Fabio you have a job on your hands

I really don’t know what to say about England’s awful performance in their 0-0 draw against Algeria.

I interrupted a birthday celebration to watch the England game and I wish I hadn’t. The performance was the worst I have seen from the England national side in a long time.

Scared

The whole team looked scared of committing themselves to attack. For their club sides most of the England side attack even the two full-backs go forward whenever they can.

Yet nobody seemed to want to take a chance. The whole side looked scared of making a mistake.

England boss Fabio Capello rules the squad with an iron fist. Is his influence stopping the players from playing their best football? I don’t know because they qualified for the tournament with ease and looked good doing it. Yet in South Africa the whole squad have looked like rabbits caught in headlights.

Basics

The England players didn’t seem capable of finding their teammates never mind the net. The likes of Frank Lampard, Steven Gerrard and Wayne Rooney kept giving the ball away and nothing seemed to bounce kindly.

Rooney

I have never seen Wayne Rooney so quiet and dejected. He even had a little dig at the England fans as he came off the pitch as well. There is something wrong with the Manchester United striker. It’s unclear whether it’s a physical problem or a mental problem but everything clearly isn’t right with the striker.

This World Cup was supposed to be the showcase for him to display his ample talents. He has been poor so far and it seems he’s getting frustrated with his own performances and that’s when Rooney starts to lose his temper. When Rooney loses his cool the only person he’s a danger to is himself. I just hope he keeps his cool in the last match against Slovenia.

Tactics

Fabio Capello looks unlikely to change his tactics from 4-4-2. He seems to believe that that’s the only formation that can make the team effective. Yet in two games so far the system has failed miserably. The majority of people back home would prefer to see a 4-5-1 with Steven Gerrard playing behind Wayne Rooney.

Instead Capello decides to keep the captain on the left of midfield. If Gerrard is employed in the centre of midfield he is able to drive the side on and cause the opposition problems. Out on the flank Gerrard’s talents are wasted.

Surely Capello is better off putting Gerrard’s attacking talents to use, rather than handicapping him by playing him out of position. I would much rather see Gerrard as an attacking midfielder than the clumsy Emile Heskey up front. He gets a lot of deserved stick from the England fans.

He does work hard but he just isn’t good enough to play at international level. He has also hardly played for his club side Aston Villa this season. It has always baffled me why Capello likes to select him but for some reason he does.

Doubt

For the first time in his reign people are starting to question Fabio Capello and his management style. It seems the honeymoon is now over for the former Real Madrid and AC Milan boss. His methods that have been praised previously are now being questioned by media and fans alike.

It is now bring suggested that the Italian is putting too much pressure on the shoulders of his players. It’s hard to believe that top Premier League players could be unsettled by a bit of pressure but there is something fundamentally wrong with the England squad.

Qualification

It seems quite like a simple equation that if England beat Slovenia then they will qualify for the knockout stages. However the way the Three Lions are currently playing they could easily fail to beat the Slovenian’s.

If they scrape through to the knockout stages then they will have to perform far better than they have in the group stage or they will be facing an early plane home. Gerrard and Co. need to restore some national pride next Wednesday and one thing’s for sure they couldn’t play much worse than they did against Algeria. (Or could they?)