Evidenced when Gerrard went through on goal and instead of shooting he squared it to no one, he clearly did not want the responsibilty of missing. Capello brought discipline but now fear has taken over and we need to break the shackles a bit, we need a character in therr to lift the morale.

That was actually a point someone made in the pub the other night, who are the "characters" in this England side?

Never mind who are the characters, I fail to see how this side has put work rate and athleticism over ability, as the English side were clearly outworked, outpaced and outplayed at times by the apparent vastly inferior Algerians. Look at how slow our players are, their complete and utter lack of technical ability and composure is a problem, as is the lack of pace and athleticism through the spine of the side.

It is easy to say 'well Gerrard, Lampard and co. play well for their clubs', but that is when they have the side built around them with foreign players making up for their deficiencies. Steven Gerrard is a great player, but only so great when he has Xabi Alonso playing precise passes to find him in space and Javier Mascherano winning the ball back to allow constant pressure on the opposition. Wayne Rooney is a fantastic player, but only so fantastic when he has the likes of Nani, Valencia, Evra, Giggs and Scholes providing him with chances, instead of practically Heskey and Gerrard vs. Algeria. Lampard is the same. All of these players have their respective sides built around them, they thrive so much for their clubs because their clubs have built a team around them and their clubs rely totally on them. Is Gerrard relied upon so much when half of what is good about him is taken away by playing on the left? Same with Lampard when he's asked to play deeper, and the same with Rooney when he is trying to do everything when everything isn't required.

The lack of versatility in the players is shocking, but I struggle to understand how Capello hasn't seen this. Even with a strong qualifying, when have we ever performed with great execution and conviction of great tactics? We played excellently in Zagreb, but that is one game compared to plenty of others where we've looked lethargic, we've lacked control, composure and any kind of chemistry in our play.

There are plenty of other theories and arguments that can be made for England, most are right, but the lack of technical ability, i.e. controlled passing, quality first touch, ability to dribble and correct decision making is blatantly obvious in this side, it's obvious every time they play a match. Some people should watch sides like Argentina, Brazil, Germany and Spain, they'll soon realize what a technically outstanding side is. England are years away from making players capable of matching up to their foreign counterparts. Considering the facilities, funding and level of club football that's available, we should really be producing world class technical players. Instead, our coaching is producing the same type of player, year in, year out.

Don't know if this has been mentioned but he waits until the absolute last moment to name the squad, how are the players meant to mentally prepare (it is important) if they don't know if they are playing ?

He needs to start mentioning the team a bit earlier AND maybe allow the players a 'little' space on making mistakes, no way should he have dropped Rob Green, he made a cracking save in the 2nd half.

As a whole, do the supporters want anything else?

They get worked up once every 4 years when we don't win the World Cup, but the popularity of the Premier League cannot be denied, and the sneering attitude many have towards countries which play a more technical, tactically disciplined game would suggest developing more players like that isn't what your average English football supporter wants.

I know what you mean, brazil for example when they start the left back to centre back, back to left back to keeper passing just to keep hold of the ball, when WE do that all you get in the pubs is "F'kin hell pass the f'kin ball up the f'kin field you useless c----".

We don't seem to value the ball[the fans] unless it's in the opposing half.

The Africans are doing poorly at the WC according to the Beeb commentator.

Wonder if Algeria and Ghana think they are doing poorly? I think Ivory Coast might not be too upset about drawing with Portugal in their only game too.

I'm going to stop going on about this now.

What sneering attitude is that then?....we admire footballing skills and I am sure we would like to play like Spain, Argentina and the likes.
Or are you just saying it's too pedestrian?
Because often it's not.... it's fast and precise.

I'm not saying anything of the sort, but it is the prevailing attitude.

You can look at the football chat thread on this very board and see examples of people who seem to take offence if you say you prefer to watch La Liga over the Premier League.

I got chatting to someone in Leeds the other day while watching the Spain game, when I told him I watch more La Liga than Premier League football the response was "I don't know how you can watch that slow s**t" and it is far from the first time I've had a similar reaction.

Having watched football week in, week out for 25 years now it's pretty obvious the average English football fan values "getting stuck in" and "putting yourself about" more than keeping the ball and playing patient football.

It's terrible in the pub watching it. One backwards pass is greeted with jeers. They don't seem to realise that sometimes you have to work it around to create space, and shock horror, that may involve a backwards pass of all things.