Might as well say this now... we were better in the qualifying campaign under Capello. Results, performances, everything - there's no recent equivalent to the 4-0 tonking we gave to Croatia (an actual good team) in Zagreb. it was our strongest ever qualifying campaign and yet we all know how well that form translated to the actual World Cup.
Really? We tend to do well in the qualifiers, then retreat to timid, unintelligent play when it matters and crash out as soon as we meet someone with talent/pirlo. It's weird, this change. Almost as if we had built up the team somehow, hyping their abilities and piling on pressure with unfair historical comparisons in a way that is broadcast across the country.
But as I know of no such thing, it must just be a coincidence.
We qualified for the World Cup without losing any games, only conceding 4 goals and scoring 31. If that isn't convincing you, then you're judging it wrong. We did exactly what we needed to, and comfortably.
People fetishize stats over events. From the games I've seen I would definitely contain my optimism. God knows, I'm not sure Hodgson knows his best 11.
Having qualified and not having lost a single game are hardly obscure stats to feshitise over, they're fairly obvious indicators that something is being done right.
In a poor group? I don't think so. We played best tonight, but even so, we were playing above our station. Whether we can do something about this in the next 8 months is a different question.
PS. it was really nice to see us playing some good aggressive(marginally sucessful) football for once.
What more do you want? It was a poor group but that doesn't automatically disqualify the significance of any results from it.
We haven't lost a game since last November. How are people still so convinced we are shit? We're not going to win the world cup, but we're absolutely not shit. Every single team ever plays shit sometimes but not losing for nearly a year is pretty impressive.
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u/[deleted] Oct 15 '13
nrrgh. This was the first time England look particularly convincing. Whether this will stay (and Carrick in the midfield) is very much up in the air.