England Prepare For Montenegro Test

Good morning.

That San Marino match was a ~~bit of a~~ massive damp squib, wasn’t it? You can’t ascertain much from an 8-0 win over San Marino, who have a player working for an Olive Oil company. The big test comes against group leaders, Montenegro, who have a two point gap over England.

Having dropped big points to Ukraine at Wembley and away to Poland, it’s so important we don’t make the same sloppy mistakes we did in those matches. Even a draw against Montenegro won’t be a good result. Ideally, England beat Montenegro, open up a one point gap and consolidate that position in the next round of matches. Chasing top spot is only ideal for Montenegro and with reverse fixtures still left to come against Poland and a tricky away tie to Ukraine to come, a win in Podgorica is of the utmost importance. Win that, we claim dominance of the group. I certainly don’t want England reliant on powers of recovery to come first in the last few matches. Read more

Posted on March 24, 2013 by Craig in World Cup 2014 Leave a comment

England Disappoint Again

Morning.

After drawing 1-1 away to Poland at the National Stadium, a match postponed for 24 hours due to a waterlogged pitch, Roy Hodgson said that, “Sometimes you just have to be satisfied to come away with something”. That, for me, is worrying. Poland, with several key players out injured, such as Wojciech Szczesny, Jakub Błaszczykowski and Artur Sobiech, should be a team we can dictate play against and collect three points. Rather than dominate Poland, we gave the ball away, looked clueless in possession and drew.

Travelling to play Poland was never going to be easy, they can make life tough for you and they try hard, but they are ultimately short of the quality to hurt big teams. It’s not unreasonable for me to think that after Wayne Rooney scored, that we could have grabbed a second, closed out the game and walked away with three points. As it stands, we’re first in Group H on 8 points, having played 4 games. Montenegro and Poland are behind us on 7 and 5 points respectively, having played a game less than England. On top of that, we still have to travel away to Montenegro and play them at Wembley. Don’t forget we also have to play Ukraine away, the same team that drew with us 1-1 at Wembley. Read more

Posted on October 18, 2012 by Craig in World Cup 2014 Leave a comment

Wayne Rooney To Captain England

Good morning and welcome to Friday.

This week has been a huge pain in the neck. The sheer lack of football news has been tedious, as has been reflected in the blogs I’ve tried churning out over the past few days. Isn’t it bad that five days since a ball was last kicked in the Premier League, we’re still talking about Gareth Bale and Luis Suarez diving to win free-kicks for which they didn’t win?! They dived, they didn’t get what they wanted, we both know what they’re like, end of story, right? Read more

Posted on October 12, 2012 by Craig in England, Premiership, World Cup 2014 Leave a comment

Roy Hodgson Disappointed By John Terry Retirement

Morning.

Roy Hodgson has declared his disappointment over the retirement of John Terry from international football, saying, ‘I am of course disappointed to lose a player of John’s international experience and exceptional ability. I have enjoyed a good relationship with John during my time as England manager and I reluctantly accept his decision. He had the courtesy to call me prior to announcing his retirement.’

When Hodgson was outlining his plans for the future, I am 100% sure that Terry figured heavily in those plans. When given the choice between Terry and Rio Ferdinand for Euro 2012, it was the Chelsea centre-half who was chosen and for most of the matches England have played under the former Fulham manager, Terry has been one of the first names on his team sheet, with one of Joleon Lescott, Gary Cahill or Phil Jagielka partnering him.What is evidently simple, is that Terry was a big part of England’s immediate future, certainly with World Cup 2014 in consideration and for Hodgson and England, it’s going to be a massive loss not having Terry in defence. Say what you like about the man, and he does divide opinion, it is important to remember what he’s achieved as a player: 377 appearances for Chelsea, 78 caps for England, 3 Premier League titles, 5 FA Cups, 2 League Cups, 2 Community Shields and 1 Champions League trophy. Read more

Posted on September 25, 2012 by Craig in England, Premiership, World Cup 2014 Leave a comment

England Build For The Future

Burton, the saviour of English football?

Good morning!

It’s a bit thin on the ground for good news on transfers etc. Okay, there are rumours that Gylfi Sigurdsson may be moving to one of Liverpool or Tottenham Hotspur and Pavel Pogrebnyak is apparently nearing a deal to join Reading, but those stories seem so far off completion at the minute, that anything I write on it could well be made redundant, which would be incredibly frustrating. I will say that if Reading manage to capture Pogrebnyak, then I believe they have a genuine ‘international class’ striker.

England and the future

The newspapers this morning are filled with debate over how England can build on Euro 2012. One thing we can take away from the campaign in Ukraine and Poland, is that England put in a lot of graft, leaving everything on the field for the country, I completely appreciate their effort.

Roy Hodgson’s system causes England to be rigid, a 4-4-2 system which leaves little to the imagination and has been the preferred system of English football managers for decades. There’s no question it needs changing, 4-4-2 is easy to plan against, it’s not hard to defend against two banks of four and two strikers if you’re a good team. I don’t think for a second that Hodgson will persevere with 4-4-2, I believe he only selected that formation due to the time in which he had to prepare England; all of our players know 4-4-2 like the back of their hand, so use it, get through the tournament and build afterwards. Roy Hodgson said he was looking beyong Euro 2012, it was never the be all and end all for him, it’s all about the future now, and what we can do in Brazil two years down the line, or in France in 2016. Read more

Posted on June 26, 2012 by Craig in England, Euro 2012 Leave a comment

England 0-0 Italy (Italy win 4-2 on penalties)

Good morning.

Once again, the dream has eluded us. Once again, it’s the cruel format of a penalty shoot-out that has seen English hopes shattered. To be fair, we can count ourselves lucky to have reached extra time, such was the inbalance of play between the two sides.

Before Euro 2012 had even kicked off, Roy Hodgson made a comment on some radio station or another, cryptically speaking the words, ‘we have to try to get back to putting the church back into the village’. This saying is of Swedish origin, relating to notions of organisation, discipline, values and priorities. Roy Hodgson has indeed restored the church to the village, as even when Andrea Pirlo was suffocating England with his passing, there was no hint of panic from the England ranks. There seemed to be more blue shirts than white for large periods of the match and way the way in which John Terry was defending against the mass ranks of the Italians, was reminiscent of Michael Caine’s performance in Zulu. Read more

Posted on June 25, 2012 by Craig in England, Euro 2012, Europe, Italy Leave a comment

Wenger – ‘Giroud Deal 90% Complete / Czech Republic 0-1 Portugal / England Team News

‘I know what would look good – a comb-over.’

Good morning!

I hope you enjoyed Adam’s article yesterday. I acknowledge it was published from my author account, one just forgot to switch accounts, like a fool. All the same, you can catch Adam on here, every Thursday morning at nine ‘o clock. If you have the inclination to write for us on a temporary, guest basis, then we’d love to hear from you. You need to be a very good writer and able to give reasoning for your arguments, if you fit that description, then do send over an e-mail.

In further news, today, we will break records on this website for traffic in a month, with over a week to go before the end of this month. If somebody had told me a year and two months ago that ‘Jumpers For Goalposts’ would be receiving X amount of hits, then I’d have laughed. It’s a pleasure writing and I hope you enjoy reading just as much. Read more

Posted on June 22, 2012 by Craig in England, Euro 2012, Europe, France, Ligue 1, Premiership Leave a comment

The Adam Moss Column: High Scoring Euros Set For Further Excitement

In Germany’s fixture against Holland, Mario Gomez touched the ball for all of 22 seconds. Gomez scored two goals that night.

Euro 2012. Wow. Not even the most ardent fan could have believed the quality of the football we have had so far. Let’s get some key statistics in there first. The first major one is that there still hasn’t been a 0-0 draw as of yet, which is a far cry from the 2010 World Cup. There have also been a brilliant 60 goals so far, meaning an average of 2.5 goals per game. It’s a far cry from some of the more recent tournaments and has so far been a feast of football for the neutrals and supporters alike. Unless of course, like me, you have been supporting England and aged significantly. Read more

Posted on June 21, 2012 by Craig in England, Euro 2012, Europe Leave a comment

England 1-0 Ukraine / England Match Report

Crazy England fan continues to believe.

Good morning!

I thought of a good idea this morning whilst I ate my cornflakes. Here me out, but wouldn’t it be a great idea to place a fifth official five yards away from goal in the event of the ball being cleared off the line? Surely that fifth official would be able to see what had happened? Personally, I think it’s a great idea…

… You say that FIFA already did that? Oh…

You’ll have to pardon me for believing the fifth official yesterday to be one very large ITV camera. England’s fortune yesterday should prove to be the catalyst in Michel Platini’s thinking to introduce goal line technology. Platini hates the English, he hates us winning even more, so imagine his displeasure at seeing us escape what was a certain goal. Even from where I was sat, twelve yards away at the back of a pub, watching on the TV, I knew it had gone in by watching in real time. Having watched hundreds upon hundreds of football matches, one obtains a perception for certain angles on the football pitch, it was a definite goal. Read more

Posted on June 20, 2012 by Craig in England, Euro 2012 Leave a comment

Arsenal Sign Olivier Giroud / Walcott Fit For Ukraine / England Team News

Olivier Giroud, Arsenal’s new signing.

Good morning!

First on my agenda this morning, I must say a big thank you to everyone who has been on the site recently. We’ll be breaking hit records for the website this month and the amount of people who linked to yesterday’s article using Facebook and Twitter yesterday was incredible. I take a lot of pride in my writing, so it means the World to me when lots of people are coming to Jumpers For Goalposts to read the latest article.

Anyway, I must not digress, as once again, I’ve left myself limited time in which to write this. I’ll never learn… Read more

Posted on June 19, 2012 by Craig in England, Euro 2012, Europe, France, Ligue 1, Premiership 2 Comments

1 2 3 Next »