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Crunch time for Capello
Crunch Time for Capello
After a crazy transfer deadline day induced week of domestic Football it's time to turn our attention to World Cup qualification. "The honeymoon is over" has been a tag line for every newspaper and sports website when discussing Capello's England, I don't want to use it myself, but lets face it, it is, well and truly over. Five games into Fabio's reign as England manager and we are no wiser to where we are headed. More questions than answers have followed every game of the Italians tenure so far.
Andorra on Saturday is three points in the bag, there are no easy games in International Football? Yes there are and this is one of them. Then on to the big one, Croatia away. Defeat in Zagreb will not end all hopes of qualification but could leave squad morale at an all time low and the England faithful finally turning their backs on our hugely under achieving national team.
Make no bones about it the Croats are far superior technically than we are. Our disastrous World Cup qualify campaign can testify to that. England are going to Zagreb as underdogs, hopefully this will inspire England and give the fans the performance they have been crying out for. Underdogs or not Capello must be going into this double header with a 4 point absolute minimum return as his target. Time to back up his claims that his squad has the capabilities to be as good as the Spanish, it's easy to say, it's time to do your talking on the pitch.
Capello was brought in to stamp his discipline on the team, to make it clear that each player must earn their right to wear the shirt. Quite rightly so, however, Michael Owen (89 caps 40) Goals has earned his right, that when fit he plays. If you look at the strikers selected it is a head scratcher. I applaud the inclusion of Jimmy Bullard, but the exclusion of Owen is reminiscent of McClarens attempted statement of "I'm the boss" when he dropped David Beckham. The exclusion of Michael Owen could well haunt Capello for many weeks to come.
It is a struggle to pick a starting 11 from the squad selected, unfortunately not in a good way. It is shaping up to be another square peg round hole scenario. Next week is a huge match, bigger than Capello may realise, England fans have more than lost their patience with the England side they are rapidly losing faith and more worryingly interest, its not so much the results, it's the limp, lackluster performances we have been forced to endure.
Wednesday night needs Capello at his most focused, he needs to get big performances from his so called big players. The fans want the passion and the pride back, what we need is a performance. Come Wednesday night England expects, quite possibly for the very last time.
Heres hoping the underdog tag brings back the bulldog spirit
Posted Oct 19th 2007, 10:38am by Stuart Webb
England Again!!
Here we go again!! First things first, no it wasn't a penalty, it was outside the box and the contact was minimal to say the least. But that dodgy decision must not overshadow or excuse what has turned out to be a dismal qualifying campaign. The only thing I will say on the penalty is what was Rooney doing covering at left back?? Shorey should've played against the 3 point banker that is Estonia at home, leaving the injury prone & yellow carded Ashley Cole fresh for the big game on Wednesday. What exactly has Shorey done wrong?? He has looked more than comfortable at left back, he plays there week in week out. Ok Lescott is capable but at heart he is a central defender, its like playing Andy Johnson wide right!! Oh hang on, we've done that too haven't we.
With all due respect to the teams in our group we should've qualified at a canter. So what is the problem?? Our squad is strong, not much strength in depth granted but strong enough and stronger than most. Are the players at fault?? Of course they are, they are the ones out on the pitch & should know how to do their job, but ultimate responsibilty lies at the manager. He should never have been given the job, when you have a change in management you're looking for a fresh perspective, new ideas and an injection of belief and positivity. Giving the job to the assistant says same crap diferent manager. Svens club management record is excellent, his England record can be interpreted well on paper but when you look at the crunch games he was mostly found out of ideas wanting and ultimately lead to another early disappointing exit. Why did we expect diferent from McClaren??
If we do qualify for the euros what will happen?? Another dodgy qualification from the group stage followed by anoher quarter final exit. Not good enough,.
I would have settled for missing out on the last world cup if it meant the fA actually putting the right man in the job, now I'll have to settle on missing out on the Euros and hope the FA have the courage to give the fans what they want.
Four names in the hat, Mourinho, Allardyce, Redknapp, O'Neill. Anyone else & you may as well stick with McClaren. Altough its baffling why the last three names on the list have been continually overlooked since I can remember, who could blame them if they turn their noses up to a job we should've begged them to do years ago.
But when all is said and done I can pretty much Guarantee Isreal will do us a favour, we will get our result against Croatia, hope & expectations will esculate out of proportion and there will be English tears shed on quarter final day as we pack our bags and come home early yet again.
Unlike the Rugby, where our boys regrouped, got back to getting the basics right, playing to our strengths and playing with pride and defeat. The 36-0 defeat to South Africa was the worst I'd seen in my lifetime, did they roll over?? Did they blame bad decisions, bad management(isn't that what this post is about??) & try to smokescreen a poor performace?? No they took it on the chin, stood up rolled up their sleeves and got down to it, it wasn't pretty, forget nails I have no fingers left after our last two games but we are there, a world cup final, and fair bloody play to them. They are a shining example of passion, pride, determination & sheer bloody mindedness that its a trait we English need to employ in all our sports.
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Posted May 23rd 2007, 4:33pm by Claire Santiago
200 Metres – Sports day
After seeing the Rocky competition, I'd thought I'd share my underdog story.
1999, it’s my final year at school and it’s Sports Day. Don‘t know how it happened, but some how I got lumbered with running the 200m and to make matters worse I’m up against Shelley Davies. Who, you might ask? Well, she was the fastest girl in our school, undefeated at 100 and 200m and she also ran for the county. I was always fairly good at Cross Country(3miles) and 1,500m, but never really any good at sprinting. So you can imagine my ‘delight’ at being chosen by my form teacher to run the 200. Nobody had a hope in hell of beating Shelley.
The race started and I’ve no idea how I managed to still be level with Shelley going into the final straight. Think she was just as surprised as me! May be it was the shock of me being next to her that caused her to stumble and give me the split second to edge in front and win the race.
I know it’s sad, but I still get a kick out of winning that race. Underdog doesn’t come close to describing my chances of winning. Just wish someone had it on video! Still, got my medal – priceless!
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Posted Mar 12th 2007, 3:47pm by Dave Watson
Give me a punishment
On Saturday Sunderland manager Roy Keane dropped 3 players from the squad for being late onto the team bus. They won 2-0.
On Sunday my Sunday league team played with 10 men after 3 decided not to turn up, or even to phone to say they wouldn't be there. We lost 5-0.
We don't have a team bus and I'm not as scary as Keano - but I want to punish these chumps. Any suggestions will be gratefully accepted.
If you come up with something really good I'll film the punishment being administered and I'll post the video on the site.
Keep it clean and legal!
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Posted Feb 20th 2007, 10:57am by Kev Bennett
Beating the Scottish!
Watching the Terry Venables interview i rather enjoyed beating scotland wit that fantastic goal from Gazza! The celebration werent bad either.
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Posted Feb 12th 2007, 2:57pm by john bird
FA Vase - getting excited
Great win for my side, Whitehawk, at the weekend, and now comes the time when we've got to show nerves of steel.
Truro are surely the best team left in the competition so we know it will be tough.
Their wage bill is £3,000 a week!
Draw for the quarters
Causeway United or Curzon Ashton v Leamington or Retford United,
Whitehawk v Truro,
AFC Totton v Wimborne Town, Billingham Synthonia v
VCD Athletic or Bideford.
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good luck
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