Lacklustre England

England started this game with some more strange selections from McClaren. The England manager obviously thinks his best chance of frightening the opposition now is by picking the ugliest player in the Premiership. It's hard to imagine what other reason he had for picking the inept Phil Neville.

England again put in another lifeless performance. However with twenty minutes left and with Russia winning their game, although a win looked necessary, it also looked easily possible against an unambitious Israeli side. Rooney and Johnson were largely anonymous up front so the England manager had the opportunity to make a decisive impact on the game by bringing on Defoe. McClaren rose to the challenge by bringing on a defender.

To be fair to McClaren he did bring on Defoe for nine minutes at the end of the game and was justified in this choice by Defoe having more chances in the dying minutes than Rooney and Johnson in the rest of the game.

McClaren in his post-match conference said "Poor decisions cost us the game." In his England career McClaren has finally got something right. Let's hope he makes another right call and resigns from the post. The poor man is way out of his depth.