Hopefully Russia will hammer another nail into McClown's coffin tomorrow by beating Israel, though the players and the monkeys running the FA share the blame.

Johnny Foreigner has it about right about the players here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/footbal ... 068911.stm

"Beckenbauer said he was shocked at what he witnessed when England met Germany in a friendly at Wembley in August.

"It was like a school team, they were not talking and not supporting," said the 62-year-old Beckenbauer of Steve McClaren's side, who were beaten 2-1.

"That was for me the biggest surprise. There is no life in this team.""

and here:

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story ... 2&&cc=5739

"'England have a team of big stars who earn an awful lot of money from playing with their private deals,' he [Russia striker Alexander Kerzhakov] said.

'Russia have a compact group of players who don't have anywhere near as much money, but with far more hard workers on the field. That's the difference between the countries.

'That's why we are in a strong position and England have been left just hoping.'"

I'm not necessarily sure English players care less/don't work as hard as some players on other national teams, I think it's a combination of lack of depth in some key positions, generally below-average technique in terms of being able to hold onto the ball, and absolutely facile tactics from a clueless manager (the set-up against Russia was an absolute joke; naievety personified. Say what you like about Eriksson but we'd have won or drawn that game under him, and would thus have basically qualified by now).

I'd much rather my "real" national team (Scotland) got through than England. So many of the English players are so unlikeable I'd say I'm almost indifferent to them at the moment, and they really don't play very good football.

No rugby team would be ashamed of the pitch Croatia played against Macedonia tonight.. disgrace...

Russia... I am a bit down because of that, but at least Croatia will win against England so all is well....

England will probably get at least the draw to secure the qualification that they really don't deserve.

Come on Croatia!