England v USA 12Th June 2010

lucky we arent 2-1 down,heskey works hard,doesnt score regularly simple as that,but boy dont i want to so prove me wrong now,awful sums that up

Everyone in the TV studio seemed to think that England's performance was good, but I thought it was shocking, albeit due to a narrow pitch and uneven bounce of the ball. One word I would use to describe it was naive. The Americans were there for the taking but England hadn't the guile to do it.

England didn't deserve to win the game, even excluding Green's error. Only Johnson, Terry and Heskey came out of it with credit. The passing and positional play of Gerrard and Lampard were very poor, and Rooney was almost anonymous.

It's early days, I concede, but England are going to have to improve beyond recognition even to make it out of the group.

I thought Terry was excellent as well, barely put a foot wrong and had to spend much of the second half covering for the hopeless Carragher. King was little better in the first half. Dawson, anyone?

I thought it was quite adequate until that blunder by Green let the air out of the balloon.......................we wouldn't have had to chase the game but for that and could have just sat in, The Americans had little to offer, but I admit King looked lost in the marking of re-starts.

I thought Glen Johnson's performance was by far the best I have ever seen him produce, and I thought apart from his one on one miss, Heskey played his role beautifully. Lennon could and should be the ace in the pack ~ if Gerrard would care to play him in with a bit more nous and guile. Can't be too hard on Rooney though, he rarely let's us down whilst I agree Carragher's performance was an embarrassment, a total 'mare!

Terry had a good 'un as did Ashley Cole to be fair, but Milner was found wanting too. I don't think Wright-Phillips has the brains of a rocking horse to be honest and that doesn't make Rooney's job any easier; he is the type of striker who demands a certain consistency of delivery and it is Lennon who comes the closest to providing that in my opinion. Lampard should be slotting them through more consistently than he was tonight so it was no wonder we didn't see the best up front of our only world class player.

I think Algeria will present a tougher task than the USA who I reckon will finish bottom of that group.

The only really class acts on show so far I would say have been South Korea and Argentina.

Quite disappointed with the performance really. The central defence looks a worry, maybe it's time for Dawson to shine? Our midfield looked impotent. But with Barry back to settle things down and Joe Cole to provide flair i think we'll be ok. Thought Heskey did his job well but needs shooting (practice) after the miss. As for Green, i feel so sorry for the lad, a career moulding moment. Let's hope it inspires him to greatness rather than condemns him to infamy. Rooney needs chances to score and he had precious little last night, but again the Barry/Cole introduction should solve that problem.

All in all a 5/10, but the WC isn't won on the first game. Capello will read the riot act and get them focused for the next one. I'm not too bothered by the performance it's the 3 points that matter and a hatfull of goals to make sure we top the group.

Shooting (practice) won't achieve anything with Heskey, he's always been like that ; I think it's a phsycologist the guy needs.........................seriously. Like many players I've seen at all levels he simply loses out to the fear of missing.

Everything else in his game is perfect for England and ideal as a foil for Rooney. Who's the best "striker" we can find who can play well in midfield and then strike from behind Heskey and thus take the pressure off him? This is the way my son's under 9 side is set up whenever their prolific and star striker is not on the pitch because the other two lads who come in for him simply found the "responsibilty" they imagined was put on them to score as he does too much to handle ~ now that has been "removed" they have flourished as all round players..........................and that "responsibility" had never been put on them in the first place!

All I would ask of a guy like Heskey if I was the manager would be for him to win and hold up the ball until he can play others in who will apply the coupe de grace, and I'm sure that's all Capello is asking of him anyway.......................now about that goalie!

The game for me only underlined the real problems any England manager has trying to put a side together from players who are playing in the top flight of English football. The plain facts are due to far too many foreign players in the premiership there is simply not enough home grown players who play at the highest level and we have all seen premiership games where the whole team out on the pitch has been made up of foreign players with not one single English player starting the game.

You only need to look at some of the players that have had to be included in the squad to confirm this fact, we have forwards who have not scored a goal for some time and other players who are not even making the first team for their own clubs and we are now expecting these players who probably have never ever played in a team made up of all English players to some how be world beaters.

I firmly believe that we have had much poorer England teams ever since the rules were changed on how many foreign players could play in a game in an English league and I also believe even the so called best English players are only any good when they are playing in their own teams due to the high quality foreign players they are playing with.

One thing that really bugs me before the start of any England game is players who do not sing when the national anthem is played; as far as I’m concerned the players should be so proud to be wearing the shirt and playing for their country and should be proud to sing the national anthem when it’s played. Yes I know there were more players in the USA team who did not sing their own national anthem, but I’m only interested in our team playing for our country.

If I were the England manager the team would have it drilled into it that they were playing for the national team of England and it starts when the national anthem is played before a game and they need to show how proud they are playing for their country by putting their heart and soul into sing the national anthem when it is played. Maybe that is something that is never going to happen as long as we have a non English manager in charge of the national team, but then that only highlights another problem in English football, far too many foreign managers at the very top clubs.

On the game itself against the USA, I though we were guilty of poor passing in the first half and while the USA team never posed any real threat near our goal, were far the neater team and passed the ball around far better then we were able to.

I do feel it was never the case any of our players lacked effort, it was more the case as a team they were not good enough playing together and its hard to see how the manager is going to be able to do very much about that with the players he has to choose from.

You have to feel sorry for young Green, but when I have seen him play before for me there has always been a question mark over his technique dealing with balls such as the one he failed to deal with that gave USA a very soft equaliser.

That mistake did not really cost us the win as such as these things do happen in may football matches, what cost us the win was our inability to break down an average USA team and fail to add to the one and only goal we scored in the forth minute

No team has ever won or lost the world cup in the first game and while it is not the start we all wanted we have to hope things will improve and we will at the very least get into the next stage of the competition, but in my view it would be foolish to start thinking that is a forgone conclusion because it is not and the team will have to produce far more in the next two games if they are not going to find themselves on a plane back home.

Just as Torquay United teams never make things easy for themselves it seems it’s the same with the England team, all we can do is keep our fingers crossed and keep supporting the group of players who are representing our county in the world cup.

Hand on heart I don’t think we are good enough to win this world cup, but this is football and as we all know anything can happen and no results are ever guaranteed and luck can so often have a part to play in results, I do feel after the USA game, there will be no team worried about playing us and that might just work in our favour in the end.

On a final note there has not been one good free kick taken outside of the box that has not sailed high over the bar, it does seem it’s to do with the new ball being used, or at least the ball is being blamed by the players.

Why is there any need to keep playing around with the ball? Is there any other sport where the most important object that is used in the game gets altered and changed as often as many people change their underwear.