I am so out of touch - I didn't even know who 'Rachel Stevens' was... till I researched a bit further and went 'Oh, that track was her was it... Ah'.

More feedback from an obvious source which made me laugh!

Today was a complete arse at work. Spent the whole day pressured to sort out a mess for someone else where by the time I'd done it they would have gone home and not used whatever it was I did... It was only down to bad management that it needed to be done in the first place! Oh well, I was in a bad mood when I got up this morning.

Which leads me nicely on to the next topic. I should say now that if you dont like football or are offended by bad language then dont read any further. The following is a complete rant of a feedback which I normally wouldn't post something so long, but I feel it very nicely sums up my and many others thoughts on last nights England fiasco:

So, I went to the pub with S and E to watch the match, and it was all going well, for about 200 seconds. And then Owen made the big mistake of scoring. Why oh why oh why oh why did Eriksson seem to think that was the big cue to start defending for 85 (or, as it happened, 105) minutes, as if England had suddenly turned into Italy? He goes to a LOT of football games, we see him on ITV every weekend watching Charlton v Bolton or whichever poxy Premiership makeweights (you'll notice I didn't mention Saints) are fielding the most English players that week, and sometimes even goes abroad to see Newcastle or Liverpoo (L left out deliberately) get knocked out of europe by some no-mark french team without a decent goalscorer to their wage bill. All these matches, and he doesn't seem able to grasp the simple fact that is this

Attacking wins matches.

It's that fucking simple. England are a team with goals coming from every department. Even without our two highest international scorers (Beckham and Owen) troubling the scorers, England went into this match as the highest scorers in the ENTIRE tournament. Yes, higher than Holland with Van Nistelrooy, level with Sweden with a fluke 5-0 win and Henrik Larsson, higher even than France with Theirry Va Va Bloody Voom Henry. And we go one nil up and he thinks we can defend for that long successfully. Has he been watching the same tournament as the rest of us? Team after team after team has failed to hold onto a lead. England vs France, Anyone vs the Czechs (who, by the way, are now my team to win this whole thing, fuck the French, they are French), Sweden vs Denmark (emphatically NOT a fix, just local rivals who can't bear the thought of the other team winning, and will move heaven and earth to prevent such a thing happening), even the mighty Italy couldn't hold their lead, and had to rely on a 93rd minute winner to ensure their hilarious dismissal from the group for daring to lose (yes, lose, again, spot the theme) a lead against Sweden.

So we defend for eons against a team whose recognised strength is their attacking. Hell, the first five minutes showed us how crap they were under a high ball lumped hopefully forward, and yet, even as the wonderkind Rooney limped off, victim to his own willingness to put everything into a match, Eriksson brought on Vassel. A short arse to combine with the short arse already playing up front. It pains me to say this, but Heskey was the better option here, as Eriksson obviously planned to defend forever, surely he wanted a player on the pitch who was used to winning high balls and holding them up, rather than the (admittedly) good luck charm in front of goal Darius Vassell, who's main attributes are pace at getting to balls in front of him and behind a defence, played by a midfield in control of the game, or a clever thinker in the box, who can find a way to get an attempt on target from any kind of ball played into the box by a midfield in even semi-control of the game. Both of which, at no stage in the game, were England capable of being. But they so were. Any time they bothered to put some passes together, playing the ball along the ground like it was meant to be played (and respect here to Brian Clough, who once said if the ball was meant to be in the ari, God would have put wings on it), then the Portuguese were panicked, unable to cope with the occasional slick interchange that occured, almost by accident from a midfield sleepwalking through their natural jobs.

Frankly, we got what we deserved. Yes, the referee made the wrong decision to disallow Campbells goal, seeing as the only foul that was occuring was Campbell himself on John Terry, but in a wider sense, the referee got it exactly right, as I don't want to see a team that is so negative, even after such a great start as it was handed, progress and do well in this tournament. I cheered France when they won the last Euro tourney, as they were playing the BEAUTIFUL game.

This is football, a game that always used to reward the brave, the team that dared to say, we don't care what you do, we ARE going to score more goals than you, and we don't care how long we have to wait until it happens, we will make it happen. That's the game I love, and that's the game I want to see at the highest level.

There you go Andy, try editing that down into an easily quotable snippet for your blog, and go on, give me my hat-trick of blog mentions. I dare you.

While I edit that, the French have been knocked out! Now that would normally be cause for celebration (yes, I know that sort of attitude annoys me from the Irish to the English but this is the French!) however since I drew them in the work sweep I am annoyed!

So, back to England. While I agree with the theme of that rant, I find it hard to believe that Eriksson actually intended that England defend for however long was left the moment they scored. If only England had pretended Portugal had scored on 3 mins we would have been OK. It was a shocking performance to defend so deeply and expect anything else other than to lose. As for Beckham, there is no excuse for missing the target, regardless if a ferret popped up under the ball just before he kicked it. He needs to do some serious work if he is to be good enough for a guaranteed start let alone the captaincy. Maybe Spain isn't working out for him. I cant see Real keeping him in the starting line up on this form. While J and I had a discussion about where Rooney should go as Everton weren't good enough for him, I have been wondering about Beckham. Perhaps Chelsea isn't a bad idea as the English fans will love him IF he has form to help them win the title.

Anyway this post is long enough to have bored all but the contributor and me so perhaps England in Euro2004 should be put to rest.