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