Err.. there's bright sunshine here...


I'm sorry but at this point blaming the manager doesn't cut it. The fact is we'd had essentially the same team for 10 years under four different managers and they've not performed at any point in a any finals tournament. Sven and Fabio are proven, exceptional managers and yet the team has gone to pieces as soon as we got to a summer tournament under both. Steve MacLaren couldn't get us to a finals, yet he got Boro to the UEFA cup final and just won the Dutch league with an unfancied team. It's time to stop blaming the managers and start blaming the only thing that's been common thoughout this period - the players.
Fabio Capello essentially played the side tonight that walked through qualifying scoring goals for fun, yet they simply failed at almost every level. The only reasonable conclusion is that the players, either mentally, emotionally or physically, are not equipped to play tournament football. My opinion is it's an emotional shortcoming, born from their pampered existence and the fact most of them play in teams which essentially aren't effectively challenged for more than 6 weeks a year. They never have to face anything like adversity day in day out, so when they come to it once every four years they don't have the mental strength and character to cope. Fabio Capello may have 'failed England' last night, but not half as much as the 13 Englishmen who stepped onto the pitch.
I tell you why Capello doesn't know what's wrong - it's because he's never seen it before. He's used to managing players who are technically gifted and marry it to a level of self-confidence that comes from having faced hard challenges and overcome them. These England players are not only not nearly as good as they think they are in the former, they're utterly lacking in the latter. They will fly home from the tournament in first class seats, get in their luxury cars and drive back to their mansions. Then in August they will walk out for their club sides and the largely witless hordes who follow the big four will worship the ground they walk on again. There are no consequences to losing. There is no weight of failure upon them. 'Pressure'? It's an illusion, a joke. You want to be a bloke whose got to explain to his wife why he spent several grand going to South Africa to watch that pile of losers. That's pressure.


And yet Wayne Rooney's reaction is to sneer. Doesn't that tell you all you need to know?

I'm afraid you're not making sense there.

2/5, odds on to win the match and therefore qualify. I'd never back an odds on horse/team/whatever, the returns never outweigh the risk.

Edit: As for you suggesting Gerrard hasn't contributed, he did in the first match, not last night because he was stuck out on the left.

Quite right. Scuse me, early in the morning .


I suggested keeping Gerrard and dropping Lampard. Gerrard has at least done something recently for England to be fair to him.

It's alright, I've already got my bets on at Ascot so I've been thinking about odds anyways.


Quite right, sorry about that.

Yup, Lampard just doesn't seem to shine at World Cups. In the first match there was a kind of excuse in that he was letting Gerrard do most of the attacking but last night he was central midfield. I remember a scuffed shot on target and a few good passes that he had the idea of, just not the execution of.

I'm already on record in another thread about my personal opinion of Lampard, but I don't think he should have been on the field for the full 90 minutes.

The time was ticking down, something like 87 minutes gone and England look, for once, like they're working the ball foward and buidling to something, then fscking Lampard gets on it and blooters the fscking ball goalward from about 30 yards out and wastes a decent build-up on some self-centred 'death or glory' strike that wasn't even on target.

What a wasteful, self absorbed, prick.

I know the rest of the team didn't exactly shine, and frustration at the performance to that point had already coloured my mood, but it just summed up what was wrong. He was playing for himself, as were most of them, rather than the team.

Actually for most of the match the problem was they were doing the opposite.

I lost count of the times when players were trying to pass in the box rather than take a shot.

Did anyone else just watch England playing Australia in the rugby?

It was nice to see England winning!

So far this world cup is shaping up to be the worst since USA '94. No fluidity, little effort, few good games and the most consistent professionals are the referees.

I'm getting to the point where I might just stop watching.

It's something of a cliche to compare the England football team unfavorably to the England rugby team when the football team does badly but the bare fact is this : the rugby team played badly last week and got better; the football team played badly last week and got worse.

Yes, in the first half, when they were in and around the 18yd box, they were more focussed on trying to cross it for someone else, rather than take a shot on goal, but around the rest of the park there was no unity.

Of course, Algeria packed the midfield and it was obvious they were going to play a defensive game and attack on the break. The commentators spoke of Algeria's attempts to hold on to the ball at all costs - to play their way out of danger, and avoid giving the ball, and chances of attack, to the opposition. It was dangerous too, and if our boys were on form, we could have punished them severely.

The problem England have now is that they must beat Slovenia, who only have to employ the same tactics and hold out for a draw and they will go through, and they are easily the best team in the group at the moment - anyone expecting an expansive game on wednesday is in for a shock - England have a mountain to climb.

Being insanely optimistic for a moment, if England do manage to rediscover their form for Wednesday, put in a massive performance and win the match, the confidence they carry into the knock-out stage will be a huge boost. I pray for a win, and that confidence boost, but I fear the worst.

It's been funny, Viera and Davids have sounded more confident than the English pundits.

As Viera pointed out, they drew their first 2 matches in 2006 and ended up in the final.

I think we need 5 in midfield, playing the players in their natural positions.

Jon you could have saved yourself a lot of typing by reading my post correctly (I blamed the team and the manager), I understand what you’re saying though and totally agree and Rooney’s reaction was the icing on the cake.

+1

The French manager is mental. Him and Anelka (who they need) had a falling out at half time in their last match. He took him off and has sent him back to France.

I think there must be something in the water bottles of the european teams...

Good news to come out of the 0-0 clicky