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...
don't rush on england
it's all friendlyt and later the real squad and real effort will be shown
the press shouldn't pressure the coach and the players, i think this is the englad frist problem of alla time.
british press is preventing the british of winning silver ware of all sports.
not only football, also formula 1 and tennis
From mochamout on Thu Aug 21 10:27AMHENRY IS PASSED IT!!
From kevin1985kane on Thu Aug 21 10:28AMA very mature summary dustbrotherroom101, i think its just the germans with their immature, idiotic, (this century trophyless) opinions i should ignore!! Good luck southern ireland, they have the players, just need a good world cup campaign like 02' when spain got lucky against them.
From jay8my on Thu Aug 21 10:28AMWest Ham United the fountain of eternal hope of ever bringing on any useful England players
Man Utd Suck !
Chelski Suck !
Gooners Suck !
Liverpool Suck after they have knicked your hub caps
From arttidesco on Thu Aug 21 10:30AMkevin1985kane, now now, they all suck but they have major international tournament experience unlike others!!!
From jay8my on Thu Aug 21 10:31AMYe are never gonna win it lads!!!
ye got the wrong Italian manager!
Come on Trappatoni,
Ireland for World Cup 2010!!!From dos1698 on Thu Aug 21 10:34AMRef For England read Black Knight adults see :-
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=2eMkth8FWno&NR=1
Kids see :-
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=6QxaawOwUS8&fe
ature=related
btw KS I have not seen this HD lego version before you might enjoy it again
The Holy Hand Grenade and Rabbit ref's are all to be see there to
That is what I am on aboutFrom arttidesco on Thu Aug 21 10:39AMBeckham is Passed it but it did not stop Don Fab
From arttidesco on Thu Aug 21 10:39AMoh no england are still a bunch of arse. can gabby agbonlahor still play for scotland? it's got to be a better choice!
From martsssss on Thu Aug 21 10:41AMStill it can't all be doom and gloom England have sailed there way into 17 gold medals may be the sailors can pass a few topical tips on to the footy players
From arttidesco on Thu Aug 21 10:43AMArt, maybe they can pass on some tips to the german athlete's
The only decent german's ive seen in the olympics are the ones in cool running's.From jay8my on Thu Aug 21 10:45AMart are u looking up cool runnings on wikipedia????
From jay8my on Thu Aug 21 10:48AMthanks jay8my, i hope we can qualify, its been a long time
From dustbrother101 on Thu Aug 21 10:51AMNo time for wiki today trying to make sense of the Infinity of Infinties fig 14.5 and i quote 'Compare scrambled numbers with 0.7492403' if I get the gist of it I will get back to you
From arttidesco on Thu Aug 21 10:58AMArt: I think you'll find its BRITAIN who have won 17 golds at the Olympics NOT England!
From claire881 on Thu Aug 21 10:59AMjoshabuuges.....taken me long to comment but i take it you are a Villa fan. Drop Rooney cos Gabby scored a hat-trick last week. Do you know how many these players scored last season? Gabby 37 games 11 goals. Rooney 27 games 12 goals. that's just the league. Go Overall and Rooney got 18 in 43, nearly 1 in 2. So do some reasearch before randomly posting a load of c*ap.
From ima_fat_tw on Thu Aug 21 11:05AMdont worry claire i think arts just on a mission to wind people up, also he is quite thick so easily forgiven, did u see that cyclist from edinburgh??? 3 Gold medals!! thats more than bolt so far!!!
From jay8my on Thu Aug 21 11:05AMI get it there are more infinitely more numbers than there are intergers between between 0 - 1 so there is more than one kind of infinity
hello is any one still listening ?
From arttidesco on Thu Aug 21 11:06AMDoh! Stand corrected Claire
How many Britains are there on ED today ?
From arttidesco on Thu Aug 21 11:08AMBolt will have 3 before the weekend is out and he has a really cool dance hall style of celebrating
From arttidesco on Thu Aug 21 11:09AMWhich is not intended to belittle the Cyclist from Edinburgh achievement in any way
From arttidesco on Thu Aug 21 11:10AMFor the size of our country we do well at most major sports. Yeah ok Spain won the Euro;s but they are @#$% at the Olympics, as are Brazil and Argentina. We are former world Champions at Rugby (both codes), one of the best cricket nations, How many other Countries compete at the top level of most major sports? Australia and that's about it.
On another point how the f*** does Softball and Baseball get in the olympics??!! why not just add Cricket, Darts and Snooker...........we'll soon fly up the medals table then!From ima_fat_tw on Thu Aug 21 11:16AMwe should be playing young players in the team to build a team for the next world cup , beckham is so poor you can see he plays in a @#$% league now as it shows ,any player over thirty should be got rid of , and start playing the ones who will be good for the future world cup , also get rid of capello , he loves old beckham , mainly for the sponsors so poor , come on england play with the youth , and also only allow 4 overseas players playing in a team atone time ,
From pompey80uk on Thu Aug 21 11:18AMyeah good shout ima_fat_tw!! Phil 'the power' taylor with a gold medal around his neck would be a sight worth seeing!
From jay8my on Thu Aug 21 11:18AMWell I'm not British, I'm Scottish buut still Chris Hoy contributed 3 to that tally! I love Bolt, I hope he gets the relay golds as well cos he's just fantastic! I @#$% hate that @#$% Phelps though, fcuker!
From claire881 on Thu Aug 21 11:20AMALL ENGLISH FOOTBALL
PREMIER LEAGUE – FA CUP – CARLING CUP
CHAMPIONS LEAGUE – UEFA CUP
ALL MATCHES ON WEB, INCLUDING FRIENDLY MATCHES, CHAMPIONS LEAGUE AND UEFA PRELIMINARIESFrom pulgosita10 on Thu Aug 21 11:22AMADVERT ALERT!! ADVERT ALERT!!
From jay8my on Thu Aug 21 11:28AMEngland provide me with so much entertainment, why on Earth would you want them to improve??? It's better comedy than anything Delboy could come up with......11 Rodney's...LOL!!!
From ruudjc1 on Thu Aug 21 11:40AMhaha yeah its almost as funny as holland, they've never won the world cup, and always under achieve at every tournament, with the players holland had they should have won the euros, yet their game against russia was so funny!!!
From jay8my on Thu Aug 21 11:44AMChapter 15 'Madness and Sanity'
I think I better take a lunch break before I get into it Bon AppetiteFrom arttidesco on Thu Aug 21 11:44AM
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