It seems to me that in the eyes of most England fans and journalists, the players are to blame for the two performances so far.

For me, Capello has to take a large share of the blame (especially considering that he’s on £6m a year).

Selection and tactics

He claimed to want to pick players based on form, and to play them in their best positions. Why then do we have the likes of Heskey and Carragher in the team, and Gerrard, Rooney and Lampard, arguably our three best players, not playing in the same roles that they do at club level?

Heskey was said to have played well in the opener – I thought that he played probably as well as he could, and I certainly wouldn’t blame him for a lack of application. However, it’s patently obvious to me that he is not an international footballer, and he certainly doesn’t work well with the other more technical players in the team. There is a reason that he is on Villa’s bench most weeks, and that’s that he’s only good for one thing – playing as a target man, a Plan B.

The key issue though, is not that Heskey plays – it’s that this means that we play a rigid 4-4-2. As a result, Gerrard has to either play centrally in a 4-4-2, or wide on the left – positions that he’s not played for years at club level. Yes, there is an argument that good players should be adaptable, but the stronger argument, surely, is that you get the best out of your most talented players by playing them in their regular positions.

Wayne Rooney’s brilliant season leading the line should mean that his position is a no-brainer. Gerrard is one of the best players in the world at playing off a striker, and driving forward. So why do we not play him here? Lampard has a free role for Chelsea and, as a result, gets 20+ goals a season. He has to play a restricted role for England, meaning that he is pretty much a water-carrier.

Mr Capello, sir

Capello’s disciplinarian attitude seems to have slowly sapped the players’ confidence. It has been said that the players are sulking, and that they are grown adults and should pull themselves together. In my opinion it works both ways. They are grown adults, but they aren’t treated that way; they don’t get freedom during the day, they don’t get to spend time with their families, etc. I’m not saying that I agree or disagree with Capello’s approach (mainly because I agree with some aspects but not others), but I don’t think Capello’s authoritarian approach is working.

Maybe it worked in qualifying because the England camps were always short stints away from home. The players have now been away for a month, and they clearly aren’t confident or focused; there’s no vibrancy to the play.

He needs to create some camaraderie again – perhaps he should let the coaching staff and entourage arrange some form of team building exercise, as they currently look like eleven strangers on the pitch.

Tactical tinkering

The biggest disappointment to me is Capello’s dogmatic inability to admit that he is wrong. Milner played wide left in the first game to counter an attacking full-back. He had been in bed for more than half of the week before (with a virus), and clearly lacked sharpness. However, when he was hauled off, he was replaced with Wright-Phillips, at a time when England lacked creativity. Cole was the obvious choice to all armchair fans, but has not played a minute so far.

Again, in the Algeria game, his substitutions were all straight swaps. Zonal Marking made an excellent point on this:

The most shocking thing was how many misplaced passes there were when England players were under no pressure whatsoever. They needed a player deep in midfield to retain the possession and switch play, and a player higher up the pitch with genuine technical quality on the ball. Michael Carrick and Joe Cole would have been appropriate replacements, but both sat on the bench whilst Peter Crouch and Jermain Defoe came on – as if Capello thought England had been creating plenty of opportunities but needed someone on the end of them.

I hope that Capello changes things for the final group match, because I can’t see us breaking Slovenia down in our current state. Joe Cole is a must, and I would immediately switch to a 4-2-3-1 formation, preferably with Barry and Carrick at the base to keep possession (as we’ve seen before in the World Cup).

It’s a massive shame that my opening goal analysis for England’s World Cup “journey” is for a goal like this.

Dempsey’s goal.

Whilst the nature of the goal has, for obvious reasons, been well documented, it would feel wrong for me to break from my previous pictorial structure for two reasons:

1. Catharsis
2. OCD.

And, in fairness, whilst we all know how the ball eventually ended up in the onion bag (*hates self*), the way in which the move unfolded was fairly typical of long periods of the game.

Clint Dempsey picks up the ball between England’s defence and midfield (he and Donovan had joy in this area, and England’s midfield lacked positional discipline without a dedicated holder).

Gerrard drives back at Dempsey (as he did throughout the match) to hold him up, but Dempsey spins away.

Gerrard has stayed tight until this point but, for me, there are still not nearly enough England players back in the picture.

One more spin from Dempsey, and he’s shaken Gerrard off, making plenty of room for a shot – we know full well that he is a danger from distance, and with the new ball causing problems for goalkeepers in training, it’s not wise to give him opportunities like this.

However, the shot is a tame one. He doesn’t catch it well, and it’s devoid of power.

“They” always say you should aim to hit the target first and foremost, and that’s what Dempsey does. Green made a slight nod towards the new ball causing problms in his post-match interview, but I don’t think it had much to do with it; it bounced twice, didn’t move in the air, and would be the sort of shot that he’d expect to easily stop 999 times out of 1000.

A quick check of optajoe tells me that:

4 – Rob Green made more errors leading to goals than any other player in the Premier League last season. Calamity.

However, whilst it’s very easy to blame Green for our failure to get the three points from yesterday’s game, Capello made some real fundamental errors. It’s long been said that 4-4-2 suits England, because most of the players play in this formation for their club. Of yesterday’s starting 11, only King, Lennon, and sometimes Milner and Heskey regularly play this formation. The rest of the team play a variation of the 4-3-3/4-5-1. In fact, Rooney, widely seen as our main man, has arguably played his best football over the last year, whilst leading the line in a 4-5-1.

I noticed yesterday that Rooney was peripheral. We tended to play through Heskey, who did well in fits and starts, but also misdirected many flick-ons, surrendering possession cheaply (and that’s ignoring his missed chances). We’re told by the well-informed that Heskey is there solely to allow us to get the best out of Rooney, but with Rooney up front alone, and a dedicated holder in midfield (Barry or Carrick – whilst the latter isn’t flavour of the month, I find it hard to argue with Xabi Alonso’s comments here), we should get the best from our key players. Lampard and Gerrard get to play their more natural roles, Rooney gets to lead the line on his own (and see more of the ball), and we have the added bonus of a player that is comfortable with the ball at his feet, and will keep possession with sensible short passes.

The other major issue yesterday was our defensive shape. Our back line was too deep from the start (especially given that the USA aren’t a particularly quick side), and the gap between the defence and midfield was ridiculous. A prime example of this came during Altidore’s second half break. He is played in, turns Carragher, and bears down on goal. He chooses (somewhat selfishly?) to take on the shot at the near post, bringing out a fairly routine save from Green.

But had he looked up, he’d have seen two players – one on the penalty spot, and one just coming into the picture, totally un-tracked by our midfield.

I’m sure that Barry will come straight into the side for the next game, and I personally hope that it’s at the expense of Heskey. I fear though, that he’ll come in for Milner, with Gerrard switching to the left.

I’m still confident that England will come through the group stage, and I look towards Italy’s famous slow starts in previous World Cups for a positive to cling to. The saddest thing about yesterday’s game, though, was that the USA side was clearly greater than the sum of its parts; England were, and very often are, quite the opposite.

I read an interesting article by The Times’ Oliver Kay this morning regarding the England U17s winning the European Championship in Liechtenstein. He writes:

Even as they got off the plane, FA officials were sending joyous texts about the first age-group success of an England men’s side since a team including Gary Neville, Sol Campbell, Paul Scholes and Robbie Fowler — David Beckham, although he had played for Manchester United’s first team, did not even make the squad — won the European Under-18 Championship on home soil in 1993.

Compared with:

An England Under-17 team reached the final of the same tournament in 2007, narrowly losing 1-0 against Spain. Three years later, a starting line-up of players now aged 19 or 20 have started a combined total of five Premier League matches — Danny Welbeck two, Victor Moses two and Danny Rose one. Dan Gosling, of Everton, was among the substitutes.

Based on that snapshot, it looks like a genuine decline in the talent breaking through, at least in the Premier League.

Obviously this ignores the likes of Phil Jones (a current England U18 international, who started seven times for Blackburn Rovers last season, and even won the Man of the Match award on his full debut against Chelsea), plus Rodwell (19), Wilshere (18) and Delfouneso (19), who would all have been in the same age group, and who are getting relatively regular Premier League football.

It seems that the larger clubs, Spurs included, are happier to send their promising talents out on loan to league clubs to gain their experience, whilst instead offering squad places to older (and often foreign) players. Young players rarely get thrown in at the deep end, with managers knowing how high the stakes are.

Interestingly, one of Spurs’ biggest success stories, Lennon, was very much thrown in. He was expected to be a bit-part player in the 2005/6 season, with Wayne Routledge ahead of him in the pecking order. With Routledge injured, however, Lennon took his chance, and ended up playing 27 league games, and being nominated for the PFA Young Player of the Year.

I’m not suggesting that we should be throwing young players straight into the team – far from it. But it’s interesting to see managers taking a more cautious approach, when previously it’s been seen as worthwhile to take a risk with a young player once in a while.

Kay’s comparison is a useful one, and it will be interesting to take a look back at the current England U17s in three years time,to see how many have made the break through.

As an aside, good luck to the England U19s against the Ukraine this afternoon – Steven Caulker and Dean Parrett are starting the game, with John Bostock and Andros Townsend on the bench.

NB: Spurs’ Harry Kane missed out on the European Championship due to injury.

Never a dull moment, eh? Great season, highest finish for 20 years, away at relegated Burnley on final day, 2-0 up. Just enjoy yourself, lads!

Oh dear.

Burnley’s goals.

Elliott’s goal.

Graham Alexander has the ball in the middle of the park. Very little pressure on the ball – in the previous games where we’d played Huddlestone and Modric in the middle of midfield, we’d relied on the strikers to work back and close in situations like this, whereas Tom and Luka tended to hold their positions.

A simple threaded ball takes our midfield out of the game. Notice Elliott at this point sneaking round the back of King. Assou-Ekotto is out of shot at the moment, but he is not aware of his position.

A glorious flick from Fletcher puts King on his back-side – something you don’t see too often.

Very clever strike-play – you have to stand back and applaud a bit of skill like this. Good player, Fletcher.

Elliott’s in, and Assou-Ekotto’s positioning is now shown up.

Alnwick goes to ground horribly early. Surely Gomes would have put up more of a fight?

Cork’s goal.

Elliott drives forward through the centre of our midfield, unchallenged.

Modric gets close to him, but not close enough to get a foot to the ball.

Bale has been caught upfield, and the pass to Paterson is therefore a simple one.

One touch, and he whips in a cross. They often say that strikers make good crossers of the ball, and it certainly rings true in this instance.

The ball is a beauty. It drops steeply over Dawson’s head, and poor old Kaboul has no chance, having been left with two players.

Lovely header from the totally unmarked Cork. Awful, awful defending – the whole team failed to close properly, but Dawson’s positioning was all wrong. Let’s hope Fabio wasn’t watching!

Paterson’s goal.

Fletcher has the ball, and faces up Kaboul. Palacios is interested too at this point.

Fletcher jinks through both Kaboul and Palacios like they aren’t there.

It’s pretty awful defending from the pair of them, but credit has to go to Fletcher again.

Awful ball-watching from Assou-Ekotto, who lets Paterson sneak in ahead of him. Alnwick is in a poor position.

Watching Alnwick’s hopeless scramble across goal is cringe-worthy, but fair play to Paterson, who fully deserved his goal.

Thompson’s goal.

34 year old Robbie Blake skips around Palacios in the middle of midfield.

His control is so god that he’s also able to go round Modric.

He lays the ball off to Thompson, who has support.

Elliott picks up the ball, and strikes low and hard from distance.

As the ball comes into the box, Thompson opportunistically sticks out a leg, and prods the ball beyond Alnwick.

I say beyond Alwnick…is it? It pretty much goes in the middle of the goal. Abysmal second half performance from the entire team, but especially Alnwick – hopefully his last for Spurs, though, as I believe his contract is up.