Agrees. The defence really was a let down, but it was inexperienced playing together and i think it will be ok when a little more experience comes back into the side. Terry and Cole will come in, Lescott will be around. Tonight he gave a few guys a chance. Was happy with that decision to pick up experience!
Often England have trouble creatively and breaking teams down. But tonight, the forwards looked lively. There were plenty of chances and times the Dutch were on the ropes and scrambling clear. Sturrdige looked a handful, Young came back and performed. Rooney needs to prove himself again at a major tournament. Lets hope he can.
Although the result looks poor the performance was actually fairly good against a top experienced Dutch team filled with class.
Hopefully lessons will be learnt and England don't look too bad all things considered. I am hopeful just for England to perform at a tournament-it is long overdue. A semi final is not beyond this team.
Buddymagoo let's not get ahead of ourselves. The Netherlands were missing a few key players as well so fighting them when they're at full power, England would get their asses kicked with 5 or 6 goals.
Who were Holland missing? Apart from van der Vaart and Elia who aren't automatic starters anyway. We were missing key players like Rooney, Terry and Gerrard for most of the match. Considering we fielded a fairly inexperienced side I think we coped pretty well.
England fielded an inexperienced team, and Holland was quite mediocre in the first half, and OK in the 2nd half, but I felt we played too defensively with 2 controlling midfielders (Van Bommel and De Jong), where I would have preferred just 1 controlling midfielder (Van Bommel).
Huntelaar did great as always when he came on. He's the much better striker than Van Persie as far as I'm concerned, the 2nd goal was a rocket, and sadly he got injured and was taken off, to be replaced with Luuk de Jong (who failed to impress)
I would have liked to have seen Ola John (FC Twente) playing, which would have been his debut, but sadly it wasn't to be.
Also not sure why Walcott wasn't in the starting line-up, as he's by far the most dangerous player you have when you take our weaknesses in the back into account. I'm pretty sure it would have been a different match if he had played from the beginning.
Wellbeck other than Parker was the hardest working player on the field with little and no supply. And Smalling was Englands best defender with the most interceptions and tackles.
Yup, Smalling at fault for first 2 goals. Then Duncan Edwards came on as his replacements and almost gifted Robben another goal if it wasn't for Richards block.
Oh man, I had to flip back and forth between this game the US-Italy game. I did manage to catch England's equalizer which was great. But man I had to stand up, cheer and clap when Robben put it away. He was on fire today!
A largely an inexperienced team played well against World Cup finalists. I thought we did well and our expectations are set way too high!
Wellbeck continues to disappoint. Smalling has a positioning problem.
Oh man, I had to flip back and forth between this game the US-Italy game. I did manage to catch England's equalizer which was great. But man I had to stand up, cheer and clap when Robben put it away. He was on fire today!
Im scared of portugals euro 2012 group now.