England 4-0 Bulgaria
For the first time in a long time, the English national side actually looked like a force to be reckoned with. From the first kick of the ball, it seemed a race for who could score first, andon losing the ball, it was as if there'd be a penalty for letting Bulgaria hold on to it for longer than a few seconds. Maybe it was down to the fact that Bulgaria are not the strongest of national sides - and are highly unlikely to qualify - but Englands agressive and impatient touch really seemed to work.
Before the game, my money had been on England snatching the lead within the first 30 minutes, but it soon became evident that it probably wouldn't take that long. England pushed forward with every opportunity and the ball couldn't have been in their own half for more than a few seconds at any point prior to the first goal. On 8 minutes, a good cross from rooney lead to an awkward shot from Ashley Cole and a subsequent finish from 6 yards out on the rebound from Jermaine Defoe. England continued the pressure but allowed themselves to relax somewhat after taking the lead. England continued with second and third goals from Defoe and Johnson respectively, and an excellent Wayne Rooney gifted Jermaine Defoe his hat-trick with five minutes remaining.
Overall, it was truly respectable England performance. Only a few mis-hits from Milner in the first half and a couple of over-ambitious shots from Theo Walcott marred a flawless performance.
Wayne Rooney, seemingly back to his usual self, ran tirelessly for the full 90 minutes. He was no more than a goal short of a stone-wall recovery, and in his current form, it should come soon enough. Gerrard was back in the centre of midfield, however even he was outshadowed at times by Rooneys efforts in tracking back. Jermaine Defoe put up a solid performance, and so too did Glenn Johnson; I've never been able to understand the amount of criticism he receives. I believed he put up one of the better performances in our World Cup Campaign, and he so seldom has a bad game.
As for the negatives, I thought Milner was a little off with his passes, and had a truly awful first touch on a through ball played to him on 30 minutes which would have put him clean through on goal had he controlled it better. I wasn't too keen either on Walcott, although some of this may have been down to my high expectancy on him pre-game. Having watched him recently for Arsenal I thought he was going to be a key in the way Defoe eventually was. Although after today it's clear how much trouble he's having adjusting to the role staying out on the wing which Capello so strictly demands of him. So much so that I'm starting to wonder whether it'll ever be possible to keep him in this position permanently. I'd predicted a 3-0/4-0 pre-game, however I'd predicted him scoring. Not at any point did he look like doing so. And while I'm aware that Capello wants him to stay out wide and not to move central and have a try himself, it just seems like he's not OK with doing this. In the first 20 minutes he had two shots from outside the area which went horribly wide. As far as I'm concerned, if he's staying in his position, he shouldn't be taking shots like this, OR if he's going to try shooting, he should be allowed a little more free reign. Personally I'd go with the former. The latter seems to be working with Arsenal right now, but England were solid on all cylinders tonight, and I'm reminded of the "don't fix it if it ain't broke" theory for this one.
Blanc faces in Paris... (France 0-1 Belarus)
Being able to only view the game through a badly leaked line on the internet, I couldn't watch most of this. Although with France at the moment, I'm again reminded of the "don't fix it if it isn't broke" which I mentioned earlier - however in a very different way. France and England had very similar World Cups: I don't mean the results neccesarily, and I don't mean the way the volcanoes erupted... But that they were both one thing: Disasterous.
Nevertheless, I don't believe it's so much about how a crisis goes down, as much as how it is dealt with in the aftermath. England dealt with theirs by saying things like, "Gerrard, you were crap. Lamps, your goal went in, but you were bad, mate. Wayne, why the **** did you turn up?! Who forgot to put Theo on the squadlist?" And then Rob Green was removed from the England paylist never to play again. And that was that, turn the page. All in all, we laughed it off, made a couple of changes and steam rolled our first friendly 4-0.
Did France do this? No. Of bloody course they didn't. Because in France, if something goes wrong, someone always has to be to blame. And the beautiful catch 22 about this is that French people can never blame themselves, and can never accept that something was their fault! It is quite beautiful. So when France went and messed up their World Cup just like we did, a great circus act ensued. Firstly, they decided to blame the manager because they didn't like him and they should have gotten rid of him. Then they blamed the French FA because they realised they'd already decided to sack him but were too cheap to pay him off before the World Cup. And then, having found their sources to whom they could demonstrate their anger, they then demonstrated it by sacking off training for a whole day! Like naughty schoolchildren... Now yes these actions were rather pathetic, and we'd seriously struggle to imagine a galliant Wayne Rooney handing over a letter that Stevie G and Terry had written in their best English for Fabio Capello to try and decifer. But the way the French FA reacted was almost as ridiculous - and just as typically French. If you want to come back and ban the whole team, well, fine. But don't for one minute think that your French under 21 squad are going to take you to the European championships. And then you allow the majority of the players you've just banned to come back and expect them to put on a great performance?
Well if they couldn't perform with Anelka as their lone striker and their best defender in Patrice Evra in the World Cup, I can't see them doing too well now without them. And if it wasn't for the fact that it's his own national side and his dream job, Laurent Blanc should have told them all to stuff it.
What's more irritating though is that I turn on French radio and hear their utter shock that their national side can lose to Belarus. The way things are right now, I think they'll struggle to qualify automatically - something which should
Oh, and as for the feud, Anelka says he wouldn't have ever considered playing for them again anyway... Of course, the french argument 'ne cesse pas'.
