World Cup Woe

After the anti-climax of the USA match, I was hoping for normal service to resume in Group C with England winning convincingly against an Algeria side on poor form leading up to their first world cup for 24 years.

On similar poor form in the first game was ITV HD when they decided to cut to adverts during Steven Gerrard’s goal. However, I decided to take a risk on the channel for the Algeria game with the controller ready to switch back to ITV 1 if any incident occurred.

Sadly there was no chance of ITV HD spoiling celebrations this time with what was probably the worst England performance in a World Cup game I can remember. One fan said to me that the game against Portugal in 1986 was worse, but seeing that the opposition was Algeria on this occasion arguably this performance was worse. Back in the 1986 world cup Northern Ireland drew against Algeria so that further illustrates how bad historically the 0-0 result was for England on Friday.

The touch and passing of the England team was woeful and for players paid millions of pounds there really is no excuse. Players such as Rooney, Gerrard and Lampard are supposed to be the cream of the England crop in the Premier League. However, what I saw were players unable to hold onto a ball with a first touch akin to an elephant from a local South African safari park.

Gerrard out on the left instinctively wandered into the centre leaving the left exposed and Rooney did not threaten whilst lacking any real link up with Heskey. The saddest thing of all was the lack of any decent crosses into the box. David Beckham would have only featured in a cameo role had he been fit, but his crosses have been sorely missed.

What could have been the solutions? Formation change seems the obvious one, going to three at the back. The creativity of Joe Cole could well have helped on the left side and allowed Gerrard to link up with Rooney more. Aaron Lennon was anonymous on the right and Shaun Wright-Phillips didn’t do much either after coming on, suggesting Theo Walcott could have been a better option to unlock the defence.

Changes will have to happen for the Slovenia match, but I only hope Capello is willing to change formations and personnel. The team which qualified with flying colours has gone walkabout and if it’s the ‘pressure’ getting to them as Fabio has stated in the press then why are these top flight footballers playing well enough in the Premiership for millions but they cannot do it for their country?

A poor excuse for a poor performance I am afraid.