As we arrived prime seats were still available, but joy was followed immediately by disappointment as we had just missed Defoe’s goal. In the space of minutes though I got into the game and was impressed with England’s attacking football. It only took a couple of minutes after my arrival for Gerrard to place a low shot towards the right hand corner before being palmed wide by Handanovicv. This gave me a sense of optimism that a possible mauling was on the cards. In what followed, England produced a more purposeful performance then in recent games and certainly the best performance since the qualifiers.

However and there is always a however with England. While the country rejoiced with qualification as the final whistle blew the reality of England’s predicament emerged. The yanks injury time goal completely changed the outlook for England.

The pundits have said that to win the world cup you must beat teams such as Germany. Yes that is true, but England are slowly developing confidence in the world cup. A second round tie against Ghana would have offered a stern test, but one where England could have been the victors, setting up a clash against either Uruguay or South Korea in the quarters. Instead we have Germany, then maybe Argentina and then possibly Brazil.

Let’s face the facts; we have progressed to the quarter finals in recent years when we have had average opposition. In 2006 our second round match was against Ecuador, in 2002 it was Denmark, in 1990 it was Belgium and in 1986 Paraguay. In 1998 as we all know it was that epic against Argentina and while I would like to see a similar performance, I sense there will be a similar result against Germany.

So England’s lack of potency up front has seriously dented any chance of further progression. I hope to be proved wrong, but Germany look slick in their passing and attacking for such a young side. The fact that England has a talented bunch of individuals does not disguise the fact that we lack coherence as a team.

I hope Der Kaiser is wrong on Sunday and the boys do us proud. If we should lose though, let us as a nation try and lower our expectations and shelve the video highlights of 1966 until after we win a world cup again.

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.