Dismal, dismal England - but we won our skittles match!

England were given huge chance to rectify a poor Euro 2008 qualifying campaign tonight after Israel beat Russia at the weekend. But it was never going to be, and much as it saddens me to say it, they don't deserve to be going to the Euro's next summer. They were dreadful. Parks teams play better football than that. Even Cardiff City play better football than that. No seriously.
Steve McClaren must be must have been one of the worst international coaches in England's history - even Sven is better than him.
Time to take stock.

• We have no automatic right to appear at major championships.
• Maybe we did invent the game, but others are now playing it better than us
• Other countries iften take mediocre players and gel them into a great team. We manage to take great (allegedly) players and turn them into a poor one
• There is insufficient passion displayed by anyone in the england set-up
• The FA must take some responsibility for the appointment of McLaren, the ludicrous state of the Wembley pitch and complacency

How good are England? here are the other teams that finished third in their groups:

• Finland
• Scotland
• Norway
• The Republic of Ireland
• Northern Ireland
• Bulgaria

And three of those (including Scotland) finished with a better points tally than us.

Maybe this will do the England setup some good. Let's get a decent manager in, build a new team from the ground up and aim for World Cup qualification - if our undoubtedly reduced seeding will allow us to get there.

But, on the bright side, we won at skittles tonight. Our site will be updated in the next day or two with all the juicy details.