So England stutter and stumble their way through probably the weakest World Cup group they have ever been placed in over the last 20 years.

At this rate, we're going to lose to Ecuador, the weakest possible second round opponents.

I can't remember seeing 3 more shambolic performances from an England side at a World Cup finals. This much vaunted team with its array of "superstars" like Beckham, Gerrard, Lampard, Cole, Rooney and Ferdinand is playing like a busted arse. Our manager decides to take only 4 strikers, when two are injury doubts and one is barely out of nappies and has yet to play a competitive Premiership game, let alone an international match of consequence!

Its pathetic.

Sven is a fraud. He must be inwardly laughing his arse off at how he's managed to hoodwink the FA for so long. This team have limped and puffed their way through qualifying in an incredibly weak group but also managed to outdo themselves by losing to Northern Ireland and drawing with Macedonia yet no one at the FA chose to question why this was so.

I don't know what he says to the team in the 2nd half but it must go something like this:

Sven: Good first half lads but really, its all a bit too much for me. Can you play like wankers in the second half?

Team: Ok boss, no problem!

Then lo and behold, they do. Its not all Svens fault though. The defending against Sweden was laughable. It was barely League One standard. Beckham had an appalling game. He can't seem to stay on the right hand side of the pitch, where he is supposed to be. He can't resist going for the "Hollywood" pass. In short, he should be dropped but that is never going to happen under Sven because the bloke doesn't have the testicles for it.

Terry or Gerrard should be Captain. Beckham has been mediocre in an England shirt for nearly 4 years now. He also doesn't have the character to inspire his team mates. Of course the rumour is that he stays Captain because of all the extra sponsorship revenue the FA get. It wouldn't surprise me at all.

Unless Sven can make the hard choices and start picking on form rather than reputation, play Gerrard in his best position and resist playing that lanky streak of piss Crouch up front, we're going out on Sunday.

Will England win the World Cup? You're having a laugh.

The World Cup is underway and the media have already, on the basis of the performance against Paraguay, heavily criticised England and in particular, the tactics of Sven Goran Eriksson.

Is this justified?

In my humble opinion, yes it is. I think that Sven doesn’t actually have a clue about how to manage an international team. I certainly think he is tactically inept. From the squad selection through to his tactics, I think there is a compelling weight of argument that says that he doesn’t really know what he is doing.

Let’s look at the key points:

1. Picking Jenas and Hargreaves and not taking a fifth striker. This is already looking a poor move; a fully fit Jermain Defoe would have been ideal cover for an unfit and out of form Michael Owen and either Jenas or Hargreaves could have made way. I don’t think we need Carrick, Hargreaves and Carragher all sitting there with the ability to play a holding midfield role.

2. The fact that England team have never scored a second half goal under Eriksson in World Cup Final matches. This point to the fact that he is happy to sit onto a lead, as he tried to do in 2002 and in Portugal in 2004. This is not something that suits the English game and I would have thought he would have realised this by now.

3. Sven’s inability to get Lampard and Gerrard to form an effective partnership in midfield. Two of the world’s best central midfielders often look lost in the middle of the park. Sometimes your best team doesn’t involve your best players, something that Sven can’t seem to grasp.

4. The gaps that appear between midfield and attack. The defence will, when defending a lead, take up far too deep a position causing the midfield to drop back and then leave too much space between them and the strikers.

5. Too much reliance on long ball football and not enough retention of possession seems to be a disease throughout the team.

6. Pulling Michael Owen back for corners. Why? Leave him up the pitch so that it means the opposition have to leave players further up the field and also gives us a threat up front on the counter-attack.

7. The bizarre substitutions; a national newspaper listed them recently and there is not many of those substitutions that any football fan will agree with.

8. Messing around with tactics in the build up games. The bloke has had FIVE YEARS in the job to work out a set of tactics and different systems, so why start mucking around with them three games before the start of the World Cup?

I think that any manager of a football team, club or international, should be able to list these issues out, like I have and then work out effective ways of solving them. If I can call it, then surely you would expect someone being paid £4,000,000 a year to be able to do the same?

The other issue is that it seems that Steve McLaren is willing to go along with all these substitutions and has virtually no say. If I was the England manager elect, I’d try and at least get Sven to sit down and listen but then maybe he agrees? If he does, it doesn’t bode well for the future.

England will get no further than the 1/4 finals so for anyone thinking we can win the World Cup, I suggest you think again. We have a lot of good players, but we have a joke of a manager.

So, the time is nearly upon us for the World Cup. The time, where every four years, the Scottish remind us how much they hate us. Ah yes, because Scotland never make it to the World CUp they choose to support anyone that England plays. How very mature that is. Especially from the Scottish people that live and work in England.

I don't get wound up by much but this really, REALLY gets my goat.

Well, if you hate England that much, why do you live here? Why do you work with English people? Why don't you fuck off back to Scotland and then join the rest of your English hating friends?

Scots always bang on about "English arrogance". What a bunch of crap. If you speak to any English football supporter not one of us expects us to ACTUALLY win the World Cup. Nor do we think its our divine right to win the damn thing. We hope, usually with misplaced optimism, that we might win it. This time we think we have a really good chance. What we really want though, if we don't win it, is a heroic loss, usually involving penalties so at least we can say, ah well, the boys did their best. The whole English arrogance is a myth dreamt up by the Scots, the Irish and the Welsh so that they can't vent their vitriol which really comes from the depths of history.

So, if you're a Scot living in England around the World Cup, you're welcome to watch the matches in any pub I'm in. If you start supporting the other side vocally though, expect to find yourself being told to "Go away" in no uncertain terms.

I was walking back home from the station the other day, past my local pub when I noticed a police van parked outside it. Then I noticed a fair number of uniformed plod wearing bullet-proof vests. Now, bearing in mind where I live, this is not something that you expect to ever see. It really is a quiet and peaceful part of Greater London; its ABC1 and has been a Tory stronghold for about 30 years.

As I get nearer, some bloke is handcuffed and there are police stationed outside every pub exit. Obviously being a nosey bastard, I'm staring as I go past and trying to see what all the fuss is about. I then see two more police and another police car further down the road.

Odd.

I found out the next day that it was a "drugs raid". I also learnt that they found precisely fuck all.

Now, I'm no policeman (thank God) but I reckon that I could have told them that my local pub, in the area it is in, was NEVER going to be a good bet for a drugs raid. At the very best they would have found a couple of 18 years olds with a few spliffs worth of weed.

Which brings me to this question; did the police really investigate this "tip off"? Did they send someone in plains clothes down there on a Saturday night to investigate this alleged den of inequity? I would suggest not because if they had, they wouldn't have wasted their time, the taxpayers money and the pubs patrons evening on such a pointless exercise.

This whole "War on Drugs" thing is such a bunch of crap as well. I mean, you're not going to win it. Honestly, you're not. The US spend $50bn EVERY YEAR on the "War on Drugs" and still make no dent into the inflow of narcotics. Drugs will always be available and if someone wants to take them, then they are going to irregardless of their legality.

Personally I say legalise them all. Cut out the organised crime, make them safer than the crap that gets sold on the street, tax them and then pump the money into Education, Pensions and Health. This would improve the quality of life in this country, cut down crime by a massive amount as the mafia would then have no substantial source of income, and also save lives.

Bit too radical for most people though; DRUGS ARE EVIL, DRUGS ARE BAD, etc.

People getting addicted to drugs are symptomatic of the ills of society, not because drugs are available (illegally or legally). If you address the social issues, then people won't walk down that path in the first place. So legalise drugs, make society better, and then just get on with your life.

Simple.

Well, England, from a position of having Sri Lanka 162 for 8, contrived to lose the 3rd and final Test. Gah. The current England side is a far cry from the Ashes winning team of last Summer. Michael Vaughan, Steve Harmison, Simon Jones and Ashley Giles are all badly missed right now. What really did worry me though was the tactical and selection errors that happened. In order.

1. Saj Mahmood being left out in favour of Jon Lewis. I have no idea why this was done and it just completely went against Englands selection policy of the last few years. There is no substitute for natural pace and this is something Saj has and Lewis never has or will possess. It made Englands attack too "samey". This was a rare poor decision from Duncan Fletcher.

2. Flintoffs tactics. In the 1st Innings, when we had them on the ropes, England bowled badly. He should have thrown the ball to Monty far, far earlier. Also, his positioning of fielders out on the boundary smacked of panic.

3. Englands body language. Under Flintoff the team just doesn't have that same steely grit and belief they do under Vaughan and you can see it in the field.

4. The middle order collapse in the 2nd Innings. Yes, it was a stiff total but not one player from 3 to 7 managed double figures. That is inexcusable.

All in all, probably the worst day for English Cricket in close to 3 years.