Completely unacceptable tonight I thought. Going for the draw and penalties is stupid when you know you are not mentally strong enough to win a shootout.
Milner again spends far too long on the field and didn't do anything positive at all, not one thing. I would love to see the stats on him. Pass completion was nearly zero, never beat a man, didn't make a tackle. He's the worst player in the Euros by a distance, technically awful, tactically awful. He spent his entire game jogging around between Italian passes as if it were a training session. He contributes nothing. This myth that he protects Johnson is ridiculous, he puts him under so much more pressure.
We have banged on about it on here so much before but it's still true, we're so awful technically that we'll never compete. We can't pass the ball, we can't keep the ball. Parker is terrible in that sense, for all the huff and puff, he's still a poor man's Lee Carsley.
But after being dominated for 120 minutes and being thankful that Balotelli is terribly wasteful, it comes down to two moments. Rooney's overhead kick, which he executed terribly, and Young's penalty. If he wasn't thinking of Pizza Hut adverts when he hit that then he needs to call it a day. It's not acceptable to fail to test the keeper from that distance. In penalties if the keeper goes the right way, fine, but at least make him do that.
Plenty to change ahead of the WC. Terry has to go, Cole as well, lauded as the best left back in the world, but did absolutely nothing in an attacking sense, as ever. Parker, Gerrard, Milner and Young must surely have played their last games for England. The future doesn't exactly look bright though when the likes of Henderson seem to be the next in line.
