England v Ghana live!
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25 mins Young hits the bar! How did Young hit the bar? Lovely work from Milner on the right wing, cuts back a low ball across the box, where Young, unmarked hits the bar from five yards. Downing had put Milner in with a superb run and pass and Young has just perpetrated one of the the misses of the season. Andy Townsend suggests that he "hit it too well". Get out of it. That was a shocker.
22 mins Nice defending by Cahill, stretching to head clear under pressure after some neat passing from Ghana's midfield. Bevan Jones asks "If Papa Bouba Diop was 'the wardrobe' (my favourite footballer nickname) whilst at Fulham, then what nickname would you give Mensah? The guy is huge." Is he that huge? I don't know. If he's really huge, or huger, how about "Im". Gyan has a shot from 40 yards. It was going like a rocket. Hart palms it down.
19 mins Young and Downing continue to roam nicely. Carroll continues to lollop and gambol and snort in the middle. He's in his early 20s. This is as fit and mobile as he's going to get. Terry Miles asks "Is John Terry at the game tonight possibly watching from the England Captain's box while sipping on a national cuppa and snarfing down Hilda's cheesy bits a la Rumpole of the Bailey?" I have no idea.
16 mins Free kick to Ghana 30 yards out. Muntari lines it up and swirls a horrible left-footer miles over the top. He gave it a very long, ponderous build up too. Nathan Davis writes: "Downing & young have got to swap wings. Downing's got the beating of his ful! l back b ut it's pointless as he has no right foot!" He plays right for Villa. Actually crosses very well with the outside of his foot. Mark Gillies asks: "You might like Rooney as a player, but would you want to go for a pint with him?" Yes. Yes, I would. As long as he was paying (for our ludicrously overpriced VIP cocktails). And as long as we didn't have to go to on to any special clubs or anything afterwards.
13 mins It's a good game this. Ghana are really up for it and England are being dragged into a contest. It's like a tournament game, really intense. Hope it lasts. And.. wow, Young has a shot from the left hand edge of the area, slipping past Vorsah beautifully and curling a shot towards the top corner that Kingson palms away well. He has some sublime skills at time, the spindly Young. Lovely little touch from Downing to set him up as well. Why are Villa so crap? They shouldn't be.
10 mins Some nice stuff from England now as Baines, Milner and Young combine very neatly and it ends with Young blasting over from a decent position. It was Adiyiah who missed that chance by the way. Although, it was also a fine save from Hart. Downing looks very bright so far for England and there goes Carroll galloping like a mustang after Milner's flick, mane flapping, legs pumping and - blimey - he's really quite slow. Easily overhauled by the defence. Is that a lack of match fitness? He looked like a man running on sand there, maybe even a man running on sand in a pair of must-have Louboutin heels.
7 mins Massive chance for Gyan, running in behind a very square England defence and advancing in on Hart, but he dithers a little and Hart makes a good smothering block at his feet. That looked a certain goal at one stage but Gyan seemed to run out of steam. This is a proper game. Back down the other end Downing crosses with his left foot from the left and its cleared for a corner. It's end to end, ahem, stuff.
5 mins It 's a bit physical this. Ghana have gone flying in a couple of times. This isn't the tallest or strongest England team and Wilshere in particular has taken a bit of a pounding on one or two occasions. Not what you normally get in a friendly. Downing has looked quite bright so far for England. James Lancaster asks: "Further to Dan Smith's musings at 7.51, who do you think are the most repelling and attracting England players? As for repellers, I'd suggest Rooney, Terry and Cole (obvious I know) and Zamora or Fielding if we are aiming a little more leftfield. As for attractors I'd go for Wilshere, Walcott, Johnson (Adam not Glen) and Henderson." Rooney? I like Rooney.
3 mins England free kick on the left and a chance for the big lads to trot forward and rumble about in the mixer, but Young overhits it. That was a waste. In previous England regimes Don Howe/Graham Taylor/Lawrie McMenemy would now be standing on the touchline raging about hitting the big lads etc... Capello merely frowns. A bit more.
1 min England kick off and keep the ball for a bit, thrusting down the left through Carroll, then switching to Johnson on the right, who absolutely skins Muntari, but flaps his cross miles past the waiting clutch of hopefuls. Good start this for the young shavers of England B.
8.01pm: Rob Watson seems to sums something up :"I'm an England fan, but I really want Ghana to win tonight to teach Don Fabio and the FA suits a lesson in the importance of African football and the need to offer a proper sporting spectacle. But I also want Cahill and Jagielka to have a great game so we can start to edge out embarrassments like Terry. What do I do??"
In the interest of non-club-bias I should point out that other England embarrassments are also available. But he has a point. Maybe, maybe this is actually a really fascinating night for England supporters. Eh?
7.59pm: National anthems now. Ghanaian one rapturously received. the droning intro to God ! Save The Queen quickly stamps all over that.
7.57pm: Out they come. Capello high fives the ball-boys, waves to the crowd and does a forward roll down the red carpet. Not really. Instead he looks a bit cross and walks off to his seat without saying a word.
7.54pm: Here they come down the tunnel. Although Ghana seem to have just sent the mascots. Where are they? Robin Hazlehurst writes: "Given that the nature of many of England's unpleasantly arrogant self-anointedly 'golden' generation have put many people off supporting England for a while, I'd say that it is nice to see some different faces in the shirts. Maybe this lot will care about the team more than about themselves (or maybe not, but you can hope...). After the World Cup Capello was roundly criticised for not having a clear out, so maybe we should welcome it, at least a bit, now? I know it's for the wrong reasons, but that doesn't make it the worst thing that could have happened." Yeah. Barry is a bit of a weird one. Why's he captain? He's a reserve. Give it to nice Joe Hart.
7.51pm: Dan Smith muses: "Damn you Capello. It's so much harder supporting Ghana when the usual bunch of repellent underachievers aren't included. What's the point of hating Phil Jagielka?" There is no point. I believe he is even quite likeable. Leighton Baines has an endearing little face. It makes you sick.
7.47pm: Those teams in full:
England Hart, Johnson, Cahill, Jagielka, Baines, Milner, Barry, Wilshere, Downing, Carroll, Young.
Subs Green, Lescott, Parker, Jarvis, Welbeck, Defoe, Crouch, Bent, Carson.
Ghana Kingson, Pantsil, Vorsah, John Mensah, Lee Addy, Adiyah, Annan, Agyemang-Badu, Kwadwo Asamoah, Muntari, Gyan.
Subs Adjei, Opare, Inkoom, Derek Boateng, Tagoe, Ayew, David Addy, Jonathan Mensah, Kumordzi, Clottey, Sowah.
Referee Cuneyt Cakir (Turkey)
Hmm. Hope Jarvis gets on. He is a really decent winger. Wellbeck is intriguing too, for ob! vious re asons. Pretty underwhelmed by the rest of them on that bench. Filler.
Quite few familiar faces in the Ghana team. Note: Jonathan Mensah/John Mensah. It's like the Gary Stevens/Gary Stevens golden era of the mid 1980s.
7.43pm: Bristol Chris is feeling it too: "Barney, despite all the negativity, I think I'm Ghana enjoy seeing the Black Stars back on our screens again. I think most of us fell in love with them in South Africa." Then again, Dirtymac is feeling the B-team-actually-look-better-than-the-A-team vibe too. "With the amount of complaining people are doing about Fabio's fielding of a B team, the line up looks pretty bloody good. Besides, up until the game against wales, the A team has hardly set the world alight (I just spent the last three minutes trying to fit a proper Hannibal or B.A. Barracus quote into that, just not working though.)"
7.41pm: On the other hand, that 4-3-3 is quite interesting isn't it? And Wilshere, Young, Downing, Carroll. It's... kind of interesting isn't it. Gah. Stop it England B.
7.35pm: Still, England really do owe everybody a proper display tonight. There has been some dissent. Stephan Appiah could certainly be happier. He says England have shown "disrespect". On the other hand John Mensah has never been tenser: he says Ghana will turn "upside down" if they win tonight. Which brings me to my main point. This game isn't pointless because Ghana really want to win it - and so the 21,000 Ghanaians in the stadium. London is full of Ghanaians who would be delighted to beat England. So let's hope they do win. I for one am backing Ghana tonight, despite having supported England - occasionally tearfully - in every one of the 400 or so England matches I've watched since the 0-0 draw with Morocco at Mexico '86 (damn you, infuriating and indolent Glenn Hoddle). Anyone else switching sides?
7.31pm: Only three first choice outfield players in there, Young, Johnson and Wilshere. But still it's not such a bad team if you ask me. Cahill and Jagielka make fo! r an exc ellent pair in this kind of football. Wilshere is (currently) The Chosen One. Downing is much better than you remember him being. And Andy Carroll is a 35m striker and the fifth (possibly) most expensive footballer of all time so he must be great and that's all there is to it I'm not listening.
7.24pm: Hello and welcome to live coverage of the most significant England friendly this week. It's England B v Ghana at Wembley Stadium: The Black Stars versus the slack stars in front of sell-out crowd, many of whom presumably bought their tickets quite a while ago. The big issue here is of course the selection of a weakened team by Fabio Capello. And here is that weakened team in full:
England Joe Hart; Glen Johnson, Leighton Baines, Gary Cahill, Phil Jagielka, James Milner, Gareth Barry, Jack Wilshere; Andy Carroll, Ashley Young, Stewart Downing
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