Always the same with England, we can beat the small teams, but as soon as someone gives us a challenge we bottle it.

I think England can beat Ukraine and Sweden. They both look dangerous because neither are that good.

England aren't that good either, but they should be looking at 5 points from this group

It's so much like de ja vu. I'm sure I saw this match when England played their first game in World Cup 2002. England take the lead through a header by a defender in the first half, then lose the lead from a long shot and it finishes 1-1.

But look at all the other games. Apart from Russia, nobody else has really shone through and signalled their intent in the competition. Thats not what the first game is really about. Its about feeling your way into the competition. The most important thing was to show that we will be hard to beat and we did that.

palmers I can see us beating Sweden more out of the 2, but to me we don't look like the kind of team that is going to secure a victory very easily, and that worries me. As we saw today we're not always going to keep clean sheets, and going forward we ain't the best either. Ominous signs.

Have you also instantly written off Holland and Spain because they couldn't beat supposedly lesser teams than them?

England do seem to have the bottle trait when top teams start applying pressure. With poor teams we survive because they can't put too much pressure on. Today was classic though, as the French went through a few phases of build up play in the latter part of the half and you could see a goal coming as the team were dropping deeper and instead on playing out of the back as we had for most of the half it went back to the hoof it away tactic.

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Spurtle

What were you expectin?

We are a decent, but not that great team. I think we are better than Sweden and Ukraine but not a whole lot better. This group was always gonne be tough, and I am worried about us going forward

It's not about what other teams have done though. Netherlands and Germany etc have proven time and time again they can beat decent teams, whereas for us it appears to be the same story of coming up against one and being incapable of winning.

Pav you are right about the pressure thing. I think with better teams comes more nervousness amongst our players. It's symptomatic of England.

You aren't a great team at the moment it was a good result

Hippo - I thought they both did ok actually.

palmers - It would just be nice if for once we could break this duck against better teams, and that way I'd feel more confident about us actually improving on how we usually do in competitions. And besides lesser teams than ourselves even beat decent teams. Serbia and Switzerland both beat Germany and Spain in 2010.

I was pleasantly surprised with England today, I expected more punting it long and hoping but I think the team had come along way from the two friendlies. The build up suggested that we were going for a draw and it is what we got. But I think personally half time came at such a good time for us, as we were well in danger of conceding a second. Roy has got the team organised and that could do well for us. So far this week the organised teams have done better. Must say I was confused regarding the French approach to the game. Seemed very cautious, as if they did not really want to force the issue and potentially could cost them.

I was disappointed by the performance, but not the result. Thought we did well to get a draw - could've come away from a win if Milner had put that brilliant chance away - and limited French chances to long range efforts and set pieces.

Ukraine winning today has made things interesting. It means whatever happens in the next games we will need to get a result in that last game against Ukraine. Gonna be tense.

hippo
Could have been worse, might have started with carrick, oh sorry he didnt make the cut.

You normally post a lot of sense Spurtle, but I find this article a bit confusing.

You say that :

1. you thought roy would use negative tactis.

2. you are dissapointed that we didnt win.

3. you think that the reason we didnt win is that we used negative tactis.

This suggests to me that you believe that England's tactics were even more negative than the negative tactis which you had anticipated them using.

Conversly, I was surprised how positive we were, compared to the tactics which had been widely expected :

-He played a winger instead of a defensive minded midfield player.

-We tried to build attacks rather than parking the bus and playing on the break.

-He brought an extra striker on for the last 15/20 minutes when we were level.


On this basis, I think that on this ocassion, your article i a bit unfair.

My personal view by the way is that today's performance exceeded expectiation, both in terms of its positive intent, and its execution.

Op, i think whst you are failing to realise mate is we are not that good anymore. You only have to take one look at our line up compared to france to realise we are an average team. Gone are the days when he had the likes of shearer, sherringham, gazza etc. So you need to look at it in this light and then you realise today was an excellent result. France are on a superb run of wins and they failed to beat us. They found it hard to break us down and they resorted to long shots all game. I am very pleased with our performance and result, we are not a good side anymore, we are an average side and we got an excellent result. Its basically like fulham going to united amd drawing, its a very good result.

The fact is is this is the worst england side man for man in living history, fact!!! Obviously if rooney was playing we would atleast have a proven goal scorer on the pitch, if not at international level!
I actually thought we played above ourselves today and we should proud to get a draw againt france as man for man the made our side look pretty second rate!
If we get out this group we will have done very well with the players we have at our disposal then who knows after that, abit of bulldog spirit and effort and we could suprise ourselves!!

JPB - I can see how you see it like that but that's not how I intended it to sound mate. I mean we did play for a lot of the game in the perceived Hodgson defensive format which as we saw didn't work in giving us that clean sheet, while at the same time we did have some positive spells, and towards the end a little bit more positivity from Hodgson i.e. bringing Walcott/Defoe on earlier could have seen us clinch it.

Dunno if I explained myself so well there but I tried.

Don_tottenham

It is nothing like Fulham going to united and drawing! You give France way too much credit. In all honesty I don't think that there is too much between the 2 teams. I would put us both in the 2nd tier of teams in this competition with them slightly ahead of us but not by much.

fair enough Spurtle

Don I wouldn't say it was an excellent result. Having seen England and France in action and realising that we're not as bad on paper as we seem, while France didn't show as much as I thought, I was a little disappointed we couldn't have taken more of an advantage. I don't see why if we're good enough to take the lead we shouldn't be a bit disappointed we couldn't hold onto it?

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realising that we're not as bad on paper as we seem
=========================

for me that's the answer to your question to don.

of course i appreciate that it would have bene better if we won, and it might have been possible for us to have won.

personally though, i cant get away from the point that it's been a good day because it is better than we thought we would be.

we dont know for sure whether different tactics wuld have definitely given us a win. there's no way i dont think that roy could have known for sure that we would be a match for the french - in fact he seemed absoloutely buzzing afterwards which suggested that we had exceeded his expectations. i dont think he can really be blamed for not knowing how a young team would perform against a team like france on the big stage.