ENGLAND: A Spurs Fan's View

I realise it's outside of my usual remit, but as I dragged my sorry arse all the way to Wembley for the England game last night I thought I'd give you something to read that doesn't involve Bulgarians or Russians.

Firstly let me say what a brilliant stadium it is; superb views all round, spacious seating and even escalators - yes escalators - that deliver you to the upper echelons. Those of you lucky enough to be there for the Carling Cup final must have been in dream land. A great game and an electric atmosphere in a stadium like this must have been incredible.

Last night however, I was treated to neither.

OK, I wasn't expecting England vs Germany like excitement from the crowd, but the thing that surprised me the most was the amount of booing that goes on. Boos for the Czechs, boos for Lampard, boos for Ashely Cole, boos for Spurs players, boos for slow play, boos for wasteful play, boos for passing to keepers, boos at half time, boos at full time - even boos for the section of the crowd that didn't want to carry on the Mexican wave that was arguably more entertaining than the second half. In fact, the one person who consistently managed to escape the boo-boys was David Beckham - my word how the England crowd love Becks - and rightly so I suppose, he has been a Lion over the years.

Anyway, on to the game and it all looks very much like the motto is Same Old England. Gerrard, Beckham, Lampard and Barry in midfield? I thought we were supposed to be making progress under Capello! Someone needs to sit him down and make him watch every single video of games where Lampard and Gerrard have been on the pitch at the same time.

Is it me or do we have 4 players here who are almost identical in their desire to play it sideways and backwards? None of them can beat a man, none of them have pace to burn, all of them want to play a central role. It's not that I bear any grudges against these players, just that everybody except the man who matters knows they can't all play at once.

No matter what people say, Becks is still dangerous, but I'm sorry to say that his days as a starter should be ended. Barry is capable of being a classy DM but with Gerrard, Lampard and at times even Rooney getting in his way his job was made that much more difficult.

Gerrard on the left - I don't even need to bitch about this one. Capello reckons Gerrard wasn't on the left, was he watching the same game? England were not playing a 4-3-2-1, they may have been told to but it somehow got lost in translation and the players opted for 4-5-1. Lampard...? Well Lampard was Lampard.

Why is it the experts believe that to be successful at international level you need to slow everything down and keep possession for as long as possible. For England this always results in 25 pointless passes around the centre circle and an over ambitious through ball or a long punt to nobody. England need to play with pace. We need trickery, quick ball and a direct style as seen weekly in our glorious league - or shown recently by exciting sides such as the Dutch or the Spanish. We have the players, we just need to get out of the big name mentality.

Last night was another example of an England game crying out for the introduction of a Wright-Phillips, an Ashley Young, or dare I say it - even a Theo Walcott. What we got was Downing for Rooney and another aging relic in Emile Heskey. Heskey is not international class, never was, never will be. Why pick him when our very own Darren Bent is in such blistering form (Saturday's blip aside)?

Finally however, Capello came to his senses and brought on some Spurs players! Woody looked every bit as good as Terry and a hell of a lot better that Rio. How we got this bloke for £7m never ceases to amaze. Jenas, and in particular Bentley tried to inject the kind of urgency we had been waiting for with at least a modicum success.

So all in all it was same same but different:

• The "old guard" couldn't be bothered and nor could the crowd.
• The Spurs contingent did them and their club proud - both by performance and enthusiasm.
• "Possession football" is draining the life out of the international game (for us at least).

England will doubtless lumber their way past the might of Andorra, Khazikstan and Belarus and crow about how they are back on track, it's results that matter, it's all about qualifying, blah, blah, blah. They might even consider a draw in Zagreb a "success", but last night taught me 2 valuable lessons: 1. We aren't going to win anything any time soon as those in charge remain clueless about how to organise the best England team and 2. Never, ever go to an England friendly unless it's to have a day out with the kids.