England football and the FA

People go mad over the England football team, especially when a big tournament is on even though they never do anything. In international terms we are the equivalent of Newcastle United - always a chance but never any silverware. What really gets me mad is how the FA sell the rights to show the England games on TV. It should be the right of everyone in England to watch their national team at no extra charge. But the FA cup and England games have just been sold to sky and ITV (which is full of adverts and crap commentary). The FA is a business. They change the shirts every so often not to freshen up the look and give the team a different identity at each tournament but to increase their profits. It makes me sick that the proposed youth training academy at Burton has been scrapped through lack of funds. What is £5 million to the FA?

Sven Goran Eriksson is still being paid £7000 per week. Why didn't they give him a contract that stopped after the World Cup? Wasn't it obvious what was going to happen when we got knocked out? Sven tried to make England play like an Italian team, which was never going to work. McLaren has us trying to play like Middlesborough. We have the best defence in world football and some excellent strikers at the minute. It's the midfield that sucks. The wide players aren't really doing their job. In the middle we have Gerrard who is good as an individual but who doesn't work well with the vastly overrated Lampard. OK he gets 20 goals a season for Chelsea but that's not hard with the quality they have. He shoots far too often. His passing is nothing like that of a Gerrard or a Beckham. We have trouble getting it into the box either as a through ball or a cross. We should have Gerrard and an ankle biter in the midfield. All the great squads had a fancy player and a tidier in the middle; Keane and Cantona, Zidane and Makelele and so on. So McLaren should play Hargreaves who is such a hard worker. And he should stop smiling and saying everything is OK. You're going to ruin it again you second choice incompetent sod. The truth is that the national side are rubbish and international football is too tight. Congratulations to Doncaster Rovers on their 3-2 win in the JP Trophy at Cardiff today. Saw the match on Sky and it was excellent.