Why would Finland be tricky? The weather is significantly better then and Spain should be too powerful.

Spain should make it through from here, but it's still delicately poised. Hopefully we'll be a bit more direct from here on and look to kill games off earlier instead of relying so heavily on possession to protect a 1-goal lead.

You need to start trying in home games

France have got Georgia home and away and Belarus away.
We've got Belarus and Georgia at home and Finland away.

Easier fixtures for us on paper, but we need to take those games as seriously as last night's because the slightest wobble would mean France depend on themselves again instead of us.

But unfair on Georgia. I'm sure she does her best.

Easier fixtures for us on paper,
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Unfortunately football is played on grass

Spain were a tad wasteful last night, but all round it was a pretty solid performance.

France made the wrong changes at the wrong time.

Competitive edge is what decided last night's game imo. France had some gilt-edged chances too, scales could've tipped either way tbh.

Yeah, Spain know how to win the important games. Even if they have to win ugly (they didn't last night).

Honestly can't see past them for the World Cup again. Brazil look absolutely hopeless, Germany have become serial underachievers at major tournaments recently, the Dutch will probably win every qualifying match but self-destruct, Argentina i'm not sure about.

Italy would be my dark horses.

Why would Finland be tricky? The weather is significantly better then and Spain should be too powerful.

.......................

spain are always are their most vunerable in qualifiers in the early autumn, when the players are not fully up to speed..

finland play summer football...they will be more match sharp..

during my lifetime, some of spain's worst results have come in september/october qualifiers

thats my reasoning

Who's that knocking on my chamber door
Now could it be the police
They come to take me for a ride ride
Oh, but I haven't got the time time

Nevermore

evergreen

morning lads

What's so morning about it?

Knóbs.

Very amusing thread on the Arsenal board:
http://www.ja606.co.uk/articles/viewArticle/198287

For what it's worth though I agree with the point Stretty was trying to make, although I don't think he clarified himself well. You can have several different measures of how "good" a player is, some people may prefer a definition based on a player's natural talent and ability to do wondrous things with a ball, others may prefer to look at it in the sense of how effective a player is at aiding his team to win games (this is what I believe Stretty was looking at). You could also factor in consistency, crunch game performance, peak performance etc. Different people will have different definitions and I don't think they should be ridiculed for that.

I think he just taking the píss.

http://www.ja606.co.uk/articles/viewArticle/198287
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Reading the comments on that should while away some time at work.

To be honest you only really need to read the first page, the rest is just Stretty defending himself against torrents of abuse

renoog - to be fair, he did deserve it. The bloke thinks van Persie was a better player than Bergkamp and that Bergkamp wasn't good enough due to his 87 league goals in 11 seasons.

He's a total moron.

To be honest you only really need to read the first page, the rest is just Stretty defending himself against torrents of abuse
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He doesn't have too many fans on here.

I'm not one of them either

I cannot agree with criticism levelled at Bergkamp which could be applied to Eric Cantona i.e - He didn't score enough goals.

If Stretty truly believes what he is saying then i overestimated his footballing knowledge.

Even as a forward, there are many contributions a player can make aside from scoring.

Bergkamp in an attacking sense did great for Arsenal in almost every way apart from his goalscoring.

renoog, AU

i'll have to read that article

I look forward to reading that article as soon as I have time. Just enough time now to say a big hi the irregulars and an oh it's you lot to the rest before being dragged off to the beach. Stupid sunshine.

IOAG

those from the land of perpetual spring trying to make those of us living in the land of perpetual winter jealous