Group D Discussion - Ukraine, Sweden, France, England
 

11 June 2012
France v England
Donbass Arena, Donetsk

11 June 2012
Ukraine v Sweden
Olympic Stadium, Kiev

15 June 2012
Ukraine v France
Donbass Arena, Donetsk

15 June 2012
Sweden v England
Olympic Stadium, Kiev

19 June 2012
England v Ukraine
Donbass Arena, Donetsk

19 June 2012
Sweden v France
Olympic Stadium, Kiev

I'm becoming inceasingly pessimistic of our chances of even making it out of the group. France are on the up after their world cup debacle, we've only beaten Sweden once since 1968 and our last game is against the hosts, who defeated us in qualifying for the 2010 WC.

Our list of guaranteed starters (sans the suspended Rooney, obvz) is basically Joe Hart & Cashley.

I'd be surprised if England finish below Sweden after watching the friendly between the two sides a while back. France will only be marginal favourites to win the first game and it's tough to say what you'll get from Ukraine. I think they'll qualify, but it's a really tight group- none of the teams are terrible but none are in especially good shape either.

Sweden tend to be quite hard to beat in tournament finals though. Always seems to be the way, despite them not usually actually being any good. Opposite can be said of England.

This side is a fair bit worse than they have had in the past though. It will be pretty close but think England will scrap their way through. Ukraine look to have a pretty average squad but home advantage and all that, bigger danger than Sweden I reckon.

France have seemingly improved an awful lot since 2010 but you never know they might just turn up and be crap.

England to get a scrapy draw (a valiant defensive effort according to the press) against France, then one win and a draw in their other games, get dumped out conclusively in the quaters.

England's best chance this tournament is to play boring, slightly defensive football and get physical if they have too. **** what the media says about it.

It's not like they succeed at trying to play a more open game anyway.

As for this group, I'd put my money on France topping it. They still are not a great team and have their own problems, but definetely have some good creative players and a good manager too.

That's all England do whenever they play.

Ibra and John Guidetti is an exciting possible front two for Sweden. As said I think that will be a tough game for England while the 1st game against the French should pretty much determine England's fate here. A convincing defeat and I don't think they will recover.

Apart from when they try and pass it around and it is just outrageously slow and ponderous.

Would love Ibra to have a good tournament actually, been unfairly judged by people in England for a long while.

There's just so much plodding. Everything they do just seems to take so much exertion. It makes me feel tired and bored just thinking about it.

At least most of the games are at night, there is something especially ghastly about England playing in sunshine.

True, but if they play in the sunshine, at least that implies there's some time in the day which you can spend recovering from the experience, particularly if there's another game on later in the day involving a proper team. Watching them play in the evening inevitably means that the day ends on a sour/disappointing/boring note.

Funnily enough, I'm more optimistic than I was and one of the reasons is we haven't a settled team, I'm hoping we can get a new hungry attitude and be less tainted with mediocrity.

Hodgson has an habit of getting something out of average players, and I actually believe the Press going viciously against him, particularly a certain discredited tabloid, has had an odd effect. Most sane people seem to be getting behind him because of the horrid treatment, also we're not going to get so much of the misplaced triumphalism.

Yet more importantly you hope it'll make him more resistant to Press faves, and help him be his own man. After all Both Ramsey and Robson had no time for the press. May have lost them their jobs in the end, but gave us a win and a semi. Plenty of other sports teams have used the dislike of meedja to unite players, and what set of sportsman should have most dislike for them than the england football team.

Also Cevno, when exactly did we play this open game? Cappello, Erikkson????:blink:

Keegan's side was pretty open I suppose. Especially at the back.