Villan Barry plays the suck-ass half

By: Martini Extra Dry | October 11th, 2008

England have tonight gained a very convincing scoreline at Wembley against Borat’s home nation. The first half featured three central midfielders; Barry, Lampard and Gerrard, and it didn’t prove to be a great idea. England totally dominated the half but failed to convert any of their many chances. Barry was uncharacteristically quiet throughout his 45 minutes, only really inputting a couple of decent passes and the odd challenge. But after he was replaced the game totally changed goalswise.

The first half was exactly the kind of display that has brought England all of their torrents of abuse in the past. We dominated the game completely and utterly but failed to turn any of this possession into goals. Barry was fairly quiet, though when he did get involved he was decent, but it was surely a sign that the three of them don’t work as a midfield trio. We seemed a little overloaded in the middle and lacking out wide.

The second half saw Shaun Wright-Phillips replace Barry and the change definitely suited us. Frank Lampard came alive and created the first two goals, firstly placing a corner on Ferdinand’s unmarked head and then a free kick in off a Kazak head.

There was then a few minutes of worry as Kazakhstan pulled one back and everyone feared a comeback but Wes Brown floated a cross onto Rooney’s head and the game was ours then.

The last five minutes gave us 2 more goals that may come in handy on our goal difference, firstly Beckham’s free-kick bounced off Matthew Upson and into Wayne Rooney’s path to stick it home and finally Defoe came on for Rooney, who was on for a hat-trick, and was played through in the last minute, responding confidently with a smoothly placed finish.

Great result for England in a game that was starting to look like a wet-dream for those media folk that just love to slate England. Our goalscoring potential is looking evident as we are now on 11 in three games. We could do with tightening up at the back before any big games come our way though.