A winning start

England got off to a winning start to their World Cup campaign with a 1-0 win over Paraguay. The performance in the first half was impressive, but they had a very lacklustre second half. In most tournaments England tend not to have the best of starts indeed in the last twenty years on only one other occasion in the 98 World Cup have they one their first fixture. For the 11th consecutive World Cup match England failed to score in the second half, the last time they had a second half goal was in the opening fixture against Tunisia in 1998.

Forward problem is an issue, we have problems and Eriksson should have brought Defoe to the World Cup. Rooney needs to be return soon or we will have problems, Owen also does not seem that match fit now, which is also a concern. However, Beckham, Cole and Lampard played very will and Gerrard made a useful contribution. Ashley Cole needs to improve though, made some bad defensive errors in the game.

Still a long way to go and let us hope we see more success in Germany.