Northen Ireland 1, England 0!!!

Sven Goran Eriksson, Time to go…

Tonight England lost to Northern Ireland 1 - 0, a great result for Northern Ireland but a very worrying one for the English.

This, coming a few days after England struggle to beat Wales 1 – 0.
Although the battling qualities of both of these sides is a testament to their hard work and determination, you cannot ignore the fact that England have a squad of players who would are top draw and should be world-beaters.

I have had my doubts about Eriksson since he took over back in 2001 and nothing has changed.
In Portugal 2004 (European championships) he showed a lack of imagination and did little to freshen up the team, I believe that England had the players to beat Portugal but not the manager to mould them into a team.

Whilst I agree that you cannot lay all the blame for poor results at the feet of the manager, I also think that it is the manager’s responsibility to motivate and inspire confidence within his team, if Eriksson does this why are they so shit.

Kevin Keegan did ok and then quit when he felt he could do no more (at least he was honest and modest)
Terry Venables resigned due to off the field matters, which was such a shame as I think the players at the time felt like a team and respected their manager.

I don’t know who should replace Sven, all I know is that he isn’t the man for the job.
This is not a knee jerk reaction and I am not of the opinion that the England manager should be English, I just want Eriksson to go away and not come back

Over the years I have watched the Republic of Ireland grind out fantastic results and qualify for major tournaments with a much more limited pool of players than the English have ever had, they have shown great passion, determination and team spirit and they are a credit to the nation they represent.

England’s team however look stale and limp and have done on too many occasions recently, maybe the English tabloid press is partly to blame for there sensationalist bandwagon jumping headlines (the tabloids are complete scum, they are the scum that scum is ashamed of) constantly undermining confidence in the team and its manager.

You might say England fans expect too much and the results the team has achieved under Sven Goran Eriksson are good enough for them, but that is complete rubbish, they should be up there with the best teams in the world, with players like Beckham, Owen, Rooney, Gerard, Lampard, Terry, Ashley Cole, Ferdinand and so on to pick from, they should be competing with the worlds elite. Instead they underachieve and never seem to unite as a solid team.


In closing I have one thing to say “sort it out will ya, please”.