What a farce!

Cant stand beckham but i agree with you, if it was another player that hadnt already been booked in another match theres no way the ref would have gone for the yellow, it seems to me that they must think " if i book him hell miss the next match, so ill cause a bit of contrevsy if i book him "

But it has disguised another `shyte` performance!

england have a great squad but will only ever be as good as thier manager- i say Sven has to go!

OMG what r england playin at, very poor performance! Also have to agree what a $h!te referee!

The money these guys are earning makes me sick, i find it more entertaining watching lower league games, at least they go all out for goals!

YEah i heard it wasnt a great performance.....didnt see the match unfortunately but a wins a win.
Managed to catch the second half of the Ireland match...must say wasnt too impressed but at least we got a result so only the Swiss to beat now on Wednesday. Fingers crossed!

SUNDAY in the papers they are saying that we can win the world cup, so role on germany.

Three years ago, everyone demanded that Ericsson should be sacked for having an affair with Ulrika.

Two years ago, everyone demanded that Ericsson should be sacked for having talks with Abramovich & Kenyon.

A year ago, everyone demanded that Ericsson should be sacked for queueing up to have an affair with Faria Alam.

How come no one has demanded he should be sacked because he's actually not very good?

Agree with most but Beckham had to go for sheer stupidity. As captain he should have shown more responsibility than to put the referee in a position where he had to make a decision.
As for Sven. He's turned a very talented England squad into a replica of the boring but clinically results-driven German side (when they were effective). The players are paranoid about expressing themselves in case they may lose possession. Yes, we could win the World Cup but as for entertainment? Forget it.

I dont think many English managers want the job, they are all to clued up on how the england manager is treated by the press. I reckon its the media attention that puts most off the job. Sven is known for keeping a cool head (sometimes too cool) and not freaking out, the press dont seem to phase him that much. He does need to go though. Any other manager would have been chucking football boots round in the dressing room after that ireland match, wtf was that about? How can you go from 4-0 to 0-1, thats pathetic.

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OK he's supposedly super cool in a crisis....

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Trouble is, he creates most of the ****** crises, by being sh!te!

Fair enough but for a supposedly 'World Class' team to have to depend on the quality of refereeing to beat a poor team like Austria is pathetic. I'm a Man City fan and whilst we were let down by two appauling refereeing decisions in the Carling Cup (a sending off and a penalty decision against us late in extra time which after viewing from several angles the commentators did not know why it was given) against the mighty Doncaster Rovers it was extremely refreshing for Stuart Pearce to come out and not accuse the ref of costing us the match. The fact of the matter is that he did cost us the match but a Prem league side should not have to rely on the ref to win. We should have left them dead and buried by half time and I feel the same way about a 'World Class' England XI against some Austrian hopefuls. I'd rather watch a team that entertains and plays without fear a la Barcelona than a paranoid boring English team. When was the last time they entertained? I'm pretty much bored of watching England Internationals these days and I know I'm not the only one. Can't wait for the World Cup though ;-)

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I wasn't defending their performance, it was dreadful considering the individual quality of the players on the field.
I was merely trying to stress that if Saturdays ref is the quality we can expect in the tournament in close games where we are going to struggle anyway i.e. not in a position to bury the opposition by half time, then games will hinge on the ref.
The continental sides specialise in diving, and rolling around like someones chainsawed their legs off, we see it time & time again and I just can't believe FIFA have done absolutely nothing about it.
"Oh it would interrupt the flow of the game" what worse than a shyte ref who blows up at the smallest hint of physical contact?
Ref has an earpiece, and the 4th official in the box looks at the replay and gives the decision, 10 seconds max.
If tennis can use technology when the umpire has a pretty good view anyway, why can't a ref who has absolutely no view in some cases (especially off the ball incidents)

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Completely agree about the 4th official and 10 second rule - the ref should play on if unsure and the 4th official could intervene if appropriate. It really would solve everything.

However I completely disagree with blaming the ref for the performance against Austria - on the balance of things, Owen won a dodgy penalty and the ref made amends by not giving a more obvious one - wrong i know but you can see some sort of justice there I suppose.
The issue I have with the performance is that we have class players who could win games in style but they are restricted by the manager (who learned his trade in Italy don't forget). I remember Heskey's last appearance in an England shirt. In Euro 2004 against France he came on as a sub. The thing that stuck in my mind was how we hadn't given away any set pieces in and around the area for like 87 minutes - did not make one mistake within 35 yards of our own goal and on comes Heskey and blunders Makele over giving Zidane the opportunity to score, which he did. Heskey then paid the price for not obeying orders and will never be seen again in an England shirt although to be fair, he is pretty cr@p. The players are paranoid imo.

Also, you never really hear top sides like Brazil moaning about the refs do you?

I reckon Sven should have played a 3-5-2 on Sat with Cole (J) and SWP as wing-backs and Beckham, Lampard and Gerrard in the middle with Owen and Bent up front. All Crouch does is make us a bit of a laughing stock.

Anyway, for entertainment you can't beat the second half of the N Ireland v Wales match on Saturday which i was lucky enough to see - quality!

when this first was debated (the 4th official) there were questions raised as to how low down in the leagues the technology could be used. To be fair It would have to be implemented thoroughout all the professional football leagues. The main problem then was the cost to smaller lower league clubs.

I personally think with so much money riding on matches these days its imperitive to have a 4th official. One dodgy refereeing decision could theoretically cost a club millions of pounds. May be they should start by having it at only the top league, World and European cups and then slowly move it down as the cost of the technology gets cheaper.

This topic always comes up in the pubs etc when we get hard done by by the ref (luckily this time we still won) but you have got to remember there's also a lot of stuff that England have got away with in the past because the ref didnt see. Although the technology can work for us i think it can also work against us.

Did'nt see the match thank god, the main problem that i've seen is that they just cant play together and have no real leeder in the team or a manager to give them a good bulling and dare to change things or come up with a new game plan during a match, also they should go out on the beer together and all the sort of male bonding stuff needed to make a good team.