Yeah, it was awful, bar maybe one marginally better game against a country with a population of 2 million, hardly a highlight is it. But I'm going to try not to have a massive knee-jerk reaction to the whole thing.
For a start, we should not get rid of Fabio Capello under any circumstances, that would be the worst move we could make and move us way backwards. He's a proven quality manager, who got us through qualification with ease and only started to be questioned once the boys were in South Africa. This was his first international tournament so he can learn from it. And whilst we might have been humiliated in this tournament let's not forget how much we looked to have improved on the England team of old. He isn't the problem, the players are.
England players make no sense. On paper we have one of the best teams in the world, we've got class all over the pitch, yet in practise they look more like a Sunday league club. Why can't they play like they do week in week out for their clubs, many of them playing against teams like United, Chelsea and even Barcelona who are better than most international teams. I get the feeling that every time they fail they wait for the manager to leave and then all jump on the 'we had a bad atmosphere in the dressing room' bandwagon. There comes a point when you say either a procession of world-class managers have failed, or its down to the players. I'd say we've got to that point. Even Steve McLaren's having a successful time in Holland!
Where the hell was Wayne Rooney and what was Gerrard supposed to be doing? Two of the stars of world football yet wouldn't cut it in League One based on their World Cup performances. In fact the only one who seems to play well game after game is Ashley Cole, make of that what you will.
Today we did have a massive stroke of bad luck in the form of the disallowed goal. It doesn't excuse the poor performance or the fact we deserved to lose the game but it does bring up the subject of goal-line technology all over again. Surely anyone with half a brain can see that we need goal-line technology. We don't need an extra couple of referees behind each net like UEFA think, we need a very simple computer to tell us in about 5 seconds whether or not the ball has crossed the line. It won't slow the game down, if anything it will speed it up by getting rid of all the arguments. Why oh why can't Sepp Blatter see that? He's a prick of the highest order.
In summary; England bad, keep Capello, find out why our players can't perform, assassinate Blatter.
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