There's a donkey on the pitch...

England vs France

Well France have improved in the last four or five months, haven't they?  England, sadly, have not.  Gareth Barry could still be legitimately supplanted by a trusty inanimate carbon rod.  It wouldn't move, the ball would bounce off it in random directions and it would needlessly trip opposing players, giving away fouls in the midfield; see, just like Barry.  Phil Jagielka is quite clearly not a right back, especially considering he spent the majority of the game at centre back.  I'm not quite sure what Capello was trying in this game.  I am sure it didn't work.

The formation at varying points in the game appeared to include three centre backs, one left back, two defensive midfielders - Gerrard being one of them - three wingers and one striker.  Unsurprisingly France bossed the game from the start.  Gourcuff was excellent in the French midfield and ensured that our shower barely got a touch before Benzema walked through the 'defence' with a simple one two and then beat Foster at his near post.  France were rampant and could have had two or three before the break as England looked like a star-struck non-league team away at a 'big club' in the FA Cup.  Gerrard had the only real England chance of the first half as, off balance, he shanked a shot over the bar.

England defend a corner.

The Mexican waves, penalties on the pitch and general entertainment during half-time are essentially football's equivalent of the X-Factor and did little to detract from the overall drizzle soaked misery which the majority of the eighty-six (ish) thousand people in the ground were feeling.  The second half didn't improve things much.  Débutante Andy Carroll did as well as possible up front; as I've noted  not to long ago running onto his own knock downs must be tough.  The players need to learn to have patience and movement, not just stand still and punt the ball up the pitch when there are no options on.  Capello took the donkey off the pitch along with a few others at half time, this sparked England into action for the ten minutes preceding Valbuena banging in France's second goal.  That was about it for England until Crouch came on for the injured Gerrard with six minutes left and promptly scored with his first touch.  It had been coming but England deserved no more than the consolation and 2-1 was about right.

Next up: Gainsborough at York St in the Trophy.