England Tonight

[Rick]

What is more important tonight in your eyes.

Englands Result or Englands Performance?

Discuss

[Rick]

My personal opinion is the performance is more important than the result, I also think that if England's performance is impresive tonight the result will automatically be a good one.

The last 3 performances have been poor at best and with the result basically meaningless due to FIFA's silence over how the seeding will work (remember in the last world cup England qualified above Germany but due to FIFA tampering with the seeding system Germany had the easiest run ever to a world cup final) I have to opt with the performance being the most important to put confidence back into the country because we all know with performances like the last 3 our stay in Germany will be a short one. England are a good team and they now have no pressure on them so it is time they made a statement to the rest of the teams going to Germany.

[Barmy]

Results always matter but in this case its more the performance as we dont need the result and to show that we can play well after the last few matches where we have been poor.

C'mon England..

[ChuckleBantam]

Re the seedings for 2006. I was reading it only last night. England are currently seeded seventh in the FIFA seedings for the World Cup. FIFA have already stated that the final eight seedings will hinge on tonights results. Given this is the last competitive game before Germany, a defeat would jeapordise our chance of being seeded which would mean the possibility of a meeting with the likes of Germany, Brazil, Argentina, Italy,Holland etc etc in the group stages.

So, the answer of course is,that as always in a competitive international, that the result is more important than the performance. I mean who on earth in their right minds would take a 2-0 nil defeat in which we played well over a dull uninspiring victory??

[tony d]

I also go for overall performance.

After watching England struggle lately i tend to agree that under a 4-4-2 it doesnt work having Lamps and Gerrard on together.

Both are attacking Midfielders without their usual holding midfielder to back them up... Lamps has Makalele and Stevie G has Hamman at club level to get them out of jail..

They is obvious ways around this eg, 3-1-4-2 formation with someone like Carrick or King filling the gap. Or a 3-5-2 for the same reason.

Its more than easy to slate that idea but both players are used to pushing up to support the front men knowing they are covered, thats where we seem to lose out at the moment.

If the performance is good tonight by using a holding midfielder as we used Butt in the past, and it works, Sven you would think would have the unenviable choice of change...

Dare he after his Poor 4-5-1 FAILED to impress?

Who would he drop???

Would you go for 3 at the back, bearing in mind we will have in theory a selection of some of the best talent in that area in the world with Terry, Rio, Sol,Carragher,Woodgate and King.?

[Rick]

A bit experimental but with a fully fit squad I'd like to see how this formation would work, maybe in a friendly game. This would have a natural left sided player on the left and allow Lampard and Gerrard to do what they do at club level. My only problem is Carragher or Rio.

--------------Owen - Rooney------------

Ashley Cole - Lampard - Gerrard - Beckham

------------------Carrick----------------

-------Campbell - Terry - Rio-------------

-----------------Robinson----------------

It's worth a shot in a meaning less game and I think this is possibly the formation Graham Taylor was talking about.

[stoodley]

1 hopeless side who wouldn't have qualified in a tougher group
and
1 that's even worse

[ChuckleBantam]

What is more important tonight in your eyes.

Englands Result or Englands Performance?

Discuss

In the end we got both :)

[Rick]

One breeds the other, a good performance produced a good result, job well done.

I like the way we played with a holding midfielder maybe experimenting with a 3-5-2 formation in the friendlies to see if we can accommodate Gerrard and Lampard in the same team and putting Ashley Cole on the left of midfield to see how that works.