I'm still amazed Dafoe was brought off and replaced with Heskey when we badly needed goals? The man's an incompetent oaf who can barely run the length of a pitch without tripping up over his own bootlaces.
Terrible decision by Capello - especially given that the wide players needed to make Heskey remotely effective simply weren't on the pitch. Not that it would have mitigated against the shittiest defending I've ever seen from an England team. I mean, truly, it was awful. Embarrassing. Terry was all over the place, barely in the correct position when Germany were on the break. The man's been a disgrace both on and off the pitch and should have lost more than his captaincy. I hope he has the dignity to keep his mouth shut and slink back to his overpaid Chelsea gig.
Upson hasn't been playing in a competitive West Ham team for ages, looked ragged and his goal doesn't make up for the fact that he looked like he'd been parachuted into the team at the last minute. Johnson was bollocks, despite having a decent game against the powerhouse of Slovenia. Ashley Cole was a nobody. Barry was a joke, Rooney looked like he was defeated before the game even began, and Gerard's been played out of position by Capello for the entire tournament.
The team consistently looks a yard short on pace. Their attacks are slow, cumbersome and easily defended against. How many times do we need to watch England fannying around in the final third of the pitch, passing the ball to eachother while the opposing team piles defenders behind the ball, only for some England player to pass the ball to an invisible 12th player that only they can see? Total shit.
England are seemingly incapable of mounting any convincing break attack. They play with no vision, intelligence or anything that comes close to mustering an incisive pass. They were pulled all over the place and had no discipline in maintaining their formation. It's totally, totally unacceptable at this level to have your defense stretched in the way that England's were. The size of the gaps in the centre of England's defense were matched only by the weight of Terry's misplaced and deluded ego.
To me, there appears to be a team of individuals, but nothing close to a proper team. In all four games, they looked like they'd never played together, as if they didn't know where the next player would be. No anticipation or communication. Nothing to suggest that they'd ever developed a team mentality or instinct. Perhaps that's down to Capello arseing around with the line-up, perhaps it's due to the fact that they're over-paid fairies who care more about their club football than they about their national call up?
For me, at least two-thirds of the team need to be told that they will NEVER wear an England shirt again in their careers. Get rid of the laggards and big-mouths and start again with players that are perhaps not tabloid darlings, but are at least in form and have the mental fortitude to play with the style and pace that they would in domestic matches. Instinctively, I'd suggest that Capello needs to be replaced due to the frequency and magnitude of tactical and managerial errors he's made... but who'd replace him? Christ... who'd want the job?
Better to work with him and get rid of the garbage on the pitch in the process.
. If he wasn't such a massive dickhead I'd like him more. His skills are sublime, but he is such a petulant child at times on the field.
