England were awful last night

[PorkChop]

One of the most boring games of football I've seen in a long time. When Danny Welbeck comes on with 10 minutes to go and sets the game alight, you know you've been watching a shocker.

We shouldn't be relying on penalties to scrape past Norway. Friendly or not, with the talent pool England have, we should be beating them by a solid goal margin. The only positives last night were that Henderson, Welbeck, Sterling and Delph looked decent. Everyone else had an uneventful or poor game - especially Wilshere, he offered nothing again. How he started is beyond me.

England are just so frustrating to watch.

[Romo]

Hodgson is a dogshite manager, the only country he has ever had success in as a manager is Sweden, when he has managed a top team he has failed.... his reign at Inter Milan was a complete failure back in the 90's, Liverpool... failure, he plays boring football and tries to scrap 1-0's and then expects to be praised as a god when they beat teams like San Marino by 5 or 6...

The fans have lost interest aswell... £60 for a shitty friendly against a nobody nation is a complete rip off, players don't care to play... they don't gain anything from playing for England.

[AkydefGoldberg]

Expected tbf. England's performances are going to be rubbish whilst Hodgson dilly dallies around wtih players, namely not doing anything major.

More people watched The Great British Bake Off than the England match, says it all.

[PorkChop]

More people watched The Great British Bake Off than the England match, says it all.

It wasn't even close, either. The Great British Bake Off had 8.3 million viewers, England had about 4.5. The game had the lowest attendance recorded at Wembley since it was rebuilt, too.

If Delph doesn't start against Switzerland I'll be disappointed as fuck. He showed more in ten minutes than Wilshere did all game. It was a dire performance by England the other night and I hope they give the debutants starting places against Switzerland to show what they can offer.

[prophet]

I wouldn't go so far as to say they were awful. They were neither good or bad - just the usual middle ground but that's England and England under Hodgson especially tend to play negatively anyway because that's how he likes to play. The point about the game being 'boring' isn't down to the actual performance of the team in my eyes, it's because nobody really cares about England these days and as a result, get bored watching them.

As for the individual performances the biggest disappointment was yet again Rooney. You'd think with him being named Captain he'd have tried to work harder to make something happen yet he was pretty much non-existent throughout the entire game until he was subbed (and Welbeck, his replacement, did more in 20 minutes than he'd done all game). At this point we have nothing to lose, I'd just play those deserving of playing rather than people like Rooney who are simply there on merit. Start Delph next to Henderson with Sterling behind a front two of Sturridge and Welbeck because why the fuck not? Nobody cares anyway.

I said this would happen during the World Cup and I've been proven right. When we qualify for a major tournament people suddenly begin caring again and every two years when a World Cup or Euro's rolls around we'll feign patriotism and claim to support the team but when it's not an actual tournament fixture 99.9% of the country could give a fuck.

Club over country attitudes dominate the game in England anyway. When Delph and Colback were announced in the squad the nation was quick to ridicule the decision and bash the players themselves in addition to the manager rather than support the selection and encourage the players. Whether we agree with a squad selection or not should be irrelevant because we can't do anything about it. I swear it's only in England that we have this attitude. (For the record when Delph came on he was one of the better performers of the game)

As for the lack of attendance at the game itself I'm amazed that the FA can't comprehend why that is. Who on earth fancies driving down to Wembley on a Wednesday night to watch them barely squeeze past Norway? If you live in or around London then fine but for those of us up North it just isn't plausible. Particularly for those of us that have jobs to go to the next day.

I reckon the FA should revert to what they did when the new Wembley was being built and take the England team on tour. Each game should be played in a new stadium/city within the country so more of the public feel inclined to go and watch. Why should folk from Tyneside/Yorkshire/Midlands etc... have to go all the way down to London to watch an England game? Shouldn't it work both ways with Londoners having to come up North every now and then if they want to watch a game live?

[AkydefGoldberg]

^In theory, a great idea - i.e. take games over the country but FA have said ain't happening until Wembley is paid off.

Hodgson responded to criticisms of two shots on target and general criticism of the performance as "fucking bollocks". Unnecessary but trying to protect his young players I imagine.

Rooney, captaining both club and country will crumble at some point. I think he won't be MUFC captain before the end of the season. At least not captaining regularly.