normally when england play it,s outta work rush home shower ,quick butty and off to the boozer meet the lads and debate the outcome.tonight was very different cos i couldn,t give a shite if we won or lost,however iwent because joleon lescott was playing and i love hearing other supporters praising our players the whole defence was crap.as much as i like him 85% of the time he does nothing to add to englands strengths,an england centre half carries the three lions in his heart

I don't know about you!!,but i'm very disapointed,if you where england manager,what the hell would you do to shape these obviouse lads of talent into playing like a team.It gauls me to say this,but look at the krauts,they alway's play without any skill,but alway's win,WHY???

I think he?ll stay, he needs a few more years really before people really take note.

But we have to ask, how does McClaren turn people who play well for their clubs into the shit-scared shower of shite that we see time after time?

I live in Holland now though so I?ll just support them at the euros instead, because in order to be a real fan, don?t you have to live where you team is from? :)

I?m not an England fan - I support Everton and Everton only - but I?m interested in why you get so excited about other England matches to the extent of rushing to catch them but you couldnt be arsed if they won or lost a crucial qualifier like that?
I dont usually bother watching England but last night my wife invited her sister round and her husband is England mad, so I watched the whole game. I wouldnt say Lescott played bad but he was pretty anonymous and, like you say, added nothing. The thing is though, having seen your "keeper" make that sort of blunder would hardly instill confidence would it? One thing that really annoyed me though was the way Sol campbell would just pass the ball to anyone just to get rid. On one occasion he was coming out of the box in loads of space and passed to Lescott who was facing his own goal with a Croat bearing down on him. Our international players simply are not as comfortable on the ball as they should be.
Also, at half time I asked my brother in law why Frank Lampard wasnt playing? The only players of note I thought were Joe Cole and Shaun Wright Phillips, both of whom were taken off, and, though it pains me to say it and although he did take the wrong option on occasions, Crouch.
The England left back, Bridge, was simply awful!

As long as Lescott keeps piling in the good performances for the Royal Blue shirt, I don’t care how he plays in the England one.

He didn’t do too much wrong, two goals from long shots, he may have done better with the second but nothing to be ashamed about.

That defence played like ours used to when Richard Wrong was in goal. After the howler on 8 mins, they no doubt started to shit themselves.

The blame lies with McLaren for picking a rookie goalie and playing a 4-5-1 with the 1 being a player that lays the ball off to ????? We’ll get back to that

Why is this even being debated on this site.

It suddenly dawned on me last night that England getting to tournaments has been a second placed substitute to watching Everton in Europe. Now we have that again, I don’t care about England.

And we are unlikely to have a single player in the tournament, potential new signings apart everybody should be nice and fresh come August.

Lescott was awful last night. It just goes to show how piss poor the Premier League really is when he can star in that. Why is it that the Croats ? just a small bit of the old Yugoslavia can have 10 players with a lot more skill and technique than any of ours.

It comes to something when an ex-Everton player [Bilic] can beat the England team. Lets hope McLaren gets the boot - make us all feel better. Even Sven qualified for Europe and look how we used to moan about him!! It comes to something when there is not one British team in the Euro Competition doesn?t it?

I’m gutted England didn’t make it to the Euro’s, and Maclaren has to take the heat.

Football managers live and die by their decisions and Maclaren made a huge (unwarrented) decision to drop Beckham. His statement backfired when not having Beckham for the early qualifiers cost us.

When Maclaren was given the job the general public thought it wasn’t the right choice. Martin O’Neill, Big Sam or Curbs would all have been ahead of the ginger cunt in my book (and probably in that order).

The only benefit is that hopefully now someone like Mourinho, with the ability to challenge for trophies will be in the running.

Great quote from Maclaren when he was questioned about his affair and whether that’s suitable behaviour for a prospective England Manager ’’I’m a football manager, judge me by my results’. His Boro side had recently taken a 7-0 hammering to Arsenal. If only Brian Barwick had taken his advice!

Lescott an England centre-half ?-you’re having a laugh! His dithering on the ball and odd positional sense has cost us points this season-no wonder Moyes prefers Stubbs in the middle.
Why are we so keen to make heroes of merely average performers? Desperation?

Watts, are you insane?

There have been a significant number of players excellent at club level who cant make the step up at international level. Lescott seems uncomfortable playing for England and Andy Johnson is another.
It doesnt matter what the sport is prolific run scorers at county cricket make ducks when they get picked for England, is it the 3 lions badge and the great expectation of the public and press.

Michael Watts - Lescott can?t be that bad - he is still Everton?s top scorer isn?t he?

FACT: Lescott is class.

McLaren is like an army general giving his final speech before battle and then arming his men with water pistols.

No wonder half the England team look shite.

England, Smingerland, Pingerland.

Lescott (plus Johnson, Neville and any of the good young players) comes through the fiasco uninjured and gets a rest in the summer, not in the shop window for four weeks or so... Where is the problem? I have no care for England, only Everton. Come on you Blues!!

Supporting England is for southerners and little leaguers. (As an aside, I’ve never forgiven Wales for costing us the double). Everton players with England at every level have only caused us problems (injuries, tapping-up etc). The England team is, in general, a clique of overpaid, over hyped millionaires selected by the southern-based red tops and LFC supporters in the FA. Look at Barry, took years to break in, showed the other tossers up and is the first one hauled off. Lescott plays for the Blues in aproper TEAM with a sound goalie and centre back and always has an option to keep it simple with Arteta and Carsley. Amongst a bunch of under-achieving strangers he gets dragged down. From the few minutes I saw, it’s like watching Joleon with Everton and his lesser talented younger brother in the England team.

Why the fuck are some so called evertonians sitting on lescott, he did not do much wrong last night and he has been class for us!!!

It is obvious there is a very big learning curve to playing for Engalnd and he is a rookie at that level and needs time to fit in.

That is the problem with this country and the media, they slate every negative aspect too much and nver concentrate onany (however small) positives and that destroys players. If they give these younger promising talents more space and encouragement then maybe we would have far more talented players in this country.

Don?t get me wrong, there are things that need addressing, for example the amount of foreigners in the the premiership that in my opinion are suffocating the young english talents and any potential they have, and that needs to be addressed, but the new manager needs to let these youngsters have their chance time and time again to gain experience at that level, no matter what the result if it is a friendly game.

I think Lescott will be a class player in years to come, but whether he gets many more chances i am not sure about.

But as long as he is playing well for the blues for now, then that will do me.

Mark Griffiths: you say foreign players are ?suffocating the young english talents and any potential they have?. Does this mean Premiership clubs are not developing / signing English youngters? If not, the lower leagues must be full of top quality young English players. But I don?t this is the case. As I?ve mentioned before, England have not performed to their potential since the only foreigner in the top division was Albert Johanneson so it can?t all be down to imports.

I just knew that if England didnt win Lescott would be the easy target - and so it proved. England always need to make a scapegoat out of someone.

I am a big Lescott fan and my 10 year old son idolises him. His performances in the blue shirt cannot generally be faulted. However, his England credentials are far from sound. I think this mostly comes from lack of experience at international level, but is not helped by having McClaren as coach. I hope now that McClaren has been malletted, the next coach keeps faith with Jolean and brings the talent he shows for us into his international game.

Surely the obvious target is Wayne Bridge??

You're gonna be nervous if you don?t trust the keeper
(who actually did well after that TERRIBLE blunder)
i just hope it doesn?t affect his form for us because at times this season he has been a world beater!

England did not qualify for the 1974 and 1978 World Cups without any foreigners in the league.
England didnt quality for the 1994 with only a smattering of foreigners in the league.
So do not blame foreigners playing in the Premeirship causing this, blame the ostrich headed moguls of the FA who for years have failed to develop our youngsters and put long ball merchants such as Howard Wilkinson in charge of development of these kids.
I dont think many hard working people will miss the WAGS next Summer wasting money. I have no sympathy for Baby Bentley driving multi millionaires not playing in the Championships who are now able to take longer holidays in exotic places next summer.
Its about time we had a reality check in this country beginning with a radical shake up of the game at the highest level as the FA are like a Freemasons society, their protection of nicompoops like Mark Clattenburg is an example of how they totally have no regard for fans and what happens in the game.
They sit up there in the Royal Box with the black blazers on as if they were royalty themselves. When the selection panel for an England manager consists of the Bolton and Ipswich chairmen as well as a few chiefs from rural county FA’s well that speaks volumes itself.
Fuck the lot of them I have lost interest in England as a national team now CLUB before Country from now on.

It’s fair enough to take no personal interest in the England team, but it’s self delusion to say that it doesn’t matter. It matters to the players and their ambitions and it matters to the profile and standing of the club. So, it’s good that in the recent period we’ve had players in the England (and Scotland etc) set-up, but it is also an indication of the less competitive environment. I like both Johnson and Lescott, but they are not, as yet, international class players. Having said that, the current English team is woefully short of class. Joleon has tremendous potential but I suspect that his call up came a litle too early. He’ll mature and he’ll be back, but his learning in the near future will probably be at Everton, which should at least make the ’I don’t give a toss about England’ brigade happy.

Nope there are 2 obvious targets from last night on the pitch,stevie g totally anonymous in yet another big game and that useless fat bastard lampard !!! that man is just a total wanker!!! even ray atteveld was better than him!!!!

Phil Bellis

Don?t get me wrong foreign players in the Premier League are also good for the game in teaching youngsters but we need to find the right balance (i think there should be a cap of no more than 5 in your starting 11), this could be done gradually each season having a minimum of 1, then 2 the next season and so on...

As for the lower leagues, yeah there are the odd few who gradually rise up from the the lower leagues and become decent players, Jimmy Bullard is and example but they are not playing in the prem, playing top quality football every week.

The problem is that managers are going for foreign youngers because they are cheaper than ours and that is because ours are in short supply, it is a vicious circle and if this continues, ...well you think the England team are crap now, well wait another 10-20 years and see how bad they will become if the strangulation of foreign players increases.

Chelsea are a prime example, they are one of the teams that can afford to buy these over priced youngsters with potential and thet just sit on the bench and rot in the reserves then when they do play and happen to have a bad game, their confidence is gone.

Yeah, sometimes we get the odd decent player coming through the likes of your Villa or Everton ( agbondlahor, Vaughan, Victor, Rooney etc) but there are not enough of them in my opinion, but that?s when we get into other areas, Sky, money, etc which is another discussion.

I am simply saying lets really sort out the acadamies in this country and get behind the youngsters, improve how we improve them, give them more opportunities, get the media to lay pff them (yeah right) and we will see a far better England team, of course a better manager might help.

In all fairness, I thought Wales did really well, looks promising for me and its much cheaper to turn up in Cardiff and get lashed then £6 a pint soaked to the skin becuase they forgot the roof at Wembley.

Cheers mark: as Michael Newton points out, though, England have been crap when we had no foreigners, in an era which included Colin Bell, Alan Ball etc.

If players are willing to rot on the bench that’s their problem and shows total lack of ambition and love of money. At least EFC are still trying to bring on British and Irish youngsters. If a ’small club’ like us can do it, why not the ’Big’ boys?,

The FA is run like a masonic lodge and appears to be little more than a self-serving old-boys’ club. Compare England’s showing with that of the Scots each and every one of whom would nut the goalpost for passion for and love of their country. Limiting ’foreigners’ would, I presume, be aganst European Employment Law, and the greed in the Prem would prevent them being like Turkeys voting for Christmas.

Notice the wankers who appointed McClaren, notably Thompson and Barwick, once again walk away with dishonour, their heads still on their shoulders. Shameful!

I for one am very happy about England?s failure to qualify. With zero tabloid interest in the Euros, we?re all free to concentrate on Wayne Rooney?s wedding next summer.

Did he ever get that ring back from the squirrels, by the way?

Do we get a further payment from united if Rooney completes the vows?

Having foreigners in our national league has got fuck all to do with younger English players not being able to play at the highest level. The fact of the matter is they are shite end ov story and the senior players are crap as well.

Foreign players are coached better, taught the basics better and they adapt better. British players are taught utter bollocks by no mark coaches armed with these fuckin FA coaching Badges!!!! These coaching badges along with Sky TV are fuckin deadly coz over the last decade or so an abundance of experts have appeared out ov fuckin nowhere!!! I only have to listen to them for a minute to know they are full of shite. You only had to listen to McClaren?s interview before the game to know he?s clueless. He mentioned PACE, PASSION, WILL, DESIRE ? how about mentioning the word SKILL!?!

Let?s face it football is littered with overrated bluff merchants who are paid life changing sums of money for WHAT????? Most managers today buy foreign players coz they are miles better than British ones and for half the price. It?s not fuckin rocket science is it. Even Moyes, who isn?t the quickest to use his brain, has fucked off his policy of buying more Britsh players at Everton coz you are getting fuck all for ya money.

To be honest I don?t even follow England and haven?t done since that tosspot Rooney left us because he was my last clinging hope that there was a bit of loyalty left in the game but I?m bored about this Kirkby debate now and fancy talking about sommit else.

By the way can anyone tell me when was the last time that Emlyn Gerrard had a good game for England??? He?s shite!!!

21 Million for SWP. The mind boggles!!! and I?ll defy anyone that say?s Frank Lampard is a good footballer.

I am very surpised Jay you forgot Gerrard had a great game against ANDORRA, those giants of the World Game.

fucking made up there out , serves the fa right for having downright crooks working for them,a la venables

england is run for southerns by southerns

shower of cockney twats

ha ha

I really dont feel Lescott did a lot wrong last night. Ok so it wasnt his usual dominent performance we are used to but I think he was probably englands best defender. Bridge had a mare, Campbells lack of pace was too apparent and Richards was ok. Gerrard was again a fucking disgrace. why cant he play a pass to another england player?

I am fucking made up that ingeeeerland got knocked out, I hate everything about the England set up, the players, the managers, the media and most of all the bigoted fans. I am English but I dont care about them Just the Blues there in my heart and my soul simple as that and England are not and never will be.

Why oh why are Evertonians slagging Lescott.?
The real culprits besides those not on the playing field (The FA, Mclaren, ROUND and Clemence!!!!!) were Carson and Gerrard.
Why he took Joe Cole off instead of Gerrard who looked like a headless chicken is beyond me.
AND I really hope that Steve Round does not become our Number 2. He does nothing with England and did nothing for Newcastle.

Being Welsh I’m surprised at how worked up I get when England don’t win matches. Its good to have a UK nation at the major tournaments and, lets be honest, the chances of that ever being Wales are slim.
For me the whole campaign has been a disaster and McLaren getting the axe is the first good thing that has happened to the England side since before his appointment but its not just his fault - there is a much wider malaise at the heart of English football. I was saddened that the ’root and branch’ investigation to be carried out by the FA will only extend so far as to cover the senior squad. I think that this should be seen as an opportunity for major change in the national game. If England want to do better than they currently are, then they should stop being so short sighted and look into, among other things, grass-root and youth football and overhaul the whole system from the bottom up. Above, someone criticised the FA for putting people like Wilkinson in charge of the youth set up and I totally agree. The English need dynamic new methods and people to coach and develop the kids right the way from park football to the academies at the league football clubs - not old school duffers like him. Its not as if there isn’t any money to implement changes. What would be considered as loose change to most of the prem clubs could be syphoned off TV, sponsorship money and used to make real a difference where it is needed. England might not see the benefits immediately but it would promote a stronger, healthier and longer lasting team within a few years.
One thing that makes me really cross is everyone saying there is too many ’foreigners’ in the game. For a start any attempt by the league to change that would be to contrevene European employment laws so I wish all of the petty xenophobes that keep going on about foreign players would just shut up. I would love to see the chickens come home to roost if they got there way and where does it stop? If foreigners are the root of the problem in the national game then where do you stop? Are the Scottish or the Welsh foreigners? Are foreign managers also stifling Englsih talent? Well if so see ya Moyesy, see ya Ferguson, see ya Wenger, see ya Ronaldo, see ya Drogba, see ya Arteta, Cahill, Yobo, Yakubu - you get my point! We should be looking at foreign success as an example and trying to learn from it not casting it out as the root of all evil.
The problems with the national football side are huge but one of ther biggest problems is the mentality of finding a scapegoat - having to blame someone or something. Like a drug addict or an alcoholic the England side won’t get better until it admits it has a problem. That there is a systemic, institutional failure and there is no golden goose coming along to sort things out. It will come down to making brave, unpopular decisions and above all else changing the system that all of the mega-rich have got quite comfortable with. For a start how about canvassing FIFA for salary capping and then make up the difference to your Terry’s, Lampard’s, Gerrard’s in performance related bonuses. Give the best an incentive to keep getting better rather than sitting on their laurels thinking they are untouchable.
It saddens me that there will be no England in Europe come the summer but if they want to get better and live up to the potential that is so obviously there (by winning tournaments) then simply changing manager and rooting out foreign talent on these shored is neither enough nor the correct thing to do, respectively. Make these changes now and do nothing else and England might have a side prepared that can challenge for the 2010 world cup but give it a few years and we’ll all be back here having the same debate. Its not good enough to paper over the cracks - the whole thing needs to be torn down and built afresh!
As for Joleon - I didn’t think he did too bad last night he just happened to be playing for a team completely rotten to the core. Lets be honest, if Terry, Ferdinand and others had been available for selection he probably wouldn’t have even got a squad call up. He’s class and as he matures he’ll become a better player - no fear!
Come on you Blues - lets get back to the important stuff and get a win on Saturday.

p.s. Last night England were shit!

Sorry I dared to make a vaguely derogatory comment about our England player.I am positive that Moyes shares my view that Lescott is far from the finished article-just look at the goals against column since he was switched back to centre-half!
I guess i should have realised that in the current euphoric state of most Evertonians,honest comment is not appreciated.But wait till we lose a few and the same people will be queuing to trow the stones.
What a hypocritical lot of buggers support our team!

Lescott was shit last night ,just the same as the rest of them. Plain & simple; Croatia are better than us. End.

Bye bye McLaren, hello Capello.

Should we talk now of more pressing matters such as Tony Hibbert being offered a new contract.

Only if he is part of a future England set up.

Tony Hibbert and England arent we bad enough

I think Hibbo’s new contract is down to the fact he is a free agent at the end of the season and we want a few quid for him when we get rid of him.

Regardless of conceding 3 goals i think lescott wasn?t one of englands worst performers, campbell and him were sold short too many times, when you send 8 players up and leave just your cb?s and gk back, against a fast paced team like croatia you will have problems

reviewing the goals:
1 - lescott not at fault - midfield should be closing down the space while def mark runners, which lescott did

2 - he lost header in mid park, but tracked back well to limit the man on ball along with campbell, he only did this because there were also two players marking the only other croatia attacker, who both then let him run and find space, so after initial error, he did his job

3 - see goal 1

Being english i wanted england to win but now there out am not too bothered, especially when i think of the idiots associated with it. wheather it be the big fat cats who run it and pathetic manager, or the overpaid big egoed thugs that play, or the lower leagued and southern hooligins who travel around with them. Now that i think about it i only wanted something to moan at when we got knocked out by portugal just when your getting your hopes up. It’l teach them all a lesson anyway an bring them back down to earth where they belong!

After watching the poor excuse for a performance that the England team served up and having read countless reviews today i feel compelled to get my point across as a true Blue and I hope a fairly impartial one. I feel some reports slating the England defence as a whole grossly unfair. I was proud as any Blue at seeing Lescott take his place in the back line for such an important match and to have him implicated is plain wrong.

In my view the keeper had a nightmare, Wayne Bridge (who i have been rating far more highly than Cole of late) had a complete disaster and almost the entire midfield had a collective "mare". I thought Richards, Campbell, Lescott, Wright-Phillips and Crouch were the only players who can hold their heads high. The rest (Beckham aside if you include subs) should be ashamed as should the manager.

The first and third goals we conceded were almost entirely down to the keeper and the second down to Bridge for dropping ridiculously deep to mark no-one. Other than that, the midfield's misplaced passes led to any attacks the Croats made and other than the goals the defence was rarely troubled.

There, I've got that off my chest. I don't like to see Lescott dragged down with the rest of that side.