England show true level

Well the totally predictable happened, England finally played a half decent side, and the defence was shown up for what it is, completely out of it's depth at this level. To be fair to them, Capello's refusal to change formation in order to give them more protection, didn't help their cause, but still they were always going to be found out. If anything they were even worse than i'd expected them to be, fucking hell, how bad would it have been, if they had faced Brazil, Spain or Argentina.
I know it won't happen because of their financial situation, but the FA should be sacking Capello, not allowing him to resign, which seems to what most experts think will now happen. As i have said in previous blogs he never had the squad to seriously compete with the Spain's and Brazil's. But i have to say, I never imagined before the tournament such a dismal performance against the Germans. But after watching the first three dismal displays, i can't say yesterday's performance came as that much of a shock.
Surely a managers job is to get the best out of the players you have got, and Capello has conspicuosly failed in that objective. His obsession with 4-4-2 has been embarrassing, with such a wobbly defence, he had to find a way to get some protection in front of them. The one system that afforded them the least protection and gave the opposition control of midfield allowing them the chance to get at our defence was 4-4-2. How he could keep on persevering with that system, shocking performance after shocking performance is beyond me, but what is not beyond me, was that was not the mark of a top modern manager. Capello has got almost everything wrong in this tournament as far as i can see. From players picked to the formation chosen and finally the ineptness of the substitutions, can anybody really argue that was any better than Sven, i can't.
But at the end of the day, a good manager could have only masked the fact that for all the newspaper and TV hype our best 24 players are nowhere near as good they like to think they are. As i have argued previously that squad was very light on real talent. And what good players he had, he has not played in the positions where they do their best work for their clubs. Add to that a Rooney whom i am sure we will find out in the next few weeks was never really 100% fit and England never had a chance.
Paul Scholes at 35 is head and shoulders above of every single one of the midfielders picked in that squad. The most damning indictment of English football over the last decade is the comparatively small amount of caps he received and the fact he retired so early. And i still think, that was as much about having to play out of position, to satisfy the newspaper and TV hype to pair two of the " golden generation " together as much as to Scholes desire to not being away from the family for long periods. It needed a real football man in charge to realise that England should have built their team around the most technically gifted player they have. But what England had was the ever eager to please Eriksson and he always pandered to the press. The press got their much more marketable dream team, the golden generation, English football is all about hype, and the ginger prince never did that.
The problem for the FA is where do they go now. If i was in charge i would scrap the policy of going for foreign managers, have Sven or Capeelo been any better than El Tel or Bobby Robson. The next step would be to give the next man the brief that as important as qualifying for the next tournaments is that the need to identify and bring through young English talent is of equal importance. There should be an acceptance that we have no chance of winning the European championship in 2012 and that to qualify and blood youngsters picked out as the future is the way to go.
And i know all that is absolute pie in the sky, because to admit all that would be to admit to too many failiures of the men in charge now. There is too much money, too many ego's and too much hype for such an honest brutal assessment to prevail.

Full credit to Germany they totally deserved their win and played some excellent football. How much it tells us about their chances to go all the way is hard to say as England's performance was so laughable. Still you can only beat what is put in front of you and they certainly did that. Ozil and Schweinsteiger have been two of the better players in the tournament. Ozil has come out of nowhere to me and looks a serious player but Schwinsteiger has impressed me with the national team and with Bayern Munich in last seasons champions league. In the past i have always thought he was over rated but he seems to be developing into the player the Germans had hoped he would become.

Jason Burt in the Telegraph writes that Capello has been aware of the lack ot talent and worrying lack of technique prevalent amongst English players since his first England training session.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/world-cup-2010/teams/england/7857949/England-v-Germany-after-failure-of-golden-generation-it-is-time-to-give-youth-a-chance.html
The paragraph about Rooney makes for interesting reading, and i have a feeling it is a 100% correct. If so, it's hard to blame him, he has trained and played with them all so i think he would be a pretty good judge. I'm not sure how Burt tries to compare Lampard and Cole to Giggs and Scholes, they are not even close to the two lads of the class of 92. Gerrard is a player and from the way they lin up it's pretty obvious that he does rate him.
As for the future and going for youth, after that it is surely the only way to go. It wouldn't be under Capello though, if i were in charge.

David Pleat finishes his tactical assessment of the game with the lines "England offered nothing against this imaginative and lively Germany side. They leave South Africa in a destroyed state."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2010/jun/27/england-germany-world-cup

Alan rips into the " abysmal " defensive display and argues players Capello and his defensive coaches must share the blame for such a shambolic display.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/world-cup-2010/teams/england/7858010/England-v-Germany-Englands-defence-was-worse-than-abysmal-says-Alan-Hansen.html

Andy Cole lays it on the line, our good players aren't as good as everyone says and the rest are just average. There isn't a sentence in that i could quibble with.
http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/news-and-comment/andy-cole-our-great-players-are-simply-not-as-good-as-they-and-we-thought-2012158.html

Michael Owen said as soon as he saw the team and formation he knew England were going to lose and worries where the next generation of England footballers are going to come from.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/world-cup-2010/teams/england/7858085/England-v-Germany-as-soon-as-I-saw-our-tactics-I-knew-wed-lose-says-Michael-Owen.html

El Tel does his populist bit in the Sun laying into Capello's tactics. I agree with him over the tactics but he is letting the players off far too lightly inthat piece. He must still think he's a contender.
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/sport/football/worldcup2010/3032214/Fabios-had-it-wrong-for-ages.html

The FA are coming in for some stick this morning, unsurprisingly. Having just finsished David Conn's 1997 tome, The football business, if anybody expects anything even remotely constructive from them, they are living in cloud cuckoo land. I always knew they were incompetent, but the picture of incompetence drawn in that book took even me aback.


Paul Mason on the big " ifs" of the budget.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/newsnight/paulmason/

Joseph Stiglitz is another economist distinctly unimpressed with the coalition budget.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/osbornes-first-budget-its-wrong-wrong-wrong-2011501.html

Andrew Rawnsley' column on the pain of being seen as a tory poodle.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jun/27/andrew-rawnsley-lib-dems-coalition-anxiety

The Chinese economy is not all plain sailing as US-Sino tensions mount again.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jun/26/china-economy

Stephen King asks : to stimulate or not to stimulate.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/comment/stephen-king-to-stimulate-or-not-to-stimulate-that-is-the-question-2012250.html

Larry Elliot reports that the chance to change the waythe global economy works has been missed.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jun/28/g20-summit-economics-global-imbalances

More reasons McCrystal had to go as the Indy unearth a confidential briefing from McCrystal showing a far from healthy state of affairs in the campain against the taliban.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/the-last-post-mcchrystals-bleak-outlook-2011730.html

Terry Jones with a funny but deadly serious column on the lack of cuts in the defence budget.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jun/26/defence-spending-cuts

The Doors