Normally, I’ll call my brother Andy and we’ll debate back and forth what they’ve done right, what they’ve done wrong and crucially - what we would have done. It tends to start “Beckham was dire, why is he still picked?” followed by “We should have had Gerrard in the centre” before we’ll argue where Wayne Rooney’s best position is and how the reason he didn’t play well, was because he wasn’t played there.

But after the Czech match, we were both left lost for words. All our clever-dick ideas, tried, tested and failed. How? Why? There’s something wrong with the England team, to the extent it’s almost eerie.

Do they become possessed by jelly-legged dizzy ghosts when they put the England shirt on? Do aliens suck their footballing mojo from them before games and return it just in time for 3pm Saturday? This is the extent to which decyphering England’s pitiful performances has come, but we can’t find answers in science fiction, even if our disbelief supercedes UFO sightings.

If we’ve learned anything from Sven and Steve McClaren - who are as paranormally out-of-touch as Kang and Kodos from The Simpsons - it’s that solving England’s relentless ability to disappoint is not an easy task. Yet a quick browse of football forums shows a host of armchair fans offering their critique, complete with potential lineups, formations and ‘told you so’ rhetoric.

“Drop Lampard” say one forum author, “Build the team around Joe Cole” proclaims another fan. Another practically suggests Rafa Benetiz should be burned at the stake for “upsetting” Gareth Barry with this tiresome transfer saga - despite the fact the Aston Villa man had no trouble disposing of an Icelandic team (whose name I can’t begin to spell) in the UEFA Cup a few days earlier. It’s like witnessing Orwell’s 1984… in a chat room. Have they forgotten that it’s all been tried before?

“It’s no longer enjoyable to speculate how to fix our broken England team”

A qualified football scholar, Gareth Southgate, added his two cents to say that it’s “the pressure” that stops England playing well. I can’t help but chuckle: can you seriously imagine Rooney, Terry and co coming home to their beautiful homes and model wags, having a soak in the jacuzzi and eating caviar till they’re sick, all the while fretting about “the pressure”. It’s a tenuous argument, let’s put it that way. But I’ll admit it right now, I’ve tried to do it too, solve the unsolvable I mean, not throw up caviar. It’s every man’s fantasy that he wakes up to find he’s England manager isn’t it? Not now.

I don’t envy Capello in the slightest. Sure, my gut tells me we need a playmaker to spearhead our midfield, like Deco does for Chelsea instead of the impotent Lampard - but do I really expect this change will transform us? Of course not. Does a player like that with an English passport even exist? No. It’s no longer enjoyable to speculate how to fix our broken England team. We’ve tried everything; every formation, every combination and we haven’t managed to put together a team that plays any good. Capello has had a couple of games and despite his assuring seriousness and flawless pragmatic approach, he looks as though he’s as doomed as his predecessor.

“…that was an excellent team we put out against the Czechs and we were made to look - quite frankly - a bit stupid”

When Sven put Heskey on the left wing or McClaren had Phil Neville anywhere near the team, you’d have a fair shout to say “he’s got it wrong, here’s what it should be…” but now, it’s not so easy. The side Capello picked was pretty good. You could look it and say, logically yes, that makes sense. Okay, Gerrard on the left was a bit unusual, but not outrageous. Maybe Young should have been in after having a good game for Villa and Beckham is past his use-by date, even if his right foot is as deadly as ever. But come on, that was an excellent team we put out against the Czechs and we were made to look - quite frankly - a bit stupid.

Say Southgate is right and it is pressure. But if you’re anything like me, your expectations will have dropped to below sea level. I just want to see us do a few one-two’s with any one but the goalkeeper. A pass played forward instead of sideways and Wayne Rooney show even a glimpse of his prodigal magic. If that’s pressure, then we aught to just pack in national football altogether.

Till then, there is still an ounce of hope left in me that our Italian chieftain will succeed like Murdoch in the A-Team. That he knows what he’s doing. That he will somehow wake us from this crappy-football slumber, knock them into shape, get the combination just right before rubbing his hands together and say “I love it when a plan comes together”. Until then, I’m going to ring my brother and see what he thinks of the British cycling team. Chris Hoy, he’s good isn’t he…it’s just not the same though is it?

How do you rate Capello so far? Should England fans lower their expecations? What is the answer to fixing England?

Since his takeover at the Merseyside club, the Spaniard has filled the Liverpool squad with a total of 18 different nationalities. The best eleven available to Benitez last season was made up of players from seven different countries, with the only regular starting Englishmen being Steven Gerrard and Jamie Carragher.

This approach has found marginal success with the club regularly competing in the latter stages of the European Champions League, if not achieving the desired results in the domestic Premiership.

During the close season Benitez has recruited a couple of foreigners and lost the services of Peter Crouch, although the club has also been linked with several Englishmen. The media has reported that Gareth Barry, David Bentley, Stewart Downing, Nicky Shorey and Aaron Lennon have all interested Benitez.

The attraction of buying English players who are used to playing in the Premiership and need little time to adjust is obvious, just look at the squads of Manchester United and Chelsea, both packed with English talent.

It is the valuation of these players that price many clubs out of the market. Shaun Wright-Phillips cost Chelsea £21 million, the same figure Liverpool reportedly paid for Fernando Torres whereas United splashed out £18 million for Michael Carrick, a fee similar to that paid for Argentine regular Javier Mascherano.

It has only been the top two clubs in recent seasons that have been prepared to pay a premium for the best English players. This could all be about to change should Sepp Blatter and Fifa get their way.

The proposal for each domestic starting eleven to include six players from the clubs’ home nation may revolutionalise not only the Premier League but also the global transfer market. The value of mediocre domestic players could rocket as clubs are forced to fill their quota.

Although the quality of football on display each week in the Premiership may deteriorate at first, in the long term this must be a good thing for the National team.

Premier League clubs will be forced to abandon the recent trend of bringing in young foreign talent into their academies whilst reverting to the development of home grown youngsters.

Despite the likelihood of most clubs opposing these plans, the biggest threat to the ambitions of Fifacould be the European Law that is opposed to the restriction on player movement.

Only time will tell if Blatter can begin his revolution.

He is to football what George Bush Jr. is to politics. And ,like Bush, you wonder how on earth he has retained his job for so long. For this alone, Blatter must surely be applauded. He’s managed to stay at football’s top table, unchallenged, for years. Amazing. Whatever happens to dear Sepp, he can surely guarantee continued prosperity by penning a book entitled ‘Keeping A Top Job When You Haven’t Got a Scooby’ or just ‘Sepp Blagger – The Farcical Years’ .

If his latest comments are genuinely designed to protect players then why didn’t he pipe up when Owen Hargreaves wanted to leave Bayern a couple of years back? Why didn’t he come out in defence of Gareth Barry when he recently signalled his desire to move to Anfield? There are so many examples of players wanting to leave their clubs but Sepp has spoken up now. Why? Possibly because he dislikes English football? Possibly, he craves the limelight that the use of the words ‘Cristiano Ronaldo’ will bring? Who can really say with any confidence what goes on inside his head?

If he didn’t already sound ridiculous by getting involved in the Ronaldo affair he further disgraced himself by likening football players to slaves! What sort of slavery is this then? And where can I sign up? It must be hell doing an hour of hard labour on the training pitch 5 days a week. As if that wasn’t enough you are asked, no ordered, to play up to two games a week! Then there are the multitude of willing women that gravitate towards you because of the slavery. The cars, the sponsorship deals. I shudder to think about the daily horrors of a footballer’s life. I could go on, but Blatter’s words are so ridiculous, not to mention tasteless, that they don’t need my sarcasm to highlight the point (not just yet anyway). How we’d laugh if a tabloid could set Sepp up in some kind of Max Mosley style situation. How much pleasure would that bring to the football world? Shall we do a poll?

Would you like to see Sepp caught up in a sex scandal with some mature women dressed in ‘tight’ football kits and ornamental slave chains.

If anything could make us feel better about the credit crunch that would surely be it.
Blatter is the epitome of a man whose power has gone to his head. No longer bound by concerns over making a mockery of his organisation, he just spouts whatever passing nonsense comes into his head at any given time. The other employees at UEFA and FIFA must spend the majority of their time undertaking damage limitation exercises. ‘Oh no, what’s the old, mad codger said now’, must surely be a regular comment amongst his peers. If he hadn’t been quoted apparently making exactly the opposite point about player-power a few years ago, his sentiments might carry a little more weight. Not much, but a little. And if he hadn’t alienated half of the world population by commenting that female footballers should wear tighter kits to better show off their bodies, we might say that this is just a blip, a moment of madness.

But you join up the dots and realise that Blatter is a bit of a nut job. So let’s start a discussion about getting someone more responsible into the hotseat of world football - the game that we, the public, spend so much money to enjoy. Why should we have to put up with this nonsense? The issue isn’t slavery, it’s insanity. Meantime, let’s imagine what these afflicted players must go through day to day.

The Diary of a modern slave/footballer

Monday – They made me get up at 0830 to be at the ‘training ground’ at 1000. That’s what they call it here. A ‘training ground’. We work right through until midday, then we’re told to leave, without so much as a thank you. The downright cheek of these people is what most riles me and my slave brothers.

Tuesday – You guessed it. We have to do the same all over again. I feel so tired after the session that driving my Ferrari home holds no pleasure whatsoever. I go for a pedicure but that really hurts too. It’s beyond degrading. I feel ashamed to show my face in Starbucks. There is no joy. No laughter. No peace.

Wednesday – We are told we don’t have to ‘train’ today (that’s what they call it – ‘training’). Of course, it’s not a day off, as such, because we have to play a game in the evening, which involves covering every blade of grass on a huge pitch for 90 minutes whilst 70,000 people scream your name like you’re a piece of meat. I’m not sure how much more I can take. I don’t write this because I want your pity, I’m doing it because people need to know what it’s truly like. The world must never be allowed to forget what is happening here.

Thursday – I’m effectively running on empty but this means nothing to the bosses, and we are expected to ‘train’ all over again for two hours, with only a few minutes every now and then to recover from the perennial torture. There really is no respite. Of course, I take it all out on my supermodel girlfriend when I get home. I try to explain that my fatigue and bad mood is due to the way I’m treated, but she isn’t interested and leaves me. I’m left with no alternative but to call a top quality escort agency and order a new woman. Evil seemingly knows no bounds.

Friday – Exhausted from my travails in the bedroom, I am ordered to ‘train’ once more. My hamstrings are like jelly and my feet are killing me. They don’t even allow us to drink water. Instead we are forced to consume expensive ‘energy drinks’. That’s what they call them – ‘energy drinks’. God only knows what’s in them. There surely must be some law against this. It’s 2008 for the love of sweet Jesus! I go for lunch at the best place in town but my scallop starter and fillet steak do very little to interrupt the overriding feeling that I’m just a badly oiled cog in a brutal machine. The steak isn’t even cooked properly. Don’t these idiots know the meaning of the word ‘rare’? There’s blood on the hands of the industry but none on my plate. It’s like everyone is in on the joke. But I’m not laughing, I can assure you.

Saturday – Five day week? You’re having a laugh aren’t you? Saturday just brings more pain, more baying crowds. More, more, more. In the entire week they have paid me just £100k after tax. Where is the humanity in the world? Where is the compassion? Why am I being persecuted? Why me? If there is one person that can bring an end to this horrendous plight, it’s that extremely coherent bloke, Sepp Blatter. But, far from being heralded as the hero that he is, people are laughing at him, making a mockery of his intelligent and brave words. Has the whole world gone mad? Please help me Sepp.

Sunday – You won’t believe this but we were actually told to rest today. Many weeks they will make us ‘play’ on The Sabbath but this week they have relented. I decide to cheer myself up by spending a huge chunk of my risible wage on the basics – namely £50k on diamonds. They can take my life, but they will never take my earrings!! That’s a clever reference to Braveheart. You see? They haven’t broken my spirit just yet. The animals.
If anyone is reading this, if it makes the slightest bit of difference and brings this torture to an end one day sooner then it will have been worth it. At least then my suffering will not have been in vain. Oh god I’m tired. I’m going to have to pop to Waitrose and get loads of Deli. I’ll probably be too tired to eat it. The horror. The horror. The Horror.

Scarcely can a more wrong letter have ever been published in a national British newspaper than one I now recall in last Sunday’s Observer: “For most fans in this country the tournament has been a minor distraction before the serious business for the proper teams in the Premier League begins again.” The correspondent, a fellow Chelsea fan, I regret to say, goes on to describe the Championships in Austria and Switzerland as a ‘pointless European placebo’.

In one sentence, the writer summed up everything about the Premier League that makes me care less about it than the international game. It is serious. Oh dear. It is business. Ho-hum. It has ‘proper teams’; when has anything in sport been anything other than absurd? Simon Barnes of the Times’ ‘golf principle’ is apt - either all sport is ridiculous or none is. What makes Manchester Utd proper and, by implication, Spain improper?

Most English football fans, incidentally, do not support one of the increasingly inelastic Big Four. Most support somebody like Preston North End, or Gillingham, or Portsmouth, or Sheffield Utd. Most care about England. The only ones who are really apathetic towards England are the one-eyed followers of the Champions League teams, for whom Steven Gerrard playing for England is little more than a needless risk of injury just days before that crucial Champions League group match, most of which are now no more challenging than the average league game.

The UEFA Champions League has many fine qualities but it assumes an importance far out of proportion to its actual emotional connection with the population. A glance at ITV’s ratings history confirms as much. Manchester Utd v Chelsea in Moscow: 14.6 million. England v Argentina, 1998 World Cup: 25 million. The Champions League merely massages the egos of a self-perpetuating elite while being little more than a chance for most fans to watch some football without the shortcomings of partiality. If anything is a footballing placebo, then it is the Champions League. It kids us that if the Big Four are alright, Jack, then all club football must be in fine shape. As any Leeds fan will tell you, it isn’t.

I am grateful to José Mourinho for many reasons but none more than the fact that Chelsea finally winning the league in 2005 makes me obsess less about their results. We’ve done it. Twice. Before Abramovich’s arrival in 2003, I would have not expected two titles in my lifetime. Now, it is not the end of the world if Aston Villa get a late equalizer. Life, as Nick Hornby wrote in “Fever Pitch”, is no longer shit because my club is shit. So football is now enjoyable again.

It helps that international football is the ultimate sporting meritocracy. It is often argued that England’s players under-perform for their country; it might have something to do that when Gerrard, Rooney, Ferdinand and friends play against Croatia or Russia, they are facing greatly superior opponents than on most Premier League matchdays.

Hands up those of you who thought that Euro 2008 would have been improved by any of the trappings of the Premier League? Agents? Interminable, pointless transfer speculation? No thanks. Mercifully, Andrei Arshavin does not play for Russia because it is his contractual duty; he does so because he is proud to do so. Now the Euros are over, we are set to be ‘treated’ to weeks of bitter-tasting contract details, transfer fees and media bullshitting as Chelsea, Arsenal and Barcelona squabble for his services. Please wake me up in August.

I love the Premier League but only the bits between kick-off and full-time. This is because I love football. The game of football, where 22 players agitate a bag of wind for 90 minutes. That is enjoyable. The endless transfer rumour mill that happens ever July isn’t. It is like the long snaking queues that must be endured to board a roller-coaster at Alton Towers. European Championships and World Cups are about football and the enjoyment of it. What will we remember about this year’s tournament in years to come? The fabulous skills, the great games, the colour and the atmosphere. We will have forgotten the media’s self-satisfying pontification on Cristiano Ronaldo’s future, Martin O’Neill’s negotiating of Gareth Barry’s transfer fee while with the BBC’s team in Vienna or Luiz Felipe Scolari’s defection from Portugal to Chelsea.

No shirt sponsors by law, no player transfers, no takeover rumours. International tournaments are as close as the game gets to perfection because they are football at its purest. In other words, they are sport. Real sport. And if England’s absence from one competition has helped us realize that we like football - that is, like watching football matches, not following our club sides with such parochial fervour that reason and fair appreciation become alien concepts - then it might just have been worth it.

It is a system that fans sentimentally cling on to and remains the default formation in the lower leagues but at the top level the Herbert Chapman inspired system hasn’t been successful for a number of years. All of the ‘top four’ clubs in England and almost every other top club side in Europe have now settled for a style based on two deep-lying midfield players and either a lone striker or a front three.

Indeed, in the case of many teams the fluency of the system means we could interpret them as occupying both categories. At international level, England have clung rigidly to the 4-4-2 and allowed rival nations to evolve beyond them. Fabio Capello signalled his intentions immediately to radically alter the system.

The constant debate over whether to fit the players into a winning system or find the winning system for your star players will never find a resolution but the evolution of a new fluent 4-3-3 and the effective renaissance of the ‘Inside Forward’ at such clubs as Manchester United and Barcelona should offer inspiration and direction for Fabio Capello.

The Italian has seized the opportunity to experiment in his opening two matches with a 4-4-1-1 but has been unable thus far to effectively imbed his cultured philosophy. The players seemed uncomfortable and the Wembley fans unimpressed. In the France game in particular, Wayne Rooney as a lone front man seemed isolated with Steven Gerrard too deep to support him. England looked solid but created little.

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Despite not making the final, Lionel Messi has been the success story of the Champions League. With effortless skill and astute vision, he has been a joy to watch. His much hyped battle with Cristiano Ronaldo turned how to be a no contest as, at just 20 years old, he was the attacking heartbeat of a Barcelona side with an apparent embarrassment of riches. With 72 matches under his belt and 30 goals, surely the sucess of Messi tells us something about the failings of an England team with few young prospects to turn to and a dim future ahead?

Look at all the big teams in Europe and you’ll see they each have their own batch of prodigies, all boasting to have the world’s hottest new prospect. In Spain, Messi’s catalan compatriot, the 18 year old Bojan has forced out Theirry Henry and put Ronaldinho in a strop. 19 year old Athletico Madrid forward Aguero has already played 71 games for his team bagging 22 goals. In Italy, one time Chelsea target Pato has scored an incredible eight goals in 15 for AC Milan. Meanwhile, 17 year old Inter striker Balotelli is setting Serie A alight with his performances. So to England’s teenage attacking talent: Theo Walcott still spends most of his time on the Arsenal bench whilst Chelsea’s Scott Sinclair has been sent on loan an astonishing four times in the last 12 months.

“It’s about time English clubs showed the next generation some pride”

So, are we really surprised England have failed to qualify for Euro 2008? If the situation remains the same, how can we expect to qualify for the 2010 World Cup? Or Euro 2012? Are we to rely on the same old heads? Bring Beckham out of a third retirement? We might as well get Gascoigne and Lineker back as well for what it’s worth.

In Europe, young players are shown off like trophies. Oppositions cannot deal with their speed and unpredictability. After all, how much homework can you do on a teenager? It’s about time English clubs showed the next generation some pride. And it’s not that England doesn’t have good young players, it’s that our clubs aren’t prepared to risk playing them. But why?

We have become a faithless footballing country.

The endless wells of cash have made it a safer bet to place faith in a hot prospect from outside Britain rather than play our own locally produced players. Our academies have become a novelty, an empty gesture. In fact, the Premiership has become a school for blooding football’s youngsters like Arsenal’s Cesc Fabregas and Manchester United’s Anderson. Sure, they’ve improved the league, but would they have been given the same chances at other clubs? Are we just doing a favour for our rivals by giving playing time to foreign youngsters rather than our own? By so frequently overlooking rising youth, does this mean our top clubs believe the country is ill-equipped to train new talent?

“Surely the proof of a good footballer, as in any profession, lies in performance under pressure?”

Last season, Glen Roeder had a revelation which sadly failed to linger as he drafted in youth players to an injury stricken squad. The young Canadian David Edgar and still-wet-behind-the-ears Steven Taylor featured against Bolton and performed exceptionally. Edgar named Man of the Match. Roeder was baffled. So with this epiphany, you’d expect it would leave a lasting impression, not just to Newcastle but the entire league. Well, Newcastle’s single hot prospect Andy Carroll has been sent on loan and the Premiership has chosen foreign imports over its own academy hopefuls. Surely the proof of a good footballer, as in any profession, lies in performance under pressure? Yet how can we expect to compete if we don’t give our players a chance? It seems Premier League clubs freely distance themselves from the responsibility of providing England with a future.

The Champions League has demonstrated the improvement of the Premier League but the success of English teams stand to leave damaging repercussions for the country’s future. Huge cash influxes from TV revenues threaten to usher more money to pass onto to the continent and fewer chances for young talent.

Should Chelsea win the Champions League, they’ll undoubtedly attempt to coax Messi to the Bridge, Scott Sinclair will be forced to look elsewhere. Man Utd are already eyeing Moutinho and a plethora of young foreign stars. For the sake of an all-star league, are we saying goodbye to competing in national competitions? We can all be proud of the resilience of Chelsea, the determination of Liverpool and the industry of Man Utd. But the glory of Champions League success can only be temporary. A façade for what can only exacerbate the challenge for up and coming prospects, and strangle the future of our national team.

Is it time for Premier League clubs to start taking risks on their young England hopefuls? Share your views in the comments section below.

After a lacklustre display against the French in Paris on Wednesday, the predictable murmurs of media discontent are already beginning to surface.

It seems par for the course to herald the brilliance of each new England manager before embarking on a terminal campaign of suspicion and defamation after the very first bad result. Before the game even began, Ray Wilkins had expressed surprise that Beckham had been picked ahead of the in-form Bentley, and before long, the supremely insightful David Platt was admonishing the Italian for not playing Owen alongside Rooney from the start. How long before the press drag up their famous old picture of Fabio in his pants to use in tandem with a headline that questions the man’s sanity? Or gender?

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After all, they had bounced back from a humiliating home defeat to Liverpool- one that left enduring images of angry fans yelling “You don’t know what you’re doing” at under-fire manager Sam Allardyce for pretty much the entire duration of the second half- to earn a battling point against leaders Arsenal, before following that up with a crucial 2-1 win over Birmingham at St James’ Park, and then only their second away win of the season at Craven Cottage.

Allardyce had seemingly got a message through to his players that they needed to be harder to beat- the importance of which he had stressed since arriving at the club in the summer. They sat in a comfortable mid-table position, only a decent run away from entering the race for the top six, whilst content in the knowledge that even in the event of a dramatic slide, there were “three worse teams than Newcastle” at the other end of the table. In truth there were half a dozen or more, easily.

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Watch Wayne Rooney on his day and you will see his incredible passion and his bewildering talent. Never can he be accused of not having heart.

Manchester United have suffered several defeats this season. On each occasion they have lost, they were without Rooney.

Now take a minute to reflect back on the Man Utd-Arsenal encounter, and tell me how many English men were playing. The answer was five. How many were playing for Arsenal? Just one, and that was the scarcely used Justin Hoyte, who has barely progressed as a defender during his time at the Gunners.

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Or, at least, this is how it may seem when one recalls the countless years of chronic underachievement; the ludicrously high expectations of the public; the numerous players of poor technique and limited footballing ability that have worn the three lions on their shirt; the missed penalties; the ravenous tabloid press; and the visage of Graham Taylor morphing into a turnip on the back page of The Sun.

However, it is the argument of this article that England managers need not end up hiding away behind an umbrella on the touchline in the rain, looking clueless, worn-out and bewildered in the manner of the perennially ‘out-of-his-depth’ Steve McClaren.

Indeed in spite of all of the above, and more, this role should not be considered as being a ‘poisoned chalice’ at all – it is quite simply, the ‘cushiest job’ in football management.

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