England at the World Cup

So England have qualified for the World Cup in Germany 2006, yet there's a sense of gloom about the country.

It's such a contrast to the last World Cup qualification campaign:

• England beaten their final game at Wembley, at the bottom of the group
• Kevin Keegan resigning in the toilets immediately after the game,
• then Sven being appointed,
• going to Germany and winning 5-1,
• and then Beckham scoring the last-minute goal against Greece which ensured qualification.

The difference this time is boredom and disillusionment with Sven's tactics and a waning of faith in his ability to react to situations arising on the pitch. I only lost faith in him in the last few weeks.

I said to the uninterested but ever-patient Amanda during this summer I wished that the World Cup was in 2005. Everything was ready, everything looked good, but i knew it couldn't last.

Given Sven's disastrous experimentation with 4-5-1 in the Belfast and Wales games, a failure mainly because he insisted on playing Beckham as a 'quarterback' in front of the defence (whch he already proved he wasn't suited for at Real Madrid), the conclusion has to be drawn that he's too in thrall to his stars.

I'm not saying that system shouldn't have been tried (we definitely need a Plan B), just that it wasn't worth trying it the way he did. Remember when he took the Premiership's top scorer (Crystal Palace's Andy Johnson) and played him out on the wing - and then brought on a winger later in the same game and played that guy as a striker!

Ashley Cole got injured last week. Rather than drafting in another wing back, he moved Carragher out to the wing. In this upcoming game against Poland he's going to play Ledley King (a central defender) as the holding midfielder.

Now I've been wanting a holding midfielder for a long time, but of course it comes when it's forced upon us, and yet again, it's a non-specialist in the role. Sven arrived saying he was going to play players in their natural positions. What happened to that?