Gillingham FC Forum

Well done the lads. Particularly Messrs Rooney and Hart, both of whom were involved in key moments, both of whom have suffered unwarranted amounts of abuse in recent times. I'm not a great fan of Hodgson's style and I think he has been forced out of his comfort zone by events, however, the guy is clearly committed to the cause and you have to be pretty hard-hearted not to congratulate him on the achievement .

I hope he will now recognise that we cannot rely on the Milners of this world at international level. I can see no reason either to recall the obnoxious Ashley Cole; Baines is quicker and his crossing more accurate. Townsend already looks a better bet than Walcott,Young or Oxlade-Chamberlain.

When Lampard came on it seemed to me that Poland's main threat was the speed of their break from midfield. His contribution was a yellow card and two horrible mis-passes. He is not the right replacement for that set of circumstances. Generally Gerrard also looked pedestrian, although all credit on the goal. Central defence is a big worry as is Smalling.

Never mind they did the job and I believe we can get better as a team if we are prepare to take some risks. We won't win the World Cup but it's great to be involved, as I'm sure all our Scottish, Welsh and Irish friends will agree.

Got to agree , glad we at least made it so we can hear the TV commentators say welcome to Brazil where we are "ALL IN ONE RHTHEM" . Seems a bit strange thinking we are happy we at least just made it ,and those POWER HOUSES of World Football , the likes of Belarus, Lithuania, Norway, Kazakhstan, Poland will be sitting at home watching England play somewhere like The Arena Amazonia in Manaus, temps in the high 80's low 90's , almost certainly 85/90% humidity, pouring rain , listen closely you will be hearing the dulcet tones of a Rooney, "Mommy take me home ".
I wonder who we will we play, my guess is we will be in a group with Italy , France or Spain, any chance of us getting the mighty Swiss seems remote,( how the hell did they get seeded,) along with either The USA or Columbia , Nigeria or The Cameroons, maybe Japan so the chance of coming out of the first round top of the table will already be slim, and in the second round we will get to play either Brazil or Argentina, everyone on their knees and pray for a miracle.
I wish our place as an International Power House, the home of FOOTBALL, the country that invented the game was like it should be, a team that other countries feared , but alas I guess those days are long, long, long gone.
I really wish I could get enthusiastic about the World Cup, ( I have friends who have already sent their requests in to get tickets ) but I guess it is a long way off so perhaps by April/May I will be excited watching Gillingham play in the playoffs for promotion to the Championship , and watch England hammer Wales or Scotland in a pre World Cup warm up footie game.

It's odd that it felt so close considering we were unbeaten and considered fewer goal than some qualifyers. All that matters is that we are there. I think Hodgson has instilled some pride in the players, some looked genuinely desperate to achieve for the first time in ages (but then playing in Brazil is far more an attractive prospect than the Ukraine I suppose)!! Not sure I buy Gerrard's comments though, he spoke like this is his first World Cup campaign not his last!

Im really pleased we have qualified for the World Cup in Brazil.I was worried on Tuesday Night as our results had a pattern of WD,WD,WD,W? If we had drawn on Tuesday we would have had to play in the Playoffs,and there are some real tough Teams in there like Portugal,and France.Roy is usually very cautious and sets the Team up to be hard to beat,and that is a positive,but it was good to see him take off the reigns and go for an attacking Team in these two qualifiers,and he made a great decision of introducing Townsend who scared both Montenegro,and Poland.It`s great to have a Player who is young that will run at players all day long and whip dangerous balls in to the box,and he has an eye for goal aswell.We ended up unbeaten,but I do feel at times we were over cautious.Ukraine I understand why we needed to be very hard to break down,but in Poland and Montenegro earlier in the Campaign we were all over them after going 0-1 up,but sat back and that invited them all the second half to come at us.Against Sides like Spain,Brazil,Germany etc you need to do that,but I feel we wouldn`t have had that stress on Tuesday had we been a bit more attacking earlier in the group.But credit to Roy for making us unbeaten,and doing the job that was to Qualify.It`s good to know we can mix it up and be very hard to break down,but really attacking aswell.Tuesday was the most I can remember us bombarding a Team in recent years.I don`t expect us to win the World Cup,but if we can get out of the group and get near the Quarter Finals then I think we will all be pleased.I read a good Tweet on Tuesday evening that said "It will end in heartbreak,but I will take that all day long rather than not being there at all".The friendlies coming up are a chance to blood new players,and work on systems.

I suppose the crucial difference was that we looked like we had to win a game for the first time in years. Let's hope Roy Hodgeson reminds the players that this mentality will be needed in every game of the finals too!!!