England Euro 2016 qualifying campaign

(09-09-2015 06:54 )bytor Wrote:  

(08-09-2015 23:52 )William H Bonney Wrote:  With victory over Switzerland, England remain the only side to have a 100% record in the Euro 2016 qualifiers (P8 W8 D0 L0).

You can bet those stats will end promptly once they play in the finals

As much as I hate to have a postmortem before the event I could not agree more. As Platini said 'lions in the winter, lambs in the summer' Seen it happen to often.

Nine wins out of nine, then but to me Estonia did look as though they came pretty much set up for the draw and were hard to break down so it didn't turn out to be a goal fest which I'm sure most of us expected.
It would be nice to qualify with a perfect 10 but I think we wouldn't have been on top of our group had much stronger opposition and between now and France next summer, we need to put ourselves up against quality opposition to see the areas where we have to improve IF we are to mount anything of a serious challenge in the finals.

England do have friendlies before the tournament against France, Spain and Germany but I am not convinced as to their value as they are only friendlies.
Useful to a degree but there is nothing quite like tournament football.

(10-10-2015 15:32 )snookered147 Wrote:  England do have friendlies before the tournament against France, Spain and Germany but I am not convinced as to their value as they are only friendlies.
Useful to a degree but there is nothing quite like tournament football.

I think we should be able to compete & possibly beat either of France and Spain, but I think Germany might not be so easy.
Also I wonder if a one off home international competition would have been a far better arrangement

so it's a perfect ten should we be happy about that or do you think we could have achieved it in a much stronger group guys? We next play Spain in friendly in Alicante, I think we have to play a much tighter formation and prove our last win over Spain was no fluke & feel in no doubt England could benefit from having Rooney playing a holding role in midfield and Kane upfront in a 4-3-3 formation

I say that a 100% record is always something to be proud of and should be celebrated. We all know it wasn't the toughest of groups, but England couldn't have done much more than win every game, scoring 31 and conceding only 3. It's a solid and worthy achievement and also the first time England have ever achieved a 100% record in a qualifying group.

England's qualifying campaign in full.

Switzerland 0 – 2 England
England 5 – 0 San Marino
Estonia 0 – 1 England
England 3 – 1 Slovenia
England 4 – 0 Lithuania
Slovenia 2 – 3 England
San Marino 0 – 6 England
England 2 – 0 Switzerland
England 2 – 0 Estonia
Lithuania 0 – 3 England

that means a GD of +28 I wonder how many other teams in qualifying have a better GD than us.