Live Thoughts: England vs Sweden (Friendly)

I covered this match live. Here are my unedited thoughts on the match between England and Sweden.

Good evening, welcome to another Live Thoughts post. After the very defensive yet ultimately successful victory over world champions Spain, it's time for England to break more ground. We haven't beaten Sweden in 43 years. That's an incredible statistic. I never knew about it. We've had many many draws against Sweden and they've beaten us a few times, but we haven't beaten Sweden in nearly half a century. Let's break that duck tonight. We have the players and hopefully the confidence, and we're at Wembley. Let's do it!

Here are the teams:

England: Hart, Walker, Cahill, Terry, Baines, Jones, Barry, Rodwell, Walcott, Zamora, Downing. Subs: Carson, Glen Johnson, Cole, Lescott, Parker, Lampard, Milner, Adam Johnson, Sturridge, Bent, Stockdale.


Quite an inexperienced side today, with Terry, Barry and Downing having the most experience. There's a few younger guys that get a nice start, Kyle Walker is someone that has impressed me a lot this season, him and Rodwell from the starting 11. This team is enough to beat Sweden on paper.


Sweden: Isaksson, Lustig, Majstorovic, Mellberg, M. Olsson, Elm, Kallstrom, Larsson, Wernbloom, Elmander, Ibrahimovic. Subs: Wiland, Bajrami, Svensson, Granqvist, Safari, Gerndt, Almeback, Holmen, Jonas Olsson, Toivonen, Wilhelmsson.


It's as strong as Sweden can be, they still have some talent in this team, Elm and Larsson in the midfield and Elmander and Ibrahimovic on their day can score against anyone. They woin't be easy but we should be winning today.

3' - England are on the front foot, completely different to when we took on Spain. 

6' - If you're wondering, John Terry is getting booed, but not as much as people expected. It doesn't matter anyway, let the police and the FA deal with that.

9' - Not much to report at the moment, it's mainly England trying to break down Sweden and failing. 

12' - Free kick in a very dangerous area for Sweden. It hits the wall and is dealt with.

14' - A nice little run from Walcott ends in a corner, one that we can't take advantage of. 

17' - Finally some activity. A nice run from Walcott feeds in Zamora who mistimes his first attempt, and tries to slide in a second and it hits the side netting. 

18' - Haha, only 12 goals have been scored from the 11 players on the England pitch, 6 of them goals have come from John Terry. At least it proves we're fielding a weakened side. 

20' - Wow another good statistic, Joe Hart has played 15 times for England and he's never lost a match, 10 wins, 5 draws. He is a brilliant keeper, I'm so happy we've resolved our keeper crisis.

21' - GOAL! England's 2000th goal (another statistic) goes to Gareth Barry, a lovely cross from Liverpool's own Stewart Downing lands perfectly on Barry's head and it goes into the bottom right corner! 

24' - Replays show that the ball actually hit Daniel Majstorovic last, so it could be an own goal.

27' - They just brought up the phenomenal goal Liverpool's Joe Cole scored against Sweden five years ago. Haven't seen it? Here it is.

30' - We had a decent spell after the goal for a few minutes, it seems to be dying down at the moment, let's hope not and we can hopefully build up for a 2 goal lead before half time. 

32' - A corner from Rasmus Elm almost goes in! A lovely curl on the ball, Joe Hart palms it wide. 

34' - After a pinch perfect cross for the goal, Stewart Downing takes a free kick way over the entire penalty area. Hey ho. 

36' - Kim Kallstrom puts in a potentially dangerous tackle on Kyle Walker and the whistle blows. Johan Elmander protests and goes in the book. A little harsh for a friendly.


37' - RODWELL! Close. It goes for a corner, and that corner is dealt with.

40' - Phil Jones is free of the defence and running towards goal! He tries to tap it past the keeper and it goes wide. Should have done better. 

41' - A difficult corner ends in a Swedish player hitting the post, but it was offside anyway.

43' - RODWELL! My god how did he miss! Downing takes on a defender on the left wing and whips in a lovely cross for an empty net, and Rodwell heads it wide to the right. Awful miss. Gutted. 

45' - Half time, no added minutes.


A decent first half display for England, we got the goal and tries a few more times. The game and the performance isn't anything spectacular, but it's been good enough. We deserve our lead. Let's hope we can build on it in the second half, as Sweden have barely been in it for long periods.

45' - Sweden Subsitutions: Ola Toivonen and Jonas Olsson come on for Olaf Mellberg and Zlatan Ibrahimovic.


45' - England Substitution: Scott Carson gets his first cap in three years while Joe Hart comes off.

45' - Downing had a good run down the left wing and Zamora almost made it to his decent square ball. Close.

48' - Downing has put a few good balls down the left wing early in this second half, he's had a good game for the most part so far. 

51' - You know something, we criticise Fabio Capello a lot but he has the best win ratio of all the England managers in history. He's had 42 games so far, and he's won 26. That's pretty damn good. 

55' - Sweden start to gain confidence all of a sudden, and get a little move going that ends with Toivonen hitting it over the bar.

56' - A Swedish corner is dealt with nicely by Walcott who claims the ball, cuts the ball away from three Swedish players and clears it. Any right back would be proud of that. 

57' - England Substitutions: James Milner and Daniel Sturridge come on for Jack Rodwell and Theo Walcott.

58' - Daniel Sturridge has the ball outside of the penalty area on the right and tries to get into the box and three Swedish players top him, he eventually falls to the floor. He gets the points for effort. 

61' - The game has slowed down slightly for the moment, nothing much to report. 

63' - Leighton Baines passes the ball to Downing down the left flank and Downing squares a half volley to the path of Zamora who's shot is deflected for a corner. Nice move. The corner dissolves quickly however. 

65' - Stewart Downing storms down the pitch like a striker and his shot while decent, goes wide. He's definitely been the best player on the pitch today. 

68' - The game suddenly has become more exciting, both teams going for it at the moment. 

69' - England Substitution - Darren Bent comes on for Bobby Zamora, who had an okay game, didn't do anything great but tries hard.

69' - Sweden Substitution: Anders Svensson comes on for Kim Kallstrom. 

72' - As I said the game's quite open now, not that there's been any major chances for a while. 

74' - The ball gets passed back to Isaksson, the Swedish keeper, and Downing closes him down nicely and makes him kick the ball badly for a throw in. Good work from Downing again.

77' - They're still going on about the Barry goal possibly being put down as an own goal. It's because it was the 2000th goal. It's a little silly to complain about it I think, just because it's a landmark number. 

77' - Larsson takes a curling shot at goal and Carson thumps it awkwardly away from goal. It was a difficult shot to deal with and Carson did just enough. 

81' - A deep cross from Milner connects to Bent's head, but it goes over his head and over the other side of the penalty area. Not the right connection unfortunately. 

82' - Confirmation, Ireland have made it to the Euros! Very happy for our Irish brothers. Just in case you didn't know, I support all the UK and Irish sides, unless we face each other. Great stuff for the green men. 

85' - The game is slowing down, Sweden aren't really taking it to us and we're comfortable. Let's hope it stays this way.

86' - Swedish Substitution: Emir Bajrami comes on for Rasmus Elm.

87' - Kyle Walker wins the man of the match award, no problems with that from me. I think Downing has been the best player personally, but Walker has had a great game too, he's been a bit of a menace down the right wing and has defended well too. 

90' - Two minutes of stoppage time. 

90+1' - Wilhelmsson! Over the bar! It was a great cross and Wilhelmsson almost made it count.

90+2' - Full time.

We've ended our 43 year winless streak against Sweden! Woohoo! It was a satisfactory performance, Sweden barely turned up today and we dealt with them comfortably and professionally. We didn't give them many chances and we had a decent few ourselves. The one goal was enough. We end 2011 undefeated actually, that's pretty remarkable. We did a lot of poor draws in that time but to say we never lost a single match this year is cool. I think our confidence heading closer to the Euros has risen which is great. As I said, the problem with England is when we start turning that into cockiness. We need to be humble, respectful and confident, a hard thing to balance. Anyway, that's another night of football finished, enjoy the rest of it, whatever you're doing.

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Live Thoughts: Tottenham vs Liverpool (Premier League)

I covered this match live. Here are my unedited thoughts of the match.

Welcome back to another live thoughts blog from myself. We take on Tottenham Hotspur today, our second away fixture in a row, and we're hoping that we can make up for the defeat against Stoke last week. As I said last week, I believe we played very well against Stoke but they were world class in defence. I'm hoping for a similar performance, but with the goals today. The Spurs are not as good in defence as Stoke on the whole anyway, so fingers crossed we can get under their skin and get our goal(s).

Here are the teams:

Tottenham: Friedel, Walker, Kaboul, King, Assou-Ekotto, Kranjcar, Parker, Modric, Bale, Adebayor, Defoe. Subs: Cudicini, Pavlyuchenko, Van der Vaart, Giovani, Bassong, Corluka, Livermore.

It's not going to be an easy time to dissect but we definitely can do it. Adebayor and Defoe are both clinical on their day and they've both scored recently. Their weakness is their defence, if we can cause a bit of mayhem there we can score. We have to be careful though because they are very strong in attack. Thankfully they're not in form at the moment, but let's not give them the incentive to start a surge today.

Liverpool: Reina, Skrtel, Enrique, Agger, Carragher, Lucas, Downing, Adam, Henderson, Suarez, Carroll. Subs: Doni, Maxi, Coates, Kuyt, Spearing, Bellamy, Robinson.

The diagram below is unlikely as I reckon that Carragher will stay in the centre and Skrtel will move to the right but we'll see. So one change, Carroll in and Kuyt out. Interesting. It's got to be a tactical decision, surely. Carroll, as much as I'm not as worried as some about his form, still hasn't been as effective as Kuyt so far this season. But his height and presence around their box has to be a factor. With Downing and Adam whipping balls from both the flanks and the centre of midfield, and the link-up from Suarez, Carroll can be, on his day, deadly. Let's hope today is that day.

2' - Adebayor! Close. Straight from the off Tottenham take control.

4' - They've really started well Spurs. It's not good at the moment for Liverpool. 

5' - Spurs have won four out of the last six games against us. Concerning statistics. 

6' - GOAL! Luca Modric! An absolute belter. Some brilliant passing, from Gareth Bale who whips in a cross from the left to the outside of the box to Defoe, who sets up Modric perfectly who slams the ball from a good 20 yards into the top right corner. One of the best goals of the season so far.

7' - They've just been all over us so far Spurs. Deservedly in the lead. Oozing class at the moment. 

9' - Agger is down at the moment. Hopefully he's okay. We'll see soon enough. 

10' - Agger has come back on thankfully. 

11' - Charlie Adam is given a yellow card, a tackle on Luca Modric. He did vent his frustrations out on the ref, which probably cemented the card. 

13' - Awful. Just awful. Spurs should have scored. Skrtel is lost, Bale takes the vall off him with ease and they just dominate our defence, with Defoe and Modric taking shots. Thanksfully we clear it. 

17' - GOAL! NO! Offside! The flag was raised for Suarez' goal. Carroll prods the ball into the penalty box and it ends up with Suarez who clips it round Friedel, but Suarez was offside at the time. Gutted.

21' - Adebayor... over the bar. Some good movement from Tottenham ends in Adebayor taking his chances from the outside of the box but he couldn't keep his shot down. 

22' - Free kick from Adam finds Skrtel towards the right post but he was offside. 

23' - Yellow card for Adebayor for a tackle on Carroll. He's done a few fouls in the match and the build of all the fouls earned him the card. 

25' - Agger can't continue, he's not right. He's going to get subbed.

26' - Liverpool Sub: Sebastian Coates comes on for his debut, replacing Daniel Agger. 

27' - RED CARD - Charlie Adam gets a second yellow. He sticks his leg out at Scott Parker. It didn't look intentional as he was concentrating on the ball in the air, but it was dangerous. It's hard to say if its the right decision as it was unintentional. Free kick for Spurs.

29' - After the delay the kick is taken and it hits our wall. This is looking extremely bleak for us, a goal down, a man down and Agger off injured. Lets hope Coates is ready. 

32' - Not much to report at the moment, Spurs have lost possession a bit recently, especially in comparison to earlier in the match. 

33' - Free kick in a VERY dangerous position. Enrique takes Defoe down a few yards from the penalty area, in the centre of the pitch.

34' - Bale takes it but it goes nowhere. 

35' - Another yellow card for us. Skrtel this time. Bale storms down the left flank and Skrtel can't keep up with him, so he blocks his path. Not good at all. 

37' - For probably the fifth time so far, we have the ball, can't penetrate forward and end up passing the ball back all the way to Reina. It's the story of the match so far for us, we are just the second best team on the pitch on all fronts. 

39' - ANOTHER yellow for Liverpool. Adebayor vs Coates. Coates tackles Adebayor from behind and could have potentially got a red for that. It wasn't dangerous, but a tackle from behind isn't often tolerated nowadays. 

40' - I say it wasn't dangerous but Adebayor has had to take a time out. Another free kick in a dangerous area, it goes for a corner. 

41' - Another corner. Kaboul misfires but it gets to Defoe, who takes a swing that we clear back for a corner.

42' - Kaboul again! And it's wide. 

43' - We get a bit of possession and Suarez gets it on the right and whips the ball to long for Carroll and it goes for a goal kick. 

45' - Four minutes of added time is announced. 

45+1' - A lovely pass from Modric to Kyle Walker cuts out three defenders and Walker dances into our box from the right and earns a corner. A beautiful bit of football from Modric. 

45+3' - Coates hoofs the ball forward to clear it and it goes for a goal kick for Tottenham. He's definitely not ready for the first team. He's looked incredibly nervous and inexperienced. I'm surprised as I thought he would be.

45'+4' - A yellow card for Suarez and he's not calming down! He's still having a go! Thankfully it's gone for half time.

My assessment? We've been pretty damn awful. All over the pitch we've been dominated. We haven't had luck, that's fair, but we deserve to be losing based on this performance. We've been awful. Has the referee waved his cards a bit too much? Probably. But it's no justification at all, we've been bad. The good news? We're only 1-0 down. The bad news is that we need to improve dramatically in the second half, and we're down a player with Adam off, and Coates really doesn't look ready. Let's hope we can get something out of this match. I'm usually the optimist, but it doesn't look good, even from me.

45' - Tottenham Sub: - Kranjcar comes off for Van der Vaart. 

45'-  Defoe! Just past the post. That was great football from Spurs from Adebayor to Defoe in the end. It doesn't look like things are going to change soon.

48' - Thankfully things have calmed down a bit, we just need a bit of luck, it's something we haven't had so far.

50' - Suarez chips the ball to Carroll in the box and Carroll appeals about a tug in the box. It doesn't look like it was anything worth claiming a penalty for. But we're playing a little better, emphasis on the word little. 

53' - Bale takes a shot and its wide. We are playing a little better though as I said. 

55' - Free kick for Tottenham around the right wing area. Enrique brought down Walker. Nothing comes of it thankfully. The commentators are talking about maybe Bellamy coming on, I do agree with that. I think he could be a nuisance for Spurs.

58' - Adebayor wasted a fabulous chance. Skrtel loses the ball in a dangerous place and Defoe and Adebayor have plenty of time to score but Adebayor thankfully for us wastes it. Skrtel has had an awful game today, he's not a right back. Carragher needs to swallow his pride and play there I say. It's frustrating that we're wasting Skrtel out of position, and Bale has wiped the floor with him today.

60' - Free kick for Liverpool in a dangerous area! Finally. We have to make the most of this. 

61' - Suarez takes it and it was poor. He tries to chip the wall and it's just well over. 

62' - RED CARD - Skrtel is off. This is just pathetic. Two of our players are now off. Skrtel is late tackling Bale and brings him down. I think it was rash but not deserving of a yellow. It's the story of his game though.

64' - Downing takes a shot from way out and it's comfortably saved by Friedel. 

65' - GOAL - Defoe. Our defence was ripped apart and Defoe turns out Enrique and slots the ball into the bottom right corner. Simple for them. You could easily see the influence of losing two players there as we just had no one back. 

67' - GOAL - Adebayor. They just take a few shots at us and Reina does his best but there's just not enough players back to deal with the deflections, Adebayor just slots it home after the third shot. 

69' - Liverpool Subs - Luis Suarez and Stewart Downing are off for Craig Bellamy and Jay Spearing. We're probably saving their legs as we're not going to get back into this really are we?

70' - Hand ball from Scott Parker on the left wing. Free kick to us. 

71' - Bellamy takes it and it goes nowhere. 

72' - Tottenham are just playing with us now. They're passing the ball around and the fans are cheering each pass. Always a great feeling when it's your team doing it but when it's the opposition it really grinds on you.

74' - Free kick to us in our box as Reina gets fouled.

77' - It's just time wasting all round now, the game is pretty much over. 

80' - The positives as the commentators are saying is that we were much lower in the table at this point last year, and that there's still a long way to go. Very true. 

82' - Spurs are piling our box with their players, thankfully we defend well enough.

82' - Tottenham Subs: Jermain Defoe and Ledley King are off for Geovanni dos Santos and Sebastian Bassong. Both teams have used all their subs now.

85' - We break through slowly and Lucas and Spearing exchange a few nice passes in the centre of the pitch. Eventually Spearing takes a wild shot at goal but it was nice to see us just juggling the ball a little bit at this stage of the game. 

88' - Gareth Bale just takes a shot from around 30 yards out and its way over the bar. 

89' - Shots on target - Spurs 14, Liverpool 2. Says it all really. 

90' - Van der Vaart... good save by Reina. He tries to chip Reina but he saves it well. 

90' - Three minutes of added time. 

90+1' - Carragher tackles nicely against Adebayor and it's gone for a corner. 

90+2' - GOAL! Adebayor. It's just simple really, he is given the ball in the box by Bale and he rockets it into the top of the net. There's nothing we could have done about that with 9 men.

90+3' - Full time.

The full time analysis is that this was an awful game by us. Yes, decisions went against us that were debatable, yes we lost Agger early on and had Coates who is most certainly not ready yet to take his place, and yes, we did have two red cards and were down to 9 men for a good half hour. But that doesn't justify anything. We were bad. Really bad. But the good news is that we have a Carling Cup tie and two home games to look forward to. We need to win these three games. We had two difficult away games and we performed badly today. But the worst is over... for the time being. Unless we continue to screw up anyway! But let's not go down that road, let's be optimistic, this is hopefully a blip, and let's show our class against Brighton on Wednesday, before taking on Wolves on the weekend. That's it from me today, have a good day.

Live Thoughts: England vs Wales (Euro Qualifier)

Hey everyone, here are my live thoughts from England's second game in four days as we take on our British companions, Wales.

For the record on a personal note, if you didn't know already, I lived in Wales for 13 years and used to speak Welsh fluently, but for football I've always supported England. In Rugby, not that I'm really into it, I follow Wales. Am I a hypocrite? Maybe. But it's because the Welsh are passionate for their rugby and not so much for footie. So that's where the allegiance lies. Anyway, I like all the British teams and Ireland, and unless England face one, I want us all to win.

Here are the teams:

England - Hart, Smalling, Cahill, Terry, Cole, Barry, Lampard, Milner, Downing, Rooney, Young. Subs: Stockdale, Jagielka, Lescott, Parker, Carroll, Johnson, Defoe.

So after Lampard's shock drop to the bench and the media's reaction to it, Lampard starts and Parker drops to the bench. That being said it can be seen from a tactical perspective as Lampard is better equipped to attack than Parker, and we are at home. Plus, Parker has a few yellow cards now. Walcott is out with a potential injury and Milner takes his place. Another decent tactical decision as Milner is a powerhouse and should hopefully keep Bale at bay. 

Wales - Hennessey, Gunter, Blake, Williams, Taylor, Crofts, Collison, Ledley, Ramsey, Bale, Morison. Subs: Myhill, D Collins, J Collins, Ring, Allen, Robson-Kanu, Earnshaw.

It's a decent Wales side with Bale being the main threat as expected. I think we can take them though, we need to keep possession and play well going forward.

2' - Quiet start, we've taken possession nicely.

4' - Gareth Bale should have had a foul against Ashley Cole but nothing given.

7' - John Terry had almost a free header from a corner but was tugged by a Welsh shirt. It was going wide anyway. 

9' - They just mentioned Wales' really low FIFA ranking, it's a shame really, they're better than that. 

10' - Free kick for Wales, a free header that gets nowhere. 

11' - Decent little bit of pressure by Wales and we didn't defend that well really. We need to do better than that. Jack Collison was at the heart of that.

18' - Rooney has a shot at goal but kicks it over.

19' - Goal saved by the Welsh keeper, Hennessey.

20' - Yellow card shown to James Milner after a dodgy tackle on Bale. 

23' - Hennessey bats away a shot on goal.

24' - Pushing and shoving in the box while the Welsh prepare for a corner kick from Gareth Bale  

27' - Downing! Over the bar.  He tried to bicycle kick a volley from a corner. Decent effort.

29' - Wales were 2-0 down in Cardiff last year at this stage when we faced them. They're passing the ball nicely around the Wembley turf, they've really improved their game.

32' - Chris Gunter tackles Ashley Cole and bursts forward and takes a shot from around 15 years. Well wide but it was a good run forward.

34' - GOAL! Ashley Young! A decent bit of pressure from England ends in Stewart Downing going down the right flank and cuts the ball back into the penalty box where Young clinically hits the ball in! 1-0!

36' - Stewart Downing looks like such a different player recently, or even the past year. He's enjoying the form of his life for both England and Liverpool.

37' - A good bit of pressure all of a sudden for England. It's great what a goal can do.

38' - A lovely curling pass by Downing goes just a little too far for Rooney.

39' - Ashley Young whips in a cross from the left that just misses Rooney's head. Unlucky!

42' - The class difference between England and Wales is finally showing now after half an hour of a hard working Wales side matching an England side failing to show the class against Bulgaria. It's a different game now and Wales don't look in it.

45' - Half time. A half time assessment is quite well done above at 42 minutes. A game of 30 minutes of hard work from Wales against a below par England. After the goal England were just dominant and Wales looked jaded. I can't see them getting back into this unless they change their tactics to go against England's dominant play.

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45' - Immense pressure from England already! It ended with Barry shooting over the goal.

48' - We're in full control now. You wouldn't have thought there was 15 minutes between the end of the first and the start of the second half. We've continued to be aggressive and make chances.

49' - Aaron Ramsey curled the ball over the England defence and it gets to Gareth Bale with a mass of space but he was offside. That was some great vision from the Welsh pair.

51' - Rooney crosses the ball into the Wales box where Ashley Young is waiting but it just bounces in front of him and over. What a shame.

53' - The commentators are going on about the vibrant young Welsh side. It's frustrating. Wales always develop potentially decent young players but then they get on the pitch and lose often. The potential is never focused into results for them and it's a damn shame. I hope I'm wrong and Gary Speed can get more out of this group than John Toshack got out of the previous younger groups.

56' - Ramsey! Blocked. Bale gives Ramsey some room into the England box and it's just blocked off. They have another go and it's clumsily put to a corner by Joe Hart. That wasn't very good by England on that second effort.

59' - Gareth Bale just takes a wild shot at goal from distance that went nowhere. Before that he tried and failed to take on around 5 England players working around them without penetration. His shot definitely was the result of his frustrations for failing to break us down. Bless him.

60' - Lampard! Just over. There was some great movement from Gareth Barry who gets into the Wales box and passes it square to Lampard who had enough space to do better.

62' - Milner... wide. There was some good football by England then, with Rooney and Young at the heart of it, Young passes it to Milner who was free on the outside of the box and he hits it with little accuracy unfortunately. We just can't quite get that second goal.

64' - A deep cross from Downing from the free kick catches Hennessey out who fails to catch it and Gary Cahill shoots just over the bar.

65' - Corner to Wales. Chris Gunter bombs forward and tries to cross the ball and it hits Ashley Cole. Very little happens from the corner.

66' - Wales Sub: Steve Morison off and Robert Earnshaw comes on. Earnshaw is a decent Championship striker, but he's not on the level of England. I don't think he'll cause much of a problem.

69' - Wales try to break England but fail to ever get into our box. Free kick to England.

72' - England Sub: Frank Lampard off and Scott Parker on. Lampard didn't really produce the goods today, he was quiet for most of the game. Put it this way Parker did better against Bulgaria than Lampard has done today against Wales.

74' - Free kick for Wales in the central position. Bale curls it over the England wall and just over the bar. Decent effort.

75' - Earnshaw for Wales! Awful really as he had a great chance. The ball is square to him from about 3 yards and he hits it over. He looks devastated.

77' - My thoughts on Lampard for England if anyone cares? I don't think he should start anymore. I think there are younger and better options than a 32 year old Lampard who starting to look past it. Do I want him at Euro 2012 when/if we qualify. Most certainly. He has the experience and ability for a full tournament squad. It's silly to think not really.

78' - England Sub: Stewart Downing for Adam Johnson. Excellent performance from Downing today and he's pretty much England's first choice left winger now and rightfully so. Adam Johnson needs to get back into form to be able to challenge him for his shirt, but he more than has the ability long term to do so.

80' - Gunter! The whistle blew before he took his shot for a shoulder barge against Ashley Cole. But Joe Cole got to that shot excellently and saved, regardless of the foul. Brilliant reactions from the young English keeper!

81' - It's been over eighty minutes now and it's still 1-0 to England. Wales have done well to be fair and handled us for decent spells whilst creating some good chances when they can. I hope they don't give us the sucker punch at the end now.

82' - Earnshaw... wide. Counter attacking football from Wales and Earnshaw tries to curl it into the bottom right corner but it was wide by a decent margin.

84' - Wales Sub: Jack Collison off for Andy King.. He was influential today Collison and should be happy with his contribution.

86' - Wales are starting to find confidence. It's not good at the moment if we keep letting them play.

88' - Ashley Young for a brace! Just wide.

88' - England Sub: Wayne Rooney off for Andy Carroll. They're talking about the criticism for Carroll on commentary. My opinion? He does seem to lack fitness despite having a full pre-season behind him. If it's drinking or a diet thing, I don't know, but if so, he needs to seriously look at it as it's now the time to be professional and be as fit as possible. If not, we have more than enough talent in both England and Liverpool for other players who are willing to put in the effort on the pitch and off.

90' - Man of the Match is given to Aaron Ramsey. Understandable, he's been very good for Wales today and while he's not as flashy as Bale, he's a force in the middle of that pitch. Definitely a good player for the future for both Arsenal and Wales.

92' - Full time. We did enough for the win today and played some good football from around the 30 minute mark to the 60 minute mark. Between those times Wales did well and created chances. They should be happy with the way they handled England for long spells and made life difficult for us at times. For England, it's almost a certain qualification for us which is good, and we won and looked impressive at times. A win win situation for both sides today, bar naturally, a loss for Wales. Fingers crossed my Welsh compatriots can start climbing up the FIFA rankings and with a display like that, I reckon they might just do that. I'll root for them whenever England aren't playing that's for sure. That's all from me, have a good night.