Business as usual
Thu Aug 21 08:59AM
"I'm happy with the draw because of the reaction from the team in the last minute was good. Only one thing I didn't like - when the Czechs had counter-attacks."
While Fabio Capello declared himself happy with all aspects but one of England's 2-2 draw against the Czech Republic, this morning's papers respectfully beg to differ.
"Wasters" (Sun)
"It's not Fab yet" (Star)
"Same old England" (Independent)
"Anyone for cycling?" (Mirror)
"No football gold as Barwick exits with England back in the bronze age" (Times)
"England in disarray" (Telegraph)
"Capello draws cold comfort as Cole rescues dreary England" (Guardian)
The mid-market Mail and Express were so disgusted by the 'efforts' of a foreign-led England side that they deemed them unworthy of back page coverage.
Instead they focused on the ousting of the very British, very bumbling and very jobless Brian Barwick who, it seems, was sacked in between half-time vol-au-vents.
Even Barwick's departure smacked of rank incompetence. The FA intended to keep it a secret but, such was the level of speculation, they informed staff via text message while on the way back from the toilets for the start of the second half.
The Barwick announcement and news of Mikael Silvestre's move to Arsenal were the undoubted highlights of the evening - Early Doors would genuinely have been better off watching the game on Ceefax.
It is nice to get back to some good old English incompetence after the unfamiliarity of so much Olympic excellence.
This is how things are meant to work - complete disarray, on and off the pitch. For all the talk of next month's World Cup qualifier away to Croatia, Early Doors wouldn't be surprised if England come unstuck four days earlier against Andorra.
Worst of the bunch were two men who have already been chopped more times than the French royal family: Davids James and Beckham.
James is, quite simply, a joke. ED doesn't care how good is he for Portsmouth, how many broadsheet columns he writes or what art galleries he visits. He cannot play for England again. He just can't.
As for Beckham, there would have been more movement on the right wing if Capello had picked Stanley Matthews.
Beckham is the football equivalent of one of those bumpers in pinball. He just stands there, motionless, pinging off the ball whenever it comes his way with pace but little or no precision.
The pair took a star turn in the night's most richly comic moment. Beckham stopped playing, thinking he had played his man offside.
Sadly for him, Vaclav Sverkos came racing through from an onside position and pegged it down the left flank where he must have been surprised to encounter a deranged James charging wildly out of his box.
Sverkos nipped past and, with ineptitude almost equal to England's, scuffed his shot miles wide. Sensational. Only Capello knows how he stopped his head from exploding.
The tabloids have not yet superimposed Capello's face onto a vegetable, but he is already being compared to his witless predecessor Steve McClaren.
"Wally without a brolly" was the Sun's somewhat uninspired verdict. But Early Doors thinks the cunning Italian is doing it on purpose.
ED is prepared to ignore the fact that, wherever he goes, Capello succeeds only because he gets to buy expensive, world-class players like Gabriel Batistuta, Fabio Cannavaro and Ruud van Nistelrooy.
At Milan, Capello inherited Marco van Basten. At England, he doesn't even have Raymond van Barneveld.
Yet, despite evidence to the contrary, ED clings onto the faint hope that the Italian is a football genius deliberately crushing his players' spirit.
It is like a military-style 'beasting', in which punishment and humiliation is heaped upon new recruits to whip them into shape.
Capello is intentionally making his players perform dreadfully to make them realise what a bunch of snivelling little wretches they truly are.
Then, when he has banished the arrogance and self-regard, he will take his broken squad and mould them in his own image.
It is a tenuous theory, Early Doors admits, but it will do until England return from Zagreb after the 3-0 defeat they so richly deserve.
- - -
QUOTES OF THE DAY: Harry Redknapp: "We have one of the finest midfielders in Steven Gerrard, he plays for Liverpool and he is like Roy of the Rovers. He shoots, he scores, he tackles. He is not a left midfielder. It is unbelievable. He has to be in the centre. We are killing Gerrard."
Fabio Capello: "I'm sorry for Mr Redknapp, because [Gerrard] didn't play on the left. Sorry. You'll have to ask him. He didn't play left. The movement, he went to the left and to the middle. He never played on the left."
OLYMPIAN OF THE DAY: British boxer Billy-Joe Saunders, who has returned home to a suspension from the ABA following an allegation of lewd behaviour on a pre-Games training camp in France.
The Daily Mail reports: "A camcorder film allegedly shows Saunders confronting a French woman in a sexually explicit and abusive manner while staying in a hotel with the British team." Charming.
TALKING POINT: raulpeeves spent yesterday evening watching Big Brother live on the grounds that: "There is way more chance of an Englishman scoring in there."
Today - Who to blame for England's woes? And any reaction on the other home nations games? Early Doors didn't see them...
Coolio
From tone.gunner on Thu Aug 21 09:05AMEngland to win the world Cup?
From shrivathsaiyengar on Thu Aug 21 09:09AMI see alonso scored twice for Spain... Swap him for Barry???? Must be joking...
From kevin_pedersen on Thu Aug 21 09:11AMBilly Joe Saunders in the nude getting lewd with two dudes and food, eh?
I didnt bother with the English game; but the France Sweden one wasnt too bad in the end - Benzema seemed to be having another good night, but a scrappy start and lots of free opportunities given to the swedes, some loose playing from the Frenchies and some indirect / bad passing was pretty frustrating to watch there for a while, but the game picked up in second half with two nice goals from Govou - the last one was SUPERB (if you type in "but govou henry suede" in youtube you'll see it - third goal) - a nice little flick off Henry's heal to Govou who somehow managed to flick it in the net - priceless - well worth watching the first painful 60 mins or so... It was the Hernry of old!
From kantong_wokster on Thu Aug 21 09:12AMFirst
From walidarbid on Thu Aug 21 09:13AMED - the Stanley Matthews gag was a bit innapropriate. I stood with thousands of others respectfully applauding as his coffin was paraded through Stoke. The man was a legend. Tut...
From ianbec on Thu Aug 21 09:15AMthank god brian barwick has gone. the suicide average went up in england when he was in charge.
From risker15 on Thu Aug 21 09:15AMwe have to get alonso from liverpool...
From risker15 on Thu Aug 21 09:17AMI bet the Andorans are terrified of the fatal defensive combination that is Terry and A.Cole now
The obvious Andoran tactic should be to build a psychological brick wall once complete the Englaenders will be left with no option but to score own goals
From arttidesco on Thu Aug 21 09:21AMRafa is adamant that he will not be looking to sell Alonso even if Barry arrived at Anfield.... its not going to happen!
From kantong_wokster on Thu Aug 21 09:23AMWhen are the Britsh press going to wise up and stop knocking the England team. We have not got the players to mount a credible challenge in World football and never will have until the Premier league is made to have at least 6 england players playing in there teams every week.At the moment we are giving our foriegn players the expertise and experience of playing in the premier.But in the mean time we can expect to be a mediocre national side.
From david.biggins2 on Thu Aug 21 09:25AMI get the feeling England are rapidly becoming the S.c.u.n.t.h.o.r.p.e United of International Football
They are in urgent need of psychological help and a wheel chair for Beckham perhaps
From arttidesco on Thu Aug 21 09:27AMHenry for united!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
From jsmooth1974 on Thu Aug 21 09:28AMEngland need an overhaul!! Its been too long and lets face it the amazing squad we thought we had has let us down long enough - lets stop backing a loser and start afresh!!
No.1 - Dump calamity James - good shotstopper but useless elsewhere
No.2 - Dump Terry - Overrated @#$% thug - woodgates better.
No.3 - Dump Fat Frank - he's too fat and has no quality at all - luckiest man alive.
No.4 - Dump Rooney - guys so overrated its unbelievable - gabriel agbonlahor scored almost as many goals on the first day of the season as rooney did all last season!
No.5 - Start bringing in younger players ala young, gabby, walcott (in time), richards.By the world cup they'll have all gelled and gotten more experienced rather than letting 30 plus players like fat frank stay in a ruin another tournament.
Team :
1. Green
2. Richards
3. Woodgate
4. Ferdinand
5. Cole
6. Barry
7. Bentley
8. Cole
9. Gerrard
10.Agbonlahor
11.Ashton
From joshabuuges on Thu Aug 21 09:28AMBerbatov for United!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
From jsmooth1974 on Thu Aug 21 09:28AMkw,yes it will. he put alonso on the market early in summer. then he took him out. now he will listen to offers so he can fund a bid for gareth barry. we could snap him up for 18mil.
anyway wats with the police suit?
From risker15 on Thu Aug 21 09:28AMalonso for arsenal!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
From risker15 on Thu Aug 21 09:31AMBarry is the new Bencornholio thinks he knows what he wants but can't have it, bet he is going to enjoy being shredded by the chants the Villans
Btw do the Villans have a thing about hub caps as well or is that just a scouse thing ?
From arttidesco on Thu Aug 21 09:31AMrisky: if your are believing the transfer rumours, they are wrong ;)
Im feeling very police academy today
"DON'T MOVE, DIRTBAG!"
From kantong_wokster on Thu Aug 21 09:32AMYou ever heard of the B52's Artti?
My new theme song
"hub cap, baby hub cap....hub cap, baby hub cap"
From kantong_wokster on Thu Aug 21 09:35AMWhy do you English think you are going to win every competition you are in? You are just not good enough, yes you have great players but as a team you just dont cut it. 1966 was over 40 years ago, teams where so much more on an even par then. You will never even get to a major final never mind win it. You honestly think you are a match for Brazil, Spain or Italy?????
From ellis27475 on Thu Aug 21 09:35AMI thought England were good in the first half.... Do we expect Capello to turn us into world beaters after 5 games yes FIVE games, if he was a prem manager getting this sh~t after FIVE games, rational people would say this was an over-reaction. 3 wins and two draws is it that bad??? I remember we had another foreign coach who for the first two-three years was undefeated except for narrowly losing to brazil and portugal - and all we did was give him sh-t! Then we got Steve Mclaren, good one people.
From samuelmanley on Thu Aug 21 09:35AMIs the time for experiments over yet ?
From arttidesco on Thu Aug 21 09:36AMMorning all! My predictions for the Scotland game were correct... more boring than David Starkey's Monarchy! Kenny Miller predictably played the role of a traffic cone to perfection! I can't ever begin to imagine what was going through Burley's head in bringing off McFadden and leaving that waste of space on! I would have been better watching the England game, I least I would've got a laugh if nothing else! I don't think it has Capello's previous success has been all to do with being able to buy great players like Batistuta at all, he is a great manager, but what can he do when the current England international 'pool' is about as deep as a puddle and full of @#$% anyway?!
From claire881 on Thu Aug 21 09:37AMkw : well as u can see im a gangsta and i didnt believe silvestre would come but he did so sometimes the papers are sometimes right
love the headline : "anyone for cycling"
From risker15 on Thu Aug 21 09:39AMEngland are good enough luckily they are just not psychologically organised enough
I don't imagine the F.A. will be looking to increase England's quota of World Cup tickets this time
From arttidesco on Thu Aug 21 09:40AMJack you seem to be overlooking the fact that in the alleged good half England scored an own goal, if that is good England are in Acrington Stanley territory never mind S.c.u.n.t.h.o.r.p.e. United
From arttidesco on Thu Aug 21 09:44AMEnough of the CEEFAX bashing, it is a lot more entertaining than the England team!
From sikka316 on Thu Aug 21 09:47AMKantong Sam do you get the feeling this morning that the upcoming Andoran game is going to be a bit like the contest between the killer rabbit and King Arthur's Nigits ?
A blood bath I can't wait
From arttidesco on Thu Aug 21 09:48AMNice one 'Hub Cap Baby Pleeeeaaasseee !'
From arttidesco on Thu Aug 21 09:50AM
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