richard

Gerrard: "we'll hopefully have more players fit for the last two games which will give us a better cutting edge up front" Please try to bear in mind that this is not a personal attack on Rickie. Imagine if Welbeck had been available to play alongside Rickie. We would have had a better chance of him running onto a through ball than we had of Milner doing it. This is the sort of thing Gerrard is trying to say. He definitely doesn't mean: "We lost because Rickie played badly."

It's a fair statement. The missing players would have presented a different challenge to the Ukraine defence if one of them had been brought on instead of or as well as Rickie. They would still have had poor service from the midfield though.

Just the Lambert mentions: FH "England now host Montenegro and Poland at Wembley next month when their attacking edge should be sharper than last night for all Rickie Lambert’s selfless movement." "The concern had always been that Rickie Lambert might become isolated but he dropped off well after two minutes to flick on to Theo Walcott. " "This was an all-for-one performance. Lambert was helping out, heading out from one Ukraine corner." SH "All of England’s pace was out wide, with the centre far too slow to support the lonely Lambert.

I think he will be judged to have done his job fairly well. If Wellbeck had been there to play the ball to he might have had more of an outlet to give the ball to on the few occasions he got it. It's not like England made loads of chances for him to squander. Don't expect him to become a regular but he may be in the squad and might get a few more caps. Carroll's out for a while.

Why was Rickie fronting up to that dude?

None of the England players can pass.

Really lucky that the referee is favouring Joe Hart, despite the fact that Hart is trying to give a goal / penalty away.

There is going to be a lot of disappointed people on here when the usual England strikers are fit. I'm absolutely delighted at the fact that Lambert has the chance to be involved and has done so well, but I doubt he will be in Roy's medium term plans. I hope he scores against Ukraine. Keep up the good work Rickie!

Gerrard MOTM

I don't think he has a striker available.

Townsend just compared him to sheringham..

Every 30 mins

It's on ITV.

Damn, I was hoping to read another thread about people whinging.

How can technology help? You mean video judges?

http://whatbaleearns.co.uk/

I'd actually be more worried if the tallest member of the opposition scored it. What's the point in marking the short dude? Ball's never going to reach him.

Good Luck Mayuka! Hope the move works out for him.

We're either setting off on a european tour, or we're on the brink of relegation. There really is no in-between on this board. Get a grip people, it's one bad /away/ day. We didn't even lose by much. It's depressing, but it happens.

Felt like we lost that game in midfield. Passing was poor from many players who are normally better. Our non-awarded penalty would have made it a different game though.

The only comfort for pompey fans right now is that they have the Trust involved in running the club, so it shouldn't ever get as bad again as it has been recently. Fair play to them for recognising that Southampton have been doing something right.

Seems pretty dishonourable to slag Adkins off after he took us up two divisions in two seasons. Everyone has a bad result here and there, doesn't make him a bad manager. Plenty of managers have failed to acheive half what he did with more expensive squads than ours.

Yes.

What did he do?

Are Sunderland fielding their strongest team?