England 4 - Greece 0

[Steven P. Administrators]

Tonight we'll be playing the European Champions of 2004 (Greece) who smashed Portugal to win at the final, this will be a test for both John Terry and Steve McClaren who both start at new positions for the England squad, Captain and Coach respectively.

Kick off: 2005 GMT (8.05PM) live on BBC One, BBC Radio Five Live & the BBC Sport website

Some interesting links:

McClaren demands positive opener @ BBC

Gerard to play on the right (Becks spot) @ BBC

McClaren offers hope to Beckham @ BBC (Becks left at home but not out)

:woot: Looking forward to this as Greece are an excellent team to play against and test the new setup.

[Martyn]

It is interesting to see the formation that is being played. With Gerrard on the right there will be better balance to the team as Gerrard can play pretty much anywhere (and he wont conflict in the centre with Lampard), but the drawback of that is that it is not his best position, he is only being played their because he does not work well in the centre with Fat Frank.

McClaren is being very bold since taking charge, with dropping Beckham and changing the system (which was needed). I still think he should drop Fat Frank and play Gerrard in the centre, and giving SWP/Lennon/Pennant a chance on the wing :p.

It will be a very interesting game anyway, although the result would not matter it is still better to win than to lose.

[snyper]

Looking forward to this as Greece are an excellent team to play against and test the new setup

Do i get banned if i disagree and laugh?? :x

Were they in the world cup?

Bad as england are at the moment i reckon england will win...

[Lingwo]

I'm still wondering why Lenon isn't starting but instead they put Downing in!

Shame i will miss the game, as i got football myself.

[tomwarren Veteran]

no cole, no rooney, no owen, no beckham :(

I hope he plays Lennon from the start.

[leesmithg]

Well, if current manager is worth his salt, he would have told the moron who was the previous manager to

pick the correct squad and drop Beckham after euro 2004.

Only one thing Erikkson did right was to blood Rooney early.

[Martyn]

4-0 so far :laugh:.

England have played well, and look very balanced. Gerrard has been very good. It was good that Terry got the first goal as well :).

[Shibby]

Seem to be doing pretty good 4-0 and it's only just hit half time.

But we must not get our hopes up, it's only greece after all they have been poor since they won the euro cup.

[tomwarren Veteran]

it seems to flow fairly well like this but it's hard to tell since it's only Greece

[Brodel]

meh, was ok. Played ok when Greece were poor and were average when they got better in my opinion. I'd like to see the formation stick a bit more, crouch has no place on the goal line when defending a corner, he should be on the half way line ready to break.. if he can break lol. Still, he managed 2 goals which is good.

As good as 4-0 sounds, hopefully Steve McClaren is just testing out players and formations before sticking with one. It's difficult to pick a team of 11 without feeling like you're leaving out key players, we just need a team that is constant and for them to have time to gel rather than chopping and changing too often, as well as playing A LOT more friendlies than we were before the World Cup. (I think we were the team that had the least number of friendlies under our belt prior to the WC unless someone can correct me)

[Yukon]

lets hope they do us proud,

[Powa]

I'm not a big fan of the national side. But I'll give McClaren a ago for a few games. I normally find England play a bit of a boring game. I'm to used to watching Man Utd's aggressive forward play.

[Meraklis56]

Although i am Greek i Support England cause after euro 2004 we "stopped" playing football..If u see the matches after the euro you will wonder how we won the euro..Anyway.the result of this match is very bad...

[faraway.]

w00t! 4-0 ENGLAND BABY! Good game for both Crouch and Terry. Looks like McLaren is making a lot more progress than Sven did with just one game.

[sharpy2k4]

it was a good game, gerrard player well on the right, but then again he would play well anywhere :)

best thing i like about mcclaren...if we're losing like 3-2, 4-2 etc, with 10mins to go he'll play 4-2-4 and have 4 forwards, just like he did with middlesbrough in the Uefa cup xD haha

[tony-inpo]

First half was good. Second not so great Sven like even...

[Shibby]

But maybe he told them to sit and defend. Because he's got to sort out where we can go wrong in defence as well.

So maybe we sat back on purpose to get presure to keep strong. Because someday a team will be as strong as us and we may have to defend for our lives.

[Steven P. Administrators]

But maybe he told them to sit and defend. Because he's got to sort out where we can go wrong in defence as well.

So maybe we sat back on purpose to get presure to keep strong. Because someday a team will be as strong as us and we may have to defend for our lives.

According to McClaren, he asked the England team to keep a clean sheet and get one more in. They achieved the directive of a clean sheet, which means they did well. Kirkland was excellent in goal making a few really good saves!

[T.Barl0w]

i was at the game last nite and i have to say that downing even tho i dont rate him and i wud rather have sweep or lennon playing ther he douse give the team balance and he did also have a contribution in three of the goals. other good performances were from owen, steve, croch, and the back 4 were also good. defoe was poor but hes a confidence player he just needs to score a few goals and he'll be back to his best

[slim_Az]

When we play a team in form, that will be a real test... Greece were awful at the back, and as one of the commentor said "Have the back four met each before??" Its hardly anything to boast about, we beat a poor Greece side, just like Jamaica. The second half was very typical England and McLaren still has his work cut out, we still are crap at defending set pieces, we cant always rely on Ashley Cole's goal line clearances or a great save from the keeper (btw, Kirkland was top notch!)

[Tomo]

As good as it sounds, we played a mediocre Greek side with England players looking to impress the new manager. I do think though that England were very impressive in the first half but seemed to run out of ideas and energy in the second half.

[leesmithg]

If this was a euro 2008 qualifyer then I doubt the score would have been 4-0.

On both halves, weighing up chances and quality of the game, a 1-1 draw would have been a fair result.

However, we would have probably won 4-0/4-1 if we had our strongest side out.

I still believe the England side is better without Beckham and Lampard.

Defoe was frustrated, he is still lacking, our midfield is missing in strength and sometimes watching our defence makes me nervous.

We have not improved more than about 10% since Erikkson left, the Greeks are not what they were in 2004.

Soon as we play our first qualifyer in September I expect our performance will be 50% better than under Erikkson.

[Steven P. Administrators]

i was at the game last nite and i have to say that downing even tho i dont rate him and i wud rather have sweep or lennon playing ther he douse give the team balance and he did also have a contribution in three of the goals. other good performances were from owen, steve, croch, and the back 4 were also good. defoe was poor but hes a confidence player he just needs to score a few goals and he'll be back to his best

Owen didn't play!

[the godfather]

Tonight we'll be playing the European Champions of 2004 (Greece) who smashed Portugal to win at the final

Greece 1-0 Portugal was hardly a smashing :laugh: :p and there was something funny at euro 2004, come on, Greece winning?

[PeteWhite]

Owen didn't play!

I believe he means Owen Hargreaves!

Pete