that dreadful afternoon in 2002 - we were 2-1 up on Brazil, they were down to ten men.   And we blew it.

Not really. You said Venables and Hoddle. Venables couldn't win us a home tournament that he didn't even have to qualify for and in all honesty we were lucky to make it past Spain.

Hoddle got us to the 2nd round of the world cup and i suggest you take at look at the start of Euro 2000 qualifying if you thought he was doing a good job and making us better.

I don't disagree with your idea of a plan, but i don't think any of us would really want to see us playing like Stoke.

Lord help me. We didn't win a home tournament?! AND?!!! We weren't the best team. We were lucky to get past spain....perhaps but we played some great stuff throughout the tournament. And you could just as easily argue we were unlucky to go out against Germany so yet another non point.

The concept you seem to keep missing is I'm not talking purely about results. That said comparing e.g. Hoddle's record with Svens is laughable really, we had better players and crucially significantly better depth during sven's reign.

I'd sooner see us playing like stoke and being more efficient with a game plan than this make it up as you go crap.

England's team is utter gash.

They have 2 international class players - Hart and Rooney

The rest are either over the hill (Gerrard, Cole) or miles below international class (Wellbeck, Cleverly, Milner (FFS), Young, Smalling, Lescott, Carrick).

What do you expect?  Worst team I have ever seen.

I think he read this thread
He's rocked the boat with the FA, albeit unintentionally.
He's sent his team out to go for it creating numerous chances even leaving gaps in defence.
His team are scoring plenty of goals.
He's given younger players a chance.
His team is now playing with pace and width despite the majority saying he wouldn't set his teams up like that even if he had the available resources.
People will say his team haven't played anyone of substance yet but he did his job and guided his team through a group, that plenty on here thought was beyond him, undefeated and scoring the most goals in the group by a comfortable margin.

you could easily argue england were lucky to win the group. ukraine will be kicking themselves. had the better of both games against england. were comfortably the better side at wembley until a fortunate late penalty saved england. somehow contrived to drop 2 points against moldova

And today we learned that he cracks esoteric jokes at half time rather than point out the team are playing like headless chickens...
If anyone was impressed by that Poland victory then they have no grasp of modern football.

ive been watching England over 20 years and I have never seen England play as well 2 games in a row as the last 2 games

I thought England were a little unlucky throughout the campaign myself, but they weren't up against the strongest opposition.  The key players were fit for the final 2 games and luckily Ashley Cole was injured, because Baines is clearly the superior player now.  Montenegro are gash, Poland under achieved and Ukraine are workmanlike.  They haven't got the strongest squad in the world and although you would expect them to win the group you should just be pleased they made it, because it was far from certain that they would.

Their best performance under Woy was the friendly in Brazil imo

Woy has proven himself to be a good manager of mediocre teams...that's kinda what England want really?

Fair play to Hodgson, he got us to Brazil, which is what he was paid to do.

But let's not start thinking either that we have suddenly become a good team, or that he has become a good manager. The fact is that in the second weakest group of the nine, our qualification was in doubt until the last minute of the last game, and that we took only ten of the 18 points available from teams with any pretensions to being half decent. We qualified because Ukraine let themselves down at home to Montenegro and in Moldova.

And let's also not have any doubt that, like Robson in 1990 with Gascoigne, only circumstances helped him to stumble upon a winning formula for the last two matches. He would not have picked Townsend if Walcott had been available, and Walcott, whatever his virtues as a player, would not have been able to make up for the abject uselessness of Wellbeck and Sturridge in the way that Townsend did in both matches. In my opinion, the only decision for which Hodgson deserves credit was the one to drop Lampard in favour of Carrick for the last game, and the credit he deserves for even that move is diluted by the fact that Carrick should be first-choice whenever England play a game of football.

So, yes, thanks Roy, but there is still much to do. Hopefully, he will now realise that not only is Lampard's time passed, so has Gerrard's. We have ample evidence that even in his prime Gerrard could not shape International matches at the top level, and it would be foolish to expect that to change at this stage of his career.

I don't buy into the notion that we can not compete at a World Cup, but more personnel changes are required for us to do so. Let's hope that Hodgson, having discovered some boldness late in the day, can discover a bit more.

Jed. Did you really say the abject uselessness of Sturridge?

(getting Cahill and Phil J) cover

According to Glen Hoddle it is gods judgement on Roy Hodgson to be England's manager, apparently its something he did in a past life.

Spot on Captain Christie, get rid of most of the foreigners and our game, may improve eventually. Every country knows each England players strengths and weakness's, purely, because there's someone from virtually every country playing in our League.

Our best central defender (JT) was discarded , and how Danny Wellbeck gets in any football team is beyond me

Some 'enlightening' posts on this thread IMO.

unfortunately not everyone seems to have "woken up to the fact" as the FA seem to be behind him at least up to the 2016 Euros but as there's a former BBC chairman heading it up that's not surprise. If anyone can think of one improvement that Greg Doick or Hodgson will be bringing to English football between now and 2016 please let us know

Completely amazed that Hodgson , with his proud managerial record of one Danish championship in the past 26 years , hasn't won the World Cup for us this time round.

Such a waste of an opportunity when we have proper young talents like Ross Barkley , Sterling , Sturridge , The Ox , Jack Wilshere coming through to give them an old babysitter like Roy and deny them any realistic chance of achieving anything.

Greg **** and the FA must clearly know what they're doing awarding Roy a further two years to top up his pension fund. D!cks !

Ha ha

Greg lesbian ?