Let's look at the facts

Before we all go over the top analysing England's performance again...actually, what am I saying? Far too late for that! But really, some perspective is required once more.

First, the truth that has completely passed the media by - Group B is crap! All 4 games played so far have been complete shitefests, filled with turgid, directionless, one-dimensional garbage. It really doesn’t help that two teams in the Group are interested only in defending, whilst the other two rely heavily on defence being the strongest area of their game. The only thing that saved us (as fans I mean – I never use ‘we’ or ‘us’ when referring to England) yesterday was that the idea of England not beating T&T was so implausible that the closer it came to becoming reality, the more the tension mounted. In short, the same reason that made T&T v Sweden a watchable game on Saturday. Thus, these games at least had an element of drama that the other two games in the group have sadly lacked, but on the whole Group B has been a good excuse to get your shopping done.

Second, England are through to the next round. In fact, but for Sweden's late winner, England would have already won the group. Imagine what France would give for that position. If you offered the French a 1-0 win with a terrible performance against South Korea on Sunday, they'd snap your hand off. So it could be worse.

Third, England have perhaps the best defensive unit seen in the tournament so far. Ok, they haven’t come under an enormous amount of pressure, but apart from one incident where John Terry was forced to make a spectacular goalline clearance (an incident which was no fault of any defender - more on this later), the opposition have not been near the England goal in two games. Even the most impressive looking teams so far have had at least one or two chances created against them.

On top of all this remember that the excitement of the World Cup leads to England being unbelievably overrated. England are undoubtedly under par – but it’s unlikely that England’s par would be anywhere near good enough. England went into the tournament hoping that they could find the inspiration to play well above themselves, this is very difficult to achieve and a lot to expect.

So it certainly isn't all bad. Just some of it. The main criticism you would have to make of England yesterday was a complete lack of imagination. Yes, T&T were a very disciplined outfit, who concentrated on getting their defensive basics right, and not making errors. But honestly, does it really take something that special to get past Gillingham stalwarts? Admittedly it’s never that easy to break down a team that puts up a brick wall, whatever their class, but the worrying thing was that England never recognised that their tactics weren’t working, or worse still, were aware of that but had no alternative. The manager surely has to be questioned here - England looked like a team who had been told to stick to their guns come what may. Whether that’s true or not, where was the order after 20 mins to abandon plan A and try something else? Whatever, nothing changed, even at half-time, and we were forced to watch one diagonal ball after another find the head of a centre-back. Only when Eriksson finally came to his senses and put genuine wide men on the pitch did England start to actually test the T&T rearguard. I personally could not resist giving an ironic cheer when Lennon immediately went past his full back (possibly the first England player to do so in the World Cup so far). The move actually gave the whole match a lift, as if this tiny injection of pace and creativity suddenly opened the whole team’s eyes to what they should be doing. At the same time you could sense the fear increasing amongst the T&T players, a collective thought of ‘bugger, we’ve been rumbled here lads’. It really shouldn’t have been that hard to work out.

Nor should it require a superb last minute goal in order to deduce that Gerrard is being utterly wasted playing in his own half of the field. This situation has gone far enough, someone in the England management team just needs to grow some balls and tell Frank Lampard that there just isn’t room for him in the team. Not his fault, fantastic player, it’s just his bad luck he plays in the same position as someone better. If you had two world class goalkeepers would you play them both just because you thought it was a shame to leave one out? Great teams all have one thing in common – balance. The two of them playing together has consistently robbed England of this most crucial ingredient.

Ah yes, I mentioned goalkeepers. Interesting little footnote I think. It appears to have gone completely unnoticed that Paul Robinson looks as dodgy as hell. He has had virtually zero to do in two games, yet has still managed to drop or misjudge 3 crosses, one of which would have led to a T&T goal had he not been rescued by Terry. I think England need to hope that his lack of activity is to blame for this, because if you transfer that sort of form into a game when he actually sees some serious action, they have a major problem. It seems just as well he has been so expertly protected so far.

So on reflection, do the pros outweigh the cons? I’m still no nearer deciding!