Okay, I'll say it.
I think England played okay yesterday.
I missed the first ten minutes, as I work nights and after a couple of hours sleep struggled to wake myself enough.
But the first Germany goal was just a fluke. A harmless punt upfield managed to turn from a clearing ball to a perfect set up. Yeah, England wouldn't have been done like that had they had a central defence with pace, but nobody with any sense didn't know we were desperately short of pace at the back. 99 times out of a 100 that ball downfield would have just resulted in nothing.
We went 2-0 down. Not happy about it, but that's football.
We pull a goal back from Upson. Lampard then scores to equalise but the lino screws up and doesn't give it.
IMO the players deserve massive credit for fighting their way back into the match when a 2-0 lead for Germany could've buried us.
Having been denied an equaliser by a blind lino we then have a screaming free kick hit the bar.
We then show too much naivete by throwing too many men forward and get hit on the counter. IMO James was also at fault for the third goal, but again everyone knew we are not blessed with good goalkeepers.
I just don't agree with the notion that the players didn't put up a fight yesterday. I think we have a glaring lack of quality players in far too many areas, I think we weren't properly set up to play our best in the tournament and our overall WC performance has been dreadful, but I don't think our players workrate or attitude was at fault yesterday.
