England vs Italy

England started brightly I thought and there were a few moments of hope, but then we reverted to type; useless. Italy cannot claim to have played brilliantly but what they did, they did well enough. In fact if their shooting had been any more accurate, we would have been sunk under a deluge of goals.

So, to the ratings. For me, they go like this

Joe Hart - 7. Couldn't say he could have done better, but wasn't hugely tested.
Glen Johnson - 7. Worked hard I thought and proved useful, good team player.
John Terry - 3. Shouldn't be an England player of course, did a couple of moderately OK things, usually a nuisance to his own team.
Joleon Lescott - 5. Didn't really do anything wrong.
Ashley Cole - 5. Same as above.
James Milner - 4. England are probably two levels above his ability. A liability and takes up a place.
Steven Gerrard - 5. For most of the game you could have sworn he wasn't playing.
Scott Parker - 7. Reliable, possibly deserves a bit higher score, but there was nothing pivotal.
Ashley Young - 3. Awful. Was the invisible man for almost the entire game.
Wayne Rooney - 6. Much as I dislike the lad, he was without blame here. He tried hard but had no delivery, as is apparent in other scores. Deserved an 8 but for the lack of actual play.
Danny Wellbeck - 6. Strong, played well.

Theo Walcott continues to show the reasons he should start and Andy Carroll? Are we hoping for a lucky move by this lumbering fool? He turns round with the alacrity of a supertanker and seemed at times genuinely lost as to what to do (once when he actually had the ball).

The biggest problem with the England football team continues to be a lack of team spirit. I appreciate it must be hard to get past their immense ego's, but the Coach has to. They have to come to want to play for England and the only way I can see to do that is to change the way we talk about football.

The press and the pundits continually talk of 'excellent play' when describing absolute mediocrity. How did Rio Ferdinand ever get cited as a world class player? He seems to have a particular knack for being somewhere other than where an attack is coming in. He likes passing back to the keeper.

John Terry is a thug and plays aggressively to hide his waning talents (such as they were). He should not play for England. Only a Liverpool jury would not see that Gerrard is also not what he was. There are players being denied places so these 'names' can play.

Players should be told by the England 'Manager' when they are just not good enough and dropped when they don't play well enough. Only by publicly stating the situation as it is, rather than molly-coddling their personalities will we ever start to turn it around. England has some talent and as a nation we should be doing better, but the players have to want it enough.

England Dumped

Well that is England dumped on its arse. Seems you can't go to the World Cup and play indifferently. Or, to quote Fabio, they played well, so the stupendous loss at 4-1 to Germany must be a complete mystery. I guess that alone, that comment by the England Manager is enough reason to let him go. To my mind, there has been no discernible difference between Fabio and Sven, so the fact that the outcomes have been the same doesn't strike me as being unforeseeable. I used to be completely confused by the constant references to Rio Ferdinand as 'world class', when clearly he is inept. Now however I think I understand. Rio is not world class in the context of world players, just the small pool acceptable as English internationals. And that points clearly to the problem.

If there is one overriding aspect of the players in an England squad it is complacency (something that becomes painfully clear by watching other teams). That complacency comes from knowing they are there, wearing the England shirt, before the team is 'picked'. Take Rooney. His last contribution in a major tournament was in June 2004. How long exactly do we leave a drought like that before we stop claiming him as our star striker? Fabio was forming his team around him for goodness sake, and Rooney proved that lack of input was no mere six year blip. Hullooo? I wrote to a live Telegraph blog before the 'crucial' Germany game and raised this point. The typical, glib answer was that Rooney is a talisman and that he is the key man in the team. Anyway, the twerp went on, who would you play instead? Yes indeed. Having not taken any on form, goal scoring strikers there was a problem at that point, but perhaps a little more critical thought beforehand? And that is the point; the papers, who are always accused of building players up and knocking them down actually do something much worse. They get caught up in a hysteria about certain players and objectivity goes out the window. Rooney was beyond criticism, despite playing like your granny. He is easily dispossessed, often off-side and petulant which makes him a one trick pony; he can run at defences and blast a shot in. (I'm not contradicting myself, when he has a head of steam up he can clear a defence, but if he is static, just received a ball he has no guile to rely on).

Mexico may have lost to Argentina but they were very good nonetheless and clearly had England been up against the likes of Messi they would have treated us like cones on a training pitch. Mexico had the likes of Dos Santos, who played out of his skin with not a little skill, but he could never get into an England side, because he plays in the 'wrong' league. This fixation with playing Premiership players fuels the complacency (but still doesn't mean the best players get picked, but mainly those in a special clique) and limits England's options, literally. Going back to Rio Ferdinand again, here was a player who is massively overrated and even accepting the blindness in this respect had only played 8 games for his club due to fitness issues (which I don't believe), yet was still picked to play in the World Cup! And then he broke before the games started, which kind of proves for me the level of stupidity involved in player selection.

England undoubtedly has world class players and some of them were in South Africa, but they don't play well in the national side. It strikes me that the most important job an England Coach has is melding a team, quickly out of a disparate group of players, who don't know each other, but do know how good they are (and without exaggeration sometimes). Part of that has to the selection of skills combined with a team ethic and always with a critical eye. The Coach has to live in the real world and see how these 'stars' play for him, how they play in their own teams and where the faults lie. Pundits have to tell the truth and stop saying people played well when they didn't, but rather criticise mistakes. The provision of £100,000 a week should be enough of a cushion for the poor loves (or maybe a more resolute partner, not one whose contribution is looks). A Coach needs to be sympathetic to the needs of a skillful player, but balanced against the ability of the team to provide that. Defoe is an expensive player, because until he receives spot-on delivery he cannot perform, so he needs two good players behind him. If we have those in place, Defoe is an option, without them he is not. By concerning yourself with who delivers to Gerrard as well as who Gerrard then serves you not only make a better, more cohesive team, but Gerrard feels looked after and plays better (not least, in all probability because he respects the Coach more too). These things seem self evident and not that difficult, but a million miles from the thinking of those 'in charge' of our national side. I think the pundits in the papers and on television have a lot to answer for in this respect too. Let's play to win in future.