I'm proud to be English, we managed to scrape a draw against a better side who had more chances(did England have any?) and aside from Joe Hart and maybe Stones they players all played better individually.

I just hope we show passion against Scotland as passion is under rated. The players definitely need to be more passionate with each other.

I'd love to agree that it's all the fault of the the Premiershit, but watching England this summer and in these qualifiers it's really hard not to feel that a lack of real quality on the pitch is the fundamental problem.

England have a lot more possession than they used to but they do nothing with it; there's a couple of really incisive passes per game at best and when one does come we don't have a world class striker to make a great pass count. Sturridge is currently the best of a very average bunch, which is why he's getting his game.

Another 50 players of the same general quality as the current England squad wouldn't turn the team into world beaters - or even losing semi-finalists.

The ironing of your statement is the lack of quality on the pitch is down to the premiership and the greed of chairman to chase the money and forget about developing our own.

Watch the ITV4 programme, it all makes sense.


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David conn called it in the summer. We have the national team we deserve.


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England have no identity and no style of play, we don't seem to ever dominate games and nobody is excited to watch us play. We almost have a sense of entitlement and that we should always do well because we are home to the "best league in the world". Fact is the foreign players who play in the premiership make it the "best league in the world".

We promote players far too easily and they don't have a chance to develop through the age groups like other countries. These days if you're young, play for Man Utd and have a few decent games you get an instant call up. If Lingard played for Stoke would he be called up? I very much doubt it. Players like Theo Walcott who has been poor for Arsenal for quite some time still manages to get a call up. I can't see anything changing regardless of who takes charge.

Premier league teams have to be forced to play a certain number of English players. Surely leaving the EU will allow that?

That's the only way they will genuinely care about English youngsters, bring them through and give them the first team football they need to prove themselves and improve.

For me it's as simple as that, no need to alter mickey mouse tournaments or reserve competition rules. We'd actually have competition for places throughout the squad rather than picking players that have barely played all season.

No, I get the argument, but it doesn't make me believe that there are dozens of potential Gazzas or Gareth Bales who haven't developed their full potential because they've not had the chance.

Plenty of reasonably talented English lads who the likes of Watford would do just as well with as their foreign journeymen, yes. But top, top players?

Do you think if there was an English Messi kicking a ball around as a kid 15 years ago he wouldn't have made it as a professional footballer in this country?

i`d never even heard of most of northern irelands players,but they did equally as good as england at the euros

Didn't they lose three out of four matches!? The format of the competition was the only reason they progressed really even though it was good to see them at a tournament.

Are England a significantly worse since the introduction of the Premiership? We've had periods in the past were we've been less than average. We've failed to qualify for major tournaments in the 70's and 90's. Was that the Premier Leagues fault as well? Good international teams are cyclical sometimes smaller nations like Bulgaria and Romania get together a good group of players for a short time frame and strong. Uraguay and Hungary have been the best teams in the World in certain periods. France and Spain have gone through periods when they are poor. You could argue that it's harder for young players in England to break into a top flight team these days so to do so they need to be of a higher standard than previous eras. I don't think this England group of players is that bad.

they might be a good group of players,but how is it possible for such a group to play so badly as they did against iceland...northern ireland never played as bad as that,in fact germany or italy have never been known to play as badly as that.what is wrong with england?

Yeah Germany have never played as bad as that, they were fantastic when we beat them 5-1 in Munich. Also in Euro 2000 when we beat them, they were a top side then. Even the most consistent International team had a blip.

I think it's more mentality than ability, they know the clag they are going to get from the gutter press back home and they retreat into a shell to a point that can't pass a ball five yards.

the top nations always seem to have a plan or system or playing style even that they stick to.i can remember watching germany and italy in 1970 and they look no different today.we were very good in 1970 as well.these days it never even looks like we have any kind of plan,its more like lets see what happens on the day.the time when we beat germany 5-1 we had a good day,germany werent particularly bad as i remember.i can never remember italy ever being embarrassing,apart from some dodgy tackling.