England Folly

Let us stray off the subject slightly and talk about England. Enough is currently being written about the performance on Saturday where a sum total of 2 points from a possible 9 was finished off with a bore draw against Israel.

The result was not the thing that really grated for English fans, the performance mattered as much if not more. With a good performance comes hope, with a good result comes points. We got neither.

Ultimately the buck has to stop with the manager of the team. He constantly waxes lyrical about the quality of the squad, about his confidence in the players, about how we aren’t in any trouble. If that is the case then it is down to him to utilise the assets in the England squad and get satisfactory results.

The game itself was something of a phenomenon. With 70% of the ball England were unable to break down an inferior side in order to create even one clear scoring opportunity. The chance of the game for the English team fell to Frank Lampard, who duly squandered it.

Drastic action needs to be taken if the qualification campaign is to turn around and Phillips Neville’s comments that England are traditionally crap at the start of qualifying campaigns did little to lift the mood. You’re always crap? Then aspire to be f**ing better!

For a team that included Lennon, Gerrard, Lampard, Johnson and Rooney to not score goals is quite incredible until you look at the fact that the two players of those five that looked most lively were Lennon and Johnson, playing for their place in the side. Equally which England player has looked the best in recent times? Hargreaves. Why? He is playing for his place in the side.

I heard a pundit this weekend saying they felt the under 21s side would have beaten Israel’s full team if given the chance. I have no doubt they could have for our first XI has been so massively underachieving that it would be hard for quality players to perform to a level much lower.

I think the time for McClaren to earn his money is upon us, he has had his grace period and he was never going to get much of one seeing as he was part of the previous failed regime, so now he should be pushed to get immediate results before we find it impossible to qualify for the Euros. Big names need to be dropped and a few noses must be put out of joint. The games we have to play are not hard ones, in fact the players involved beat better sides week in week out in the domestic game so it must come down to organisation and attitude, both of which McClaren is ultimately responsible for.