Viewing Thread:
"England Vs Argentina - your predictions"

I say 3-1 to England with Terry, Owen and hmmm...Lampard/Crouch scoring for England.

I stand by my comment during the last World Cup that England stand a good chance this time around.

I'd like to see Lampard and Gerrard switch positions in that formation. While Gerrard may be the more versatile player, and the better tackler, Lampard has an equally strong left foot and I feel that Gerrard has a greater ability to play in tight, fast paced situations. He's also got a great understanding with Owen.

I have a feeling that the starting formation may be the one Sven goes for in tight games. Probably have Ashley Cole and Gary Neville back in place, otherwise same team. Then if we go a goal up we can be a bit more defensive. If we need to play a more attacking formation, if we go a goal down, we can bring on Joe Cole, shift Gerrard inside a bit more, and go at it like that.

Seems that way we do have a plan B. But it's just the plan A from a couple of games ago.

It was a good game at times and a horrid one at times if you're English.

First 20 minutes they were all over us and should have been at least 2 - 0 up, but then we came back towards the end of the half. Our wing-backs were pretty much non-existent going forward and being turned inside-out while defending. King has shown that to do something against a team such as Argentina is a lot harder then a team like Poland, although I think he was a little unlucky with a few calls from the ref.

Rooney goal was really quite well taken. Didn’t lash at it but just placed it.

The second half started a bit more evenly, but with Argentina still the better team going forward and looking more likely to score, which they did with a excellent set-piece.

In the last 20 minutes it was a cracking game with attacks at both ends keeping us on the edge of our seats showing that we could still get something from the game, but what happened was pretty special.

Owen was invisible the whole match apart from forcing one good save off the spill from Beckham’s free-kick, but he did what he does and pops up to grab two goals when given the chances.

Would we have won if they’d kept their best players on? Who cares? They took them off and we scored two more goals giving us one more then them. Their manager thought the game was dead and won, took them off and ended up losing the game.

A much better performance from England.

Edit:
Also think Gerrard did ok given that he was out of position and thought Joe Cole played pretty well when he came on.

I know it was only a friendly Ortega, but you are going to eat your words from 2 months back.

Yep, saw a lot of that at the Bristol Rovers match today. Must be some kinda thing ref's seem to be able to do.

hippyman wrote:
> I think Crespo was unlucky to have his goal disallowed.

I assume it was for a foul that the referee saw but no-one else did?

I think Crespo was unlucky to have his goal disallowed. Owen's was blatantly off-side. Still, it allowed us to win - I'm not complaining. Good that both were disallowed.

Blank wrote:
> I didn't think Riquelme was that good.

Nah, fair play to him, he WAS their attack. Was easily the player on the park with the most influence over the game.

I didn't think Riquelme was that good. Had a decent first half, didn't seem to do much in the second. The second half was generally duller than the first until the last ten minutes anyway.

I would agree with that too. Both played outstanding games