I've been out of the country for a couple of days, have i missed much?

Not really. The Carling Cup is now on par with the European cup, I'm embarrasing and CORNISH still has a dog fetish.

Nice one. Tickets booked, waiting on em to drop through my letterbox. Looking forward to the game too, looking forward to seeing Llorente in the flesh.

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Joey Mourinho house hunting in London.

I was at the sold out Sheffield Derby on sunday and the passion and the noise was unreal, more than 36,000 (would have been more if not for the police cutting out 3,000 seats) at Hillsborough and 9,000+ at bramall lane to watch it on a screen. This attendance puts half of the premier league to shame to say it was a division 3 match.

Gloryhunters.

Parker England captain tonight.

Probably what I'd have done, Gerrard and Hart both had good shouts, but if Parker's playing 90 minutes and Gerrard isn't give it to Scotty.

LOL the bitters are out in force again, I see.

It's one thing to do it after getting beat by Fulham & Bolton, but to do it after they've won a trophy just makes you look sad.

Probably looking for good investment in Mayfair or Belgravia nothing more.

so it should be a bumper crowd for a local derby in a big place like Sheffield FFS !

little old Norwich City,carrot crunchers that we/they are managed 20000 + crowds even in the championship 2 - that's loyalty for you...

www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/17213691 Poor old Port Vale. The antics of their board have been disgraceful- I hope the fans/consortium at least have a mess to sort, rather than lose the club entirely.

www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/17213691 Poor old Port Vale. The antics of their board have been disgraceful- I hope the fans/consortium at least have a mess to sort, rather than lose the club entirely.

Megson gone.

Surely more in it than just football with them in 3rd and having just beaten United?

strange sacking though with milan mandorich there you expect the unexpected. similar to the lee hughes sacking at huddersfield

England get level with the game seemingly over ...brilliant!
We didn't have to wait long though for the feck-up factor to kick in did we?
Baines you're not made of cardboard, you are allowed to move. You are allowed to approach opposition players with a view to closing them down.
Still let's look at the positives.
I wish I had a quid for the number of times that has been said about England.

It just makes me laugh how blind Tyldesley is. How many times did he harp on about Parker? Bravery, leading by example, the captain is just like his manager, etc.

Tonight was a perfect example of the myth of captaincy. Did people see the force of the armband inspire the team to victory? Even in a mere friendly, that desirable piece of elastic has almost no effect, yet all the pre-match talk was about how Parker was a leader and so on. Same old crap, average players, average football, average results.

I imagine it is hard to see if your heads about 2 feet up Ryan Giggs' backside.

Bit harsh on Baines that I feel. What happens if, as you and the commentator wanted, he rushed in on Robben, closing him down on the front foot? He'd skin him and roll it past Hart. Because of the way the ball came in and where both players came from Baines had no chance. It was a goal whatever Baines does. If anything Baines was one of England's best players. It was his constant driving forward that brought them back into it and he created Cahill's goal. He's a fantastic left back.

We are so far behind the likes of Holland technically that we'd need a perfect performance to beat a side like that. We just don't have the Robben's, Sneijder's, Van Persie's that the top teams have. We have so many passengers in the side that whilst reasonable players are pretenders at the very top level. The Barry's, Milner's, Downing's and Parker's.

Sturridge looked good on the ball and is a threat, but watch what happens when he loses the ball, which he invariably does. He lost it to Robben and just jogged back, letting him go with no effort at all to get back and help out and cost England a goal he could have prevented simply by chasing back.

Sickening collision between Huntelaar and Smalling. I thought Huntelaar was dead when the screen first panned to his face after scoring. He looked grey and had a mouthful of grass and his eyes closed. Smalling didn't look much healthier either. Hope they are both okay.

Don't think there was a huge difference between the two sides technically, Holland's individual stars (Sneijder, RvP, Robben) were clearly superior to any of England's players technically, but I actually think they excelled in their execution of tactics and England were never comfortable with the versatility of their attacking players. The Dutch aren't a great side, they have a good attack but a not so great defence, their manager is strong and they are comfortable with the way they play, England could learn a lot.

I think it's fair to say that most of that team won't be starting any important games.

It was a young side, and Pearce was experimenting. Not a bad result considering.

It still wouldn't surprise me if Pearce gets the job for the Euros with Redknapp taking over afterwards.

Redknapp needs the Euros like a hole in the head. I think he genuinely wants to see out the season with Spurs and he probably knows that he cant do either job justice if he's also planning for Euros. The England job might be mainly part time but it should be pretty full on in the 2 months leading up to a tournament. And I cant see Spurs being willing to let him go just now.

My post is not anti-Baines.
My post is anti-backing off.
I don't know if you noticed but Robben ran nearly 60 yards unchallenged with England players, not in pursuit, but running backwards away from him.
Similarly despite what you say, you have to charge at players, if only to cut their options down.
As for it was a goal whatever Baines did. That is patently nonsense.
And yes, I thought that Baines played well, as did others as individuals. But as a defensive unit they were very poor. There is only so much running backwards that is allowed before the opposition is taking potshots on the 6 yard line. Robben himself demonstrated that when he nearly scored in the first half and our right back was doing the old running backwards trick and nearly ended up in his own net with Hart having to save at point blank range.
I'm exaggerating for effect you understand, but you can't stand off someone like we did.

This.

Robben, RVP and Sneijder apart, that Dutch side has nothing special in it technically.

Van Bommel and De Jong are about as far from technically gifted as it's possible to get while still possessing feet. Kuyt's a willing runner, the back four is wobbly at best (Heitinga's a first choice at centre half FFS) and the keeper's nothing to write home about.

What they have however is a system that allows their flair players to go play and win games on their own while the rest put in a shift defensively. All the players understand it, and their role within it.

England seem to chop and change systems and personnel so often (usually because players manage to avoid friendlies with dubious injuries/illnesses/outbreaks of smallpox) that they can't match teams like the Dutch for organisation. Nine out of that starting 11 played in the 2010 World Cup final, they've been together a long time and have a boatload of experience at that level.

England's starting front three (Welbeck, Young and Johnson) had how many caps between them, compared with RVP, Robben and Kuyt?

When did England players start being so sporting and uncynical? There were numerous occasions last night where the likes of Robben were breaking from midfield and it just needed someone to give them a nudge, concede a good free kick and let the team get back behind the ball again. Look at Van Bommel's challenge on Richards in the first half when he'd been skinned on halfway for a perfect example.

Instead the Dutch were merrily waved on their way with defenders seemingly getting out of their way to avoid giving a free kick away. The centre of England's midfield had some old heads in it who really should have known better.

plus taking 15 replays to satisfy himself that the winner took a deflection