Time to Think

The football season has not even started for the country’s elite teams and yet we already have one team looking for a new manager and continued debate surrounding the England team and its manager.

The resignation of Martin O’Neill caught many by surprise, something that can not be said about the criticism still being aimed at the head of Fabio Capello.

The England manager has named his first squad since the dismal showing in South Africa and has immediately found himself the focus of yet more criticism from all areas of the media.

However for the first time in a long while it seems as though the mainstream English football press have completely misjudged the public’s view of the situation. A quick read of the reader comments on BBC Sport editor David Bond’s latest blog (http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/davidbond/2010/08/capellos_apology_welcome_but_n.html) reveals that instead of Signor Capello, the majority of England fans appear to place the blame squarely at the feet of the underperforming players rather than the extravagantly paid manager.

In fact, as well as blaming the players, a number of readers have pointed the finger straight at those who write and talk about football for a living. One reader blamed the media for building us all into such frenzy in the weeks leading up to the World Cup. Personally I find that more than a little pathetic, surely we are all capable of making up our own minds when it comes to how good a football team really is.

Pathetic it may be but it does highlight a refreshing change in the attitude of the average fan. The players now know that they are not exempt from the anger of the supporter. No longer can they hide behind the struggling manager or the wrong formation, they must surely now realise that they are the only people who can affect the result once that whistle blows. Surely they must now understand what it means to be a footballer representing your country.

This is something that I am sure we will not find out for a while yet, let alone tomorrow night at Wembley. If we have learnt anything about footballers it is that it takes a while for change to occur. Think evolution, or the movement of glaciers. However we also know that sloth is a word absent from the minds of many sports journalists and their editors and so please do not be surprised that, should England perform well tomorrow night, the whole sordid process of delusion begins again.

And please do not fall into the same trap as before. Think for yourselves.