Sweden 2-3 England: The game that made my heart almost give out

Wow... Now, I'm not known for my long term memory, but that was the most nervous I've ever been watching an England match, no scrap that, a football match in my entire life. No one can say that 'Woy', as he's now affectionately known by the England faithful, doesn't provide you with interesting games.

It started well for England in all fairness, the system that Hodgson had set out, sitting the two central midfielders just in front of the defence and allowing Sweden to come onto them (you shouldn't be thinking that...) was working well. The Swedes looked an average team in the early parts and there was actually talk of a simple England victory. Unfortunately, such a thing doesn't exist.

However, Roy proved his inclusion of Andy Carroll in the starting XI to be a clever move as he powerfully headed home a deep cross from his Liverpool counterpart, Gerrard, past Isaksson. Hodgson's tactics then played their part as England sat back and seemed in control as Sweden tried but failed to break them down. At half time all seemed in order, but the England we know and love/hate/despise managed to shoot themselves in the foot once again.

Two poorly defended set pieces early in the half put Sweden in the lead, both scored by Melberg, although the first should clearly go down as a Glen Johnson own goal. Like so many times before, all English minds thought in unison, 'here we go again', the BBC commentators wouldn't leave us alone with stats about how we've never beaten Sweden in this competition, or for this many games. It was tiresome and pointless commentary, but still it manages to beat ITV all ends up.

When all hope was lost though, there was only one man that Hodgson could turn to, Theo Walcott. I, as I'm sure many others sighed at the prospect of Walcott's impending arrival, but for the second time during the evening, Roy proved us wrong spectacularly. Walcott's first involvement was to smash the ball from the edge of the box over a helpless Isaksson. But his night didn't end there, after receiving the ball from Johnson, he took on two defenders with his pace and dinked a cross over to the awaiting Danny Welbeck, who managed to pull off one of the best finishes I've seen for a while.

It was now 3-2, I certainly couldn't believe that England had shown the character to come back, but Hodgson's got them working as a team in a short amount of time, I was indifferent about his appointment, but to be honest I wasn't too overly keen on 'Arry either. I'm now warming to the Hodgson regime, hopefully we can push on and beat Ukraine and hope that the Swedes, now with nothing to lose, absolutely hammer the French.