By Carly Goodwill
October 11 2009

England suffered their first competitive defeat under Fabio Capello, with Robert Green being sent off in the 13th minute, Ukraine had a perfect opportunity to ensure that they were still heading for a place in South Africa.

Fabio Capello opted for Robert Green to be in goal for England, making his sixth successive start for The Three Lions and there was a first competitive start in three years for Michael Carrick who came in for Gareth Barry at the heart of midfield. The game had not long started when it had to be stopped due to a hail of flares from the Ukrainian fans towards Green in the England goal, as stewards and firefighters tackled the offending missiles.

Aaron Lennon worked the first opening as he found space inside the Ukraine area, only to see his cross headed away by Oleksandr Kucher. From the resulting corner taken by Gerrard, Emile Heskey found the ball and headed towards goal only to see it go over the bar. John Terry then bounded forwarded and produced a terrific cross that Rooney narrowly failed to reach at the far post.

In a dramatic few minutes England were reduced to ten men when the Slovenian referee ruled that Rob Green was the last man when he dived at the feet of Artem Milevyskyi causing a fall, from the resulting penalty former Chelsea forward Andriy Shevchenko struck the foot of the post and England could breath again. Due to England being short of a goalkeeper on the pitch, it was Aaron Lennon who was unfortunate enough to have to be taken off to make way for David James.

The miss was a small reprieve as England faced the fact that they had more than three quarters of the match with only ten players, but the advantage would go to the hosts who were in desperate need of victory to aid their chances of securing a playoff spot.

Just short of the hour mark Ukraine took the lead with a deflected shot from Sergei Nazarenko, followed by Wayne Rooney producing a stylish turn and feeding the ball to Lampard inside the area, and though the Chelsea midfielder found a gap past Piatov the ball narrowly missed the post.

From the restart, Milyevskyi hit a thumping left-foot volley that cam off the inside of the post and shot to safety.

Glen Johnson twice found a crossing angle on the right, both times found by the superb Rooney, but was unable to pick out anyone through the packed Ukraine defence.

England had chances to level the scores but they entered the interval trailing by a goal for the first time in this qualification campaign.

At half time, James Milner came on in place of Steven Gerrard as England sought to regain a foothold in the match.

It was the home side who had the first promising effort on goal, as marauding full-back Yaroslav Rakytskyy hit a fierce effort that forced a splendid one-handed save from David James.

Lampard was unlucky when he recieved a ball from Rooney, Kucher came to smother the shooting chance and when Lampard tried to turn inside the ball was in Piatov's arms.

Lampard looked like he had earned a penalty, only for the referee to point to the very edge of the Ukraine area. From the free-kick Rooney played the ball short to Lampard whose effort was blocked. Johnson struck the follow up but was denied.

England pressed for an equaliser in the dying moments, but it was not meant to be and Ukraine will now have every chance of securing second place.

Ukraine 1 England 0

Discussion started by Three Lions (IP Logged), 11/10/2009 11:17

Three Lions
11/10/2009 11:17

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.Say Hello Wave Goodbye.
11/10/2009 16:38

Cheers Carlykins dearest.



The Lords My Shepherd.
The future is bright. The future is Stripes.


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