and a few others. They are still one of the top 10 sides in the world currently.

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England are poor if you compare them to Germany or Argentina and a few others. They are still one of the top 10 sides in the world currently.

I wouldn't say they are a top 10 side tbh. Probably just outside of that tbf, but I'm not sure how you're judging it to put them top 10.

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Depends what you mean by poor really. How many better sides are there in world football at the minute than England? 8 maybe? Something like that.

They finished bottom of their WC group with one point :lol:

Looked one of the worst sides in the competition. There is many more than 8 teams better than them, the three in the group is an easy start.

But you thought they were better than Italy before Euro 2012 :lol:

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I wouldn't say they are a top 10 side tbh. Probably just outside of that tbf, but I'm not sure how you're judging it to put them top 10.

On the basis that they are one of the top 10.

It's a post WC period. Lots of teams are in transition, so it's really hard to say at this point. If you look at this England side, they are almost certain to go through qualifying unbeaten. They may very well win every game. It's a shit group, but that is still something not many teams could do in Europe. Probably 4 or 5 max. They comfortably destroyed Scotland at home last night - how many sides could do that to us?

Who in the RoW are ahead of England? Argentina and Brazil. After that maybe Colombia and Uruguay? Plus Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, France.

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Haha that was so easy. ..back to earth with a bump for the famous tartan army. ...

From where exactly.......??

It's you lot with (as usual) ideas well above yer station if the papers down here are anything to go by.

But you know that don't you. You do.

Overhyped to the point of insanity setting you all up for the great fall. And you all fall for it. Every time.

:)

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Thought the boy Clyne was fantastic for England last night. Rooney and Wilshere as well. Beyond that there wasn't a great deal of difference between the teams. England deserved it but a draw wouldn't have been that unfair.

Taking both teams to score has softened the blow a little.

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Maybe not directly but if you watch it back, he's watching the ball when the ball is played out wide, wasn't tight enough and allowed the ball to go past him.

Very true, you'll see this with him week in week out at Hull. He gets caught ball-watching and unaware of the opposition position quite a lot.

Like you say, he's got plenty time on his side. Hopefully Bruce will be a good mentor to him to sort these things out.

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Disappointing last night. We just didn't get going and whether Strachan freshening up the team would've made a difference is something we won't know. Not that I'm excusing it, but they did seem to be weary from Friday - we just didn't have the same energy levels to get about the pitch. But you've got to credit the England team as well; they were really up for it and pressed us high up the park. They had an intensity that we couldn't match and it was encapsulated with 10 minutes to go when Rooney, even though England were 2 up and cruising, chased back into his own half to make a tackle. I thought he led from the front for them last night to be honest.

That said, although we didn't play as well as we know we can, England played better than they have for a while and their players playing at a much higher level were simply better than ours. We can have no excuses - from the start, they were better. We didn't help ourselves though by gifting easy possession and making silly mistakes - IMO, all three goals could've been defended better.

Pluses for me were Andy Robertson (excellent at left back, took his goal well) and the sub appearances of Stevie May, Johnny Russell and James Morrison. We missed Steven Fletcher I thought - his hold-up play, tough and link-up is far superior to Chris Martin. I don't want to dismiss the boy after a handful of caps, but on the evidence so far he hasn't shown anything to warrant a regular place in the squad.

The atmosphere in our end felt flat too, probably in no small part down to England taking a grip on the game early on. The important game was Ireland and we won, so we shouldn't be too downbeat. I'd take losing friendlies to England all day long if it meant picking up wins in qualifying. We were simply beaten by a better team on the night.

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On the basis that they are one of the top 10.

To be fair, current FIFA world Rankings have them at number 20, which is probably not too far from the truth. Of the 19 teams above them I can see 4 you would argue with (Greece, Algeria, Switzerland and Ukraine), other than those I think the other 15 are comfortably better sides than England:

1 Germany 2 Argentina 3 Colombia 4 Belgium 5 Netherlands 6 Brazil 7 France 8 Uruguay 9 Portugal 10 Spain 11 Italy 12 Switzerland 13 Chile 14 Croatia 15 Algeria 16 Costa Rica 17 Mexico 18 Greece 19 Ukraine 20

England

Of the teams outside of this top 20, based on recent World Cup performance I'd say theres an argument that the USA would give England a decent game too. Czech Republic are also a decent side, though on the downward trend.

For me, England are not a top 10 side at the minute.

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To be fair, current FIFA world Rankings have them at number 20, which is probably not too far from the truth. Of the 19 teams above them I can see 4 you would argue with (Greece, Algeria, Switzerland and Ukraine), other than those I think the other 15 are comfortably better sides than England:

1 Germany 2 Argentina 3 Colombia 4 Belgium 5 Netherlands 6 Brazil 7 France 8 Uruguay 9 Portugal 10 Spain 11 Italy 12 Switzerland 13 Chile 14 Croatia 15 Algeria 16 Costa Rica 17 Mexico 18 Greece 19 Ukraine 20

England

Of the teams outside of this top 20, based on recent World Cup performance I'd say theres an argument that the USA would give England a decent game too. Czech Republic are also a decent side, though on the downward trend.

For me, England are not a top 10 side at the minute.

England are unarguably better than Greece, Algeria, Switzerland and Ukraine. I reckon you could argue either way for Croatia, Costa Rica and Mexico.

You can't jusge these things on one or two games. England are not a top 10 side at the moment. They're probably around 15th, give or take a few places.

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To be fair, current FIFA world Rankings have them at number 20, which is probably not too far from the truth. Of the 19 teams above them I can see 4 you would argue with (Greece, Algeria, Switzerland and Ukraine), other than those I think the other 15 are comfortably better sides than England:

1 Germany 2 Argentina 3 Colombia 4 Belgium 5 Netherlands 6 Brazil 7 France 8 Uruguay 9 Portugal 10 Spain 11 Italy 12 Switzerland 13 Chile 14 Croatia 15 Algeria 16 Costa Rica 17 Mexico 18 Greece 19 Ukraine 20

England

Of the teams outside of this top 20, based on recent World Cup performance I'd say theres an argument that the USA would give England a decent game too. Czech Republic are also a decent side, though on the downward trend.

For me, England are not a top 10 side at the minute.

Aye, I'd agree with most of that, though not fussed on Costa Rica either (despite their WC qualification.)

Also, I can't see how Croatia are comfortably better than England either. I'd put England about the 14/15 mark, I reckon. Sailing through a straightforward Euro quali group ought to do little to boost the rankings, either.

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