Apologies zero re. Russia result. I'm great for that ; pointing out something only for the opposite to happen an hour later etc.
Still though Slovakia did qualify for the euros - they had a poor NL campaign albeit better than us. I thought our performance out there was good and I felt we had the better chances. On their day a decent side.
Something we struggle with is putting performances together and we are not alone. - 3 internationals in 6 days is really tough. Serbia only for a bit of magic from Mitrovic would have dropped points in Baku yesterday. You see it all over Europe - Slovakia were 2-0 down v Malta before squeaking a point but a few days later beat Russia. Turkey beat Netherlands and Norway but undid a bit of the good work by drawing at home to Latvia. I'm sure there will be other examples - France / Ukraine / Bosnia all play their 3rd game in 6 days tonight. The only country that seems immune to it was Belgium - who put their reserves out against Belarus and thumped them 8-0. They look really strong. Anyway a bit of a tangent to illustrate the difficultly a new squad faces in the environment we find ourselves in. We have a 3 game window in Sept but the windows in Oct / Nov are 2 game windows.