An England fans view

Its like rudderless ship plough slowly towards an ice-berg. We can all see the crash is coming but what can be done to prevent it. The first friendly of the season at Wembley saw a German team (minus Ballack, Podolski and Klose among others) take on......well......we know the sort of performance England generally put on.

Lampard found space in the box (more through poor German marking than anything else) to give us an early lead and thoughts of Munich and 5-1 were in the air......you know....the home team took the lead and then got battered. By half time, the Jerries were 2-1 up, just as we were on that wonderful September night in Munich but for some reason, there were no more goals in the 2nd half.

So now we move to September and 2 vital games against Israel and Russia in Group E of the Euro 2008 qualifying campaign. We have been told that its not a concern that we are falling behind the leaders as we have 4 of the last 5 games at home. However, when you realise that England's last home victory was against Andorra, exactly 12 months ago to the day of this post, you will understand why I don't share some of optimism.

Realistically, we will probably have to win all 4 home games and get a point in Russia to qualify. Anything less and we have to rely on other teams slipping up. I'm planning my summer 08 trips for Africa or America rather than Austria. Anyway, we get to go to Austria again as a friendly has been arranged in Vienna for November. Luckily, I managed to get a cheap flight and hotel otherwise I would have been very tempted to miss that game.

Midweek home games are becoming a definite candidate for watching on TV. I live less than 100 miles from London but its just so much effort to get over to Wembley and back again in mid-week to see more and more pathetic, feeble, passionless, inept performances. I know for a fact, a growing number of regulars are no longer going to mid-week games, friendly or competitive. I just wonder how long it will be until I join their numbers.