Baros Scores Past James

Last updated : 20 August 2008 By Jim Bonner
Having failed to find the net during his loan spell at Portsmouth last season, Milan Baros finally got on the scoresheet at Wembley by putting the ball past Pompey 'keeper David James.

There wasn't anything that Jamo could have done about the first goal as Baros' strike took a nasty deflection off of Ashley Cole. Some may have criticised him for failing to anticipate Marek Jankulovski's free kick although I don't think he would have got to it anyway as it was inch-perfect and hit the top corner of the net.

James didn't really cover himself in glory tonight as he almost made the same mistake as he did against Reading when he came rushing out of his goal into the right back position. Fortunately for him Vaclav Sverkos is not Dave Kitson.

Jermain Defoe also started the game but was taken off at half time despite looking a threat and forcing Cech into a couple of (albeit easy) saves. Glen Johnson didn't make an apperance.

I don't really want to talk about the England performance as I'm in agreement with everyone else. No positives can be taken from such a disjointed performance where all of our players were playing as 11 individuals and not a team.

The Czechs must be kicking themselves considering they bossed the entire game and conceded from two set-pieces. We could have learnt a lot from them based on their performance tonight.

Harry Redknapp had a very strong and honest opinion about how such quality English players can play so well for their clubs and yet so poorly for the national side.

It is a problem that Capello needs to solve quickly as we go to Croatia soon and Niko and co. will relish playing against us if we dare play that poorly again.

Sort it out Capello!