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10 June 2009

Match Review: England 6 Andorra 0

"Who we playing again?"  Even Greavsie could beat this lot

What to say?  Always very difficult to evaluate England games against mediocre opposition.  A bundle of goals, and some pretty nice football, but ultimately a pretty meaningless performance that it's hard to draw any conclusions from.  The best part of the evening was seeing the squad members from the '66 England team pick up their medals.

Apparently there are only
11 national teams in the world worse than Andorra.  And tonight it showed.  The part-timers did their best, but frankly never got close to stopping England play, let alone stringing an attacking move together.  Half-way through the second half they'd only had 17% of the possession, a remarkable statistic in an international game.

Lampard_goal_585_571727aEngland eventually won 6-0, a scoreline that could have been even more convincing without a purposeless 20 minute period in the first half, and some wasteful finishing from Defoe in the second.  Rooney got the first, and we'll give him the benefit of the doubt by assuming he meant to head Johnson's cross into the goal.  The second was probably the best of the night: a beautifully weighted pass from Johnson through to Walcott, who pulled the ball back for Lampard to score from the edge of the box.  A second from Rooney rounded out the first half.

At half-time Defoe came on for Rooney and Young for the anonymous Stevie G.  After a long period of utterly dominant possession and wasteful finishing, the flood gates finally opened.  Defoe scored his first after being set-up by, yes - you guessed it, Glen Johnson (some sort of record surely?!).  The night was rounded up with a couple of sloppy goals - another from Defoe and one for Crouch.

A good performance, but through no fault of England, not a great game (I know, I know, some people are never satisfied).  We'll have to wait until this time next year to see what the team's really made of.

Chelsea player watch:

John Terry:  Was he even playing?  He won't have played an easier game in years.

Ashley Cole:  A nice attacking performance, particularly in the second half when supported by Young.  Later substituted for Bridge - poor Wayne, wherever he plays he's second string to Ashley.

Frank Lampard:  Good performance going forwards with a well-deserved goal.  Didn't forget his defensive duties either, tackling back on the couple of occasions it was called for.

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