Three Whats on the Shirt?

It came as no surprise to me yesterday to see England knocked out of the World Cup. After two years of hype under the Capello regime, with endless articles about it being the time for Rooney, Gerrard, Lampard, etc to shine, our national team yet again crash out of a major tournament without making much of a mark.
I must confess, for a little while I believed the hype. I never quite thought England would actually win the World Cup but I thought the semi-finals were possible. And they were. Had Wayne Rooney played like even a shadow of his Man United self, had John Terry recaptured even a fraction of his Chelsea form, had Emile Heskey... actually, the least said about him the better! But, in particular, had Fabio Capello made decisions worthy of an international manager we might still be in the World Cup. Yes I could also lay into the referee, linesman and FIFA, but the standard of refereeing in this World Cup could easily be the subject of a separate article.
For me it was clear from the first game that we had no chance of winning. We scored the fastest goal of the tournament so far and it was a very good move. Even Heskey did well in the build up! But then disaster struck. For my part I felt a lot of sympathy for Robert Green. I play in goal myself and it is so easy to misjudge a bouncing shot. And with the ball travelling at pace towards the goal there is sadly usually only one outcome from such a misjudgement. But Robert Green is a professional goalkeeper and there is no denying that he was completely to blame. It was no surprise to see David James start in goal for the next match.
If the USA game made it clear we wouldn't win the World Cup, the Algeria game wrote it in out in ten metre high flashing letters for all to see. That match was possibly the worst England game I have ever seen. Without being disrespectful to Algeria, who of course knocked out Egypt, the African champions, to get there, we should have won the game comfortably. Except Fabio Capello refused to learn any lessons from the previous game. Heskey and Rooney were disgustingly poor up front, with the midfield not really much better. Capello's decision to drag Jamie Carragher back after the defender's worst ever season for Liverpool was controversial at best. And the player preferred at centre back to Upson and the in-form Michael Dawson never convinced us he should be playing international football again. His yellow card and subsequent suspension was one of the best things England got from the game. Lennon was disappointing. His performances in the warm up games had been enough to persuade the manager to take him ahead of Theo Walcott. I agreed with the decision at the time, but I now think Walcott may have been a good option from the bench, ahead of the anonymous Shaun Wright-Phillips.
Eventually Capello broke the ineffective partnership of Rooney and Heskey. Jermain Defoe came on to replace the Aston Villa 'striker' but was unable to do much to change the dismal performance. Likewise Peter Crouch, given only ten minutes against USA and seven against Algeria, could do nothing to grab the win and the look of anguish on his face may well have had something to do with the belief that he could have done a lot for England had he started.
England were terrible and I think the fans were right to boo at the end. I lost what little respect I had for Wayne Rooney when he made his comments about them. He seemed to be in denial of his pathetic performance.
We won the Slovenia game. Cue the deluded comments about England turning it all round. We didn't. We struggled to beat them and nearly threw it all away at the end, only a fine tackle from Matthew Upson keeping us in the World Cup. We were still too negative, won only 1-0 and the USA beating Algeria with a late goal meant that they won the group, leaving us to face Germany. Granted USA lost to Ghana, but I think we could have beaten them.
Then on to Germany. I hardly need to point out where we went wrong. Upson and Terry were awful at the back, but I can't fault Capello's selection there because they were good against Slovenia. There could be no worse game for defenders to go missing in, but I would also point the finger at Gareth Barry. After all the talk about his fitness I think he was disappointing in all the games he played. He wasn't fully fit and he simply didn't do his job against the Germans. It was his poor control that led to Germany's third and you have to question where on earth he had got to for the other goals. For a player who is supposed to be such a wonderful defensive midfielder he will feel he has had a very poor World Cup. Upson nearly atoned for his poor defending by heading a goal back for us, but threw it all away by defending so badly again in the second half. Then came the moment we'll talk about for a long time yet. Lampard's chip was perfect. The ball rebounded to him from Rooney's surge forward and he lifted it perfectly over the keeper, off the crossbar and over the line. Except neither the referee or the assistant saw that last bit. They were the only ones in the stadium that didn't. Two men, whose jobs are to watch the game more intensely than anyone else, missed the vital moment. The debate on goal-line technology will continue, but England's good spell didn't. Yet again there was a moment that shocked them and they didn't recover from it. The Germans' third and fourth goals were as the result of poor and desperate England attacking. Then came Capello's masterstroke. Usually masterstrokes are good, resulting in a complete change of fortune. This masterstroke summed up England's and Capello's failings and ineptitude. Off came Defoe, and on came... Emile Heskey. The player that has scored only seven goals in 62 games for England, and only five in 45 for Aston Villa, preferred to Peter Crouch whose record of 21 goals in 40 games is made even more impressive when you consider that he has only started 18 of those games. Capello obviously was no longer trying to save the game but to give his pet donkey a final runout in the World Cup he didn't even deserve to go to, let alone play in.
In fact those two players, Heskey and Crouch, sum up Capello's mistakes. I firmly believe that if Peter Crouch had played instead of Heskey then we would have won the group with at least seven points, beaten Ghana in the next round and go on to face a strong but beatable Uruguay side on Friday. The whole country could see that. The only man that couldn't was the man in charge. He also seemed to be the only one that couldn't spot that Rooney was awful and Gerrard doesn't like playing on the left.
I will not go as far as suggest Capello should resign, but unless he admits these mistakes then I will have very little confidence in his ability to manage the England team. There is no denying his previous record, or even England's excellent qualifying matches, but that does not easily convert to World Cup success. Even Sven got us to the quarter final! But for England supporters we have to accept we were never likely to win the World Cup, and we now have another four years to wait to get another go. For the fan that is a long time, but for many of our players they have missed their last chance to win the World Cup. For that, at least, we should have some sympathy. But not much!

Introduction

So this is it! I've finally taken the plunge and decided to write a blog. Not that I'm expecting anyone to read it but it serves as a good place to practise my writing and get my many thoughts and opinions into one place.
What can you expect to see here? Well, my interests are mixed so you can expect a variety of topics. I'm an Arsenal fan who used to have an obsession with the Gunners and England keeper David Seaman. I play in goal myself when I get the chance and consider the goalkeeper to be the most under-rated player on the pitch.
Politically I'm interested but not involved. I don't support any particular party and, for reasons I won't go into now, I didn't vote at the last election. I suppose I'm conservative with a small 'c', Euro-sceptic and a traditionalist, but also fair and open minded.
In music, I play the piano and sing. I won't say to Grade Eight standard, but enough to get me through both exams! I'm a massive Three Tenors fan and opera lover, but I like anything with a good tune, clean lyrics and great harmony!
I study Mathematics at Sussex University, with one year remaining of my degree. I don't intend to write much about it; I intend to use a blog as respite. But I may occasionally write about anything interesting that comes up.
Finally, but importantly, I am a Christian. My faith is important to me and is a huge part of my life, affecting just about all of my decisions. I will sometimes write about this or other aspects of religion, without trying to be too controversial.
I hope this first post is insightful and informative. You may already know me, but, whether you do or not, you should get a much better idea of who I am but what I write. At the time of writing I have exams so it may be a while before I getting going with this, but throughout the summer I hope to write at least one post a week, possibly more.
Thanks for getting this far, I look forward to writing some more.