I would agree with John up to a point, but only up to a point.Most of the Northern Irish and many Scottish international players ply their trade in the English leagues. They face the same competetion from foreign players as do their English team-mates. On the basis of their profile and league performance few if any of them, were they English, would make the England squad.And yet Northern Ireland, were it not for a disappointing defeat by lowly Latvia, would have qualified for Euro 2008 in a group which included Spain, Sweden and Denmark.Scotland were still in with a shout of qualifying from a group which included Italy, France and Ukraine (who are probably better than Russia) until Italy scored in injury time during their final match.Croatia were in my view a good side who played to their strengths, but what was so shocking was the obvious gulf in class between the two sides. Not even when playing against Brazil has such a yawning gap been so obvious. The 3-2 scoreline flattered England, who could on a faster pitch quite easily have conceded four or five goals. Add to that the fact that we were only in it at all thanks to Israel having beaten a poor Russian side in their previous match, and some kind of perspective emerges. In the event Israel finished up, over twelve matches, with the same number of points as England.We are all armchair experts and I've no doubt I couldn't have done any better, but then nobody is touting me as an international football manager. But it was obvious even to me, as to others, where McClaren was screwing up.Playing 4-5-1 is fine when you need a draw. Having gone 1-0 down we should have switched, not at half time but there and then. We certainly should have done so at 2-0. Then, having got back to 2-2 with a new formation, we reverted to one similar to that which had led to us conceding two goals in the opening fifteen minutes and invited them to come at us. In fact we seemed to adopt a 4-0-3-3 format for that last half hour, which was novel to say the least.Scott Carson is a good goalkeeper and Robinson has been wobbly of late and looks out of condition, but this was not the match to be giving a 22-year-old rookie his first meaningful cap. After the blunder which led to the first goal he was bound to lose confidence, and he did. He was almost as much to blame for the second goal as for the first, save for the fact that he was also let down by some sloppy defending. Fair enough, he played well in the second half, but I still think he should have been subbed or preferably not played in the first place.Other than Crouch, who didn't put a foot wrong all evening, the only player who seemed at all bothered throughout the first half was Shaun Wright-Phillips. So McClaren subbed him.In the second half Beckham played well and his one-two with Crouch for England's second goal was the only moment of brilliance from an embarrassingly disinterested side. Even the penalty was iffy - yes, Defoe had his shirt tugged and the ref made the correct decision but he went down as if he's been shot and a lot of other referees wouldn't have given it. Lampard scored from the spot, which was the only time I'd heard his name mentioned all night although the match stats show that he also took a couple of throw-ins.The fact is that in spite of the influx of foreign players the likes of Gerrard, Lampard, Rooney, Campbell, Bridge and the rest of them turn out good performances week in and week out for their league sides. So why not for England?Our players individually are far better than their performance as a team suggests, so therein lies the problem.As for the solution, I dunno. Do you still have your boots John?
Phil Andrews ● 6456d