Viewing Thread:
"England vs. Iceland"

Anyone else watching it? We're looking fairly good, Rooney's strike was pretty decent even despite the deflection. What Jamie Carragher was doing for their goal though I don't know.

Anyway, we look fairly strong, and a good confidence booster for Rooney no doubt.

Indeed. This is probably the only time Sven's mass substitutions have actually worked out as a way of testing players, not just as a way of ruining a game.

The best thing to come out of ti will hopefully be the death of the 'Diamond' formation. having a flat midfield helped us considerably with the defending aspect of the game - when Iceland attacked there were 8 men behind the ball in a solid shape, which is a big improvement on the 5 or 6 men all over the shot.

Gary Neville was immense in the first half, his attacking 'prowess' was a bit of a suprise really - a decent assist as well. Vassel looked lively as usual when he came, and will probably play a similar role in the Euro Championships - coming on late-ish in games.

Overall, pretty damn satisfactory methinks.

Despite the fact it wasn't against particularly good opposition (Helgusson and Gudjohnsen being Iceland's really good players), I think this was a pretty good result. A resounding win is always good, no matter who it is against. This will definitely keep the morale up, and lessons about squad selection have been learnt here, I think - King and Bridge are both damn good. =)

Forest Fan wrote:
> The same strike force, that managed no goals at World Cup 2002? Real
> formidable...

So they had a poor World Cup, doesn't mean that they will be poor this time round does it? another year, another tournament.

They're not a bad side, England are just proving the critics wrong.

I dont know what happened, last time i checked iceland were a relativly decent team or am i thinking of finland ?

6-1. Note that, all you pessimists.

Neó wrote:
> They also need to sure up at the back, France's strikeforce is a
> tiny bit more formidable than both Iceland and Japan put together.

The same strike force, that managed no goals at World Cup 2002? Real formidable...

Ashman wrote:
> I wouldn't say so, on their day France can be easily as good as us.
> Just depends if we get a similar amount of lucky goals as we have
> against Iceland.

That's the thing though, on their day, France could beat us 3-0. However if they turn out, half as poorly as they did at World Cup 2002 and we play, like we did against Germany (5-1), Turkey (2-0) or Argentina (1-0), we'll win.

Oh, and it is now 5 - 1:

England 5 - 1 Iceland
Rooney ( 2 ) Helguson
Lampard
Vassell
Bridge