Of course they aren't up to his playing level. I can't remember where I was reading it, but it was quotes/talking of a conversation by Capello, where he was talking about how baffled he was by the attitude of the players. He basically said that they'd been fine during his tenure, but as soon as they were at the tournament, they bottled it and froze. When you come from managing sides that winning is second nature to, it's quite obvious that players like that aren't up to scratch for a coach like Capello.

For me, England won't be able to attract a better coach than Fabio, purely because there are very few alive, let alone willing to manage our embarrassment of a national side. People think that Arry could do a better job than him but they're mad, it's like saying you could win a Grand Prix with a clapped out ford escort, Redknapp and the team are a joke.

People are saying we should take a team of young players to 'blood them'; however, if our second joke (Pearce) done a decent job managing the U-21s, they'd be more than ready, but, like everything else England, it's poorly done and forever behind our competitors. There is so little direction in the country's football, yet people try and blame things like Capello's average grasp of English for the failures. Laughable.

That's pretty fair, Roddy

If I hear, once more "Ohhh, Stuart Pearce...he's a passionate guy, he's ideal for the job" I'm gonna ####ing commit mass murder. There's more to football than having two clenched fists and every vein trying to burst out of your body, whilst screaming "COME ON", at your team mates. Don't forget, boys and girls, this is the man who paid £7m for Georgios Samaras....his judgement on a player can NEVER be trusted.

I was no great fan of Cappello, but, he got results with an OVER-HYPED side.

Let's face facts, Rooney is NOT world class. The lad (who AT TIMES) can look brilliant, but, he can go missing for months on end. He only has to play well for 3 or 4 matches, and the press are purring "oooohhh, Wayne's back to his best", but then, you know a bad run of games is just around the corner. He's not in the same class as a Messi, Ronaldo, Xavi, Inniesta et al

Terry is just another Stuart Pearce, loads of passion, but, as a player, limited

Ferdinand is nowhere near the player he was, and depends on Vidic, to make him look good now

Gerrard's best days are well behind him, and doesn'tr play enough REGULAR football

Lampard isn't even getting regular starts for Chelsea.

The latter four players should now be told "Thanks for your efforts over the years lads, but you've had 4 or 5 major tournaments each, and we've not got anywhere with you. We need to be looking elsewhere"....but, as we all know, this wont happen. The last England manager with the balls to make a decision like this, was Robson, when he froze Keegan and Brooking out, 30 years ago. Our managers seem scared to make such action.

But, the problem is then, who do we get to replace them

Jones (imo) is not international class yet
Smalling is nowhere near international class (and probably never will be)
Barry and Milner are very good Prem players, but internationally....nah...not if we want to compete
Glenn Johnson...laughable
Downing even more so.

It's about time the media started giving some of the vitriol aimed at managers, to some of the players they've over-hyped over the years.

Will we ever learn.....probably not!

The last 2 managers to take us to Semis were Robson and Venables. Both charasmatic and liked by the fans. IMO tactical nous comes 2nd to motivational skill and the ability to get the players onside when it comes to England. For these reasons, and not because I think he is necessarily the best manager, I would make Redknapp my first choice.

Completely agree that we freeze in the big games due to fear of losing and the pressure of the media, Harry with a bit of a free pass might just be the ticket to get us to the quarters at least! I'm not expecting any more than that, but some nice, free flowing football in a major tournament would be nice to see.

Both were blessed with a smattering of very good / world class players, including a genuine top striker, Lineker and Shearer, Gazza at different, but effective points of his career and we have nothing of his ilk in midfield, and if you look back you see that luck has a massive part to play in the big tournaments as of course it does in every day football.
Fine margins, Waddle hitting the post, Gazzas far post lunge v Germany, but equally they were poor in the groups, spain gave us a lesson in euro 96, but we won, we were pretty poor in the groups stage of italia 90, but a bit of togetherness, some quality, some momentum and some luck and it might be your tournament.

Yes i'd agree with you, and luck does play its part in tournaments.

Take the knockout stages of Italy 90...outplayed by Belguim and Cameroon but won, yet outplayed Holland in the group stage to draw and were very unlucky to lose to West Germany.

Think Italy make a habit of it, don't think they were that impressive in 82, but Rossi kept scoring, don't actually remember them being up to much in euro 2000 when they made the finals too ( 12 years ago ffs )

Italy and Germany are probably the most tournament-savvy sides in World Football.....Both have mastered the art of looking nothing special, yet more often than not, they find themselves in the later stages of tournaments.

England are the total opposite....not particularly any worse than other sides they come up against, they just don't have the nerve to see them through.....Think of all their 'heart-breaking' exits - Argentina twice, Germany twice, Portugal twice - all games they were as good as their opponents, all games lost. It surely isn't just coincidence??

I'm actually looking forward to seeing how Ireland do under Trappotoni in the summer.....He seems to have instilled an Italian-style belief into them. They are a definite dark horse.

I was talking about us (England) in 1990 if we have our wires crossed. But you are right about Italy though...remember 1994 too?,lost to the Irish in the opening group game and stumbled through to the knockout stage where Roberto Baggio (in his prime then) carried them all the way to the final.

Italy weren't good in 2006 either. They lost their best defender in Nesta during the tournament and Totti was around 70% fitness. They didn't even get some momentum behind them and perform admirably, they just ground their opponents down and caused havoc from set pieces. People often bring up Greece as a bad side winning a tournament, but that Italy side in '06 were poor. I've said before, for me, if England are to perform or even win a tournament, they have to concede the favourites tag in pretty much every game, especially the KO games, purely because England aren't capable of performing when they try and take control of games. If they do what most PL sides do every week (defend, go for it on corners/set pieces, they'll more than likely get a better run than they usually do). So much emphasis is put on how England play, and how the media 'expects', but the team should play to their strengths, and that certainly isn't passing and crisp offensive play.

wasn't disagreeing with you, totally agree about Baggio, he was amazing in that tournament, apart from one glaring error

What a Suarez is. Bastion of innocence that lad Kenneth

Remind me again, who abused who?