Anybody else thinking back to the Eriksson era as relative glory days for England?

Beating Argentina, smashing decent teams like Denmark and Switzerland 3-0 in major championships, putting 4 past Croatia, we took for granted in Svens time wins over Paraguay and Trinidad & Tobago but I wouldn't take a win over Paraguay for granted now! Under Sven the only teams who beat us in a major competition were Brazil and France (thanks to 2 late late goals in Euro 2004)....we lost twice on penalties to Portugal after going toe to toe with them and all their great players.

All the stick Sven got was because he was getting his end away with Ulrika and that woman in the FA, yes he was a stud and he probably did manage to negotiate an inflated salary for his coaching ability but he was a decent manager, there was never talk of dissent in the camp, the players all liked and respected him. In 2002 we were definitely second best to Brazil but with a bit of luck on penalties in either of those quarter-finals in 2004 or 2006 we would have been in a semi final and we would have been a hard opponent to have to face at that stage of the competition.

People used to say under Sven we had no flair, no individuals with gamebreaking ability like the Brazilians have, but thats not Sven's fault, he made a workmanlike Swedish style team out of England and got the best out of what we had. Seems like he will be finishing with Ivory Coast after the World Cup so he is job hunting telling the press that he always supported Liverpool when he was growing up, dropping hints about the job. Might seem the unthinkable but....if Capello quits I think we could do worse than give Sven a call (please no chat about Scolari this time)

One thing with Sven though was certain players were always guaranteed a place in the squad no matter the situation regarding their form or fitness. They would always be there. Plus wasting a place in the squad taking Walcott and him not playing.

We are no better off now than we were then though, seemingly.

Sven did a good job as England manager. If he didn't screw everything in a skirt and arrange other jobs while England manager then he could have still been England manager.

But he wasn't so good England are going to go back to him. And he hasn't done anything since England to prove the FA utterly wrong for getting rid.

Capello has done an excellent job in qualification. In the first two games of the World Cup England have been desperately poor, but they'll still qualify for the knock out stages and when England improve and if they progress no one will care how bad we opened.

How Capello will be judged will depend on how we perform in the knock out stages against a major side. If we don't even qualify for the knock out stages then he'll probably be out of the job before getting on the plane to leave SA.

People said this but there was no real competition putting pressure on those players' places.

The main ones they said it about were Beckham and Lampard, remember everybody wanted David Bentley to be given a shot when he was at Blackburn....he got shown up soon enough to be nowhere near as good as Beckham, and who would be a credible replacement for Lampard? Scott Parker, Steve Sidwell, Michael Carrick, Jermaine Jenas? None of them really excite. Then there was all that talk about getting rid of Owen and giving Andy Johnson etc a chance....? Andy Johnson????

Some players in some positions pick themselves because they are head and shoulders better than their rivals, that means they keep their spots whether in or out of form.

No, the Eriksson era was not a glorious time.

In 2006, England cheated and bored their way past some terrible teams like Trinidad & Tobago and went out gutlessly to the first half-good side they faced. Subsequently Eriksson was hopeless with Mexico, almost destroying what has turned out to be a very useful side, and has ruined Ivory Coast's chances of qualifying from the group stages with a tactically inept, play-for-a-draw performance against Portugal.

He's also sowed the seeds of Capello's problems at this World Cup with his weak pandering to the big names in the England camp, leading to a spoiled culture of entitlement that Capello has so far failed to reverse.