14th June 2004: It was devastating
but it is not a disaster. If England lose one game in this tournament,
I'll take that one - it's much better than losing in the knockout
stages. And if we can't beat Switzerland and Croatia, we don't deserve
to progress.
As it was, there were plenty of positives from the performance. Personally,
I think England can and will play much better, although defensively
they were excellent last night with Campbell and King particularly
impressive. England coped with France, in fact largely nullified their
threat, without being at their best. The level of performance we saw
last night will see off virtually every team in the competition, and
there's more in the bag.
On the negatives, James must be held partly to blame for both goals.
On the free kick, a 'keeper must cover the side not covered by the
wall. If the guy curls it over the wall, you may not get there and
you say "too good". James was behind the wall - a big mistake. And
as for the penalty, Gerrard obviously shares the blame, but what was
James doing? Henry was going away from goal, he just needed to stand
up to him! And then there's the penalty miss - good save but Beckham
at his best will find the corner.
You'd like to think that those are one-off mistakes so, despite the
anger and despondency I felt last night, I've recovered and I feel
positive once again.
Come on England!!
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