Come on, Dyer hasn't played as a full back in years, and certainly not for the national side. Phil Neville is little more than a utility player at the moment. He can play in a variety of positions, but not all of them well.

Note that I said Carragher's England form, not his Liverpool form. The national side works very differently from the Reds', and Carragher may not be able to play at his best under Sven's set up.

As for Owen and Beckham having been largely untested, they'd played in numerous friendlies, back when friendlies were taken more seriously, and players were able to spend more than 45 minutes on the pitch. Plus, they were putting in outstanding performances in the league, too. Tottenham's defence has been a shambles this season. Granted, that's not entirely King's fault, but he has to take some of the blame.

My point about Scholes was that there are far better options for Sven. Rather than have Gerrard and Beckham do his work for him, Lampard could take up the attacking midfielder role, leaving Gerrard and Beckham with more freedom to do other jobs of the pitch. There's nothing wrong with Joe Cole's passing, it's just that he doesn't do enough of it, and loses possesion needlessly on occasion.

You're right, we don't use wingers. I was referring to the position wide on the left side of midfield, which is often called incorrectly by pundits the left wing. Some of that has rubbed off on me. Sorry about that.

You can't take a few good matches and call it fighting spirit. What about Macedonia, or Greece? These are teams that we should have beaten easily, but somehow struggled against. Turkey '04, Germany '01, Argentina '02. None of those are examples of fighting spirit. They were simply good performances, where the team had the confidence it neede to pay well. Germany '00 we simply fell apart. The fact is, when this team is disheartened, it plays poorly. An opener against France is not exactly a confidence booster, is it? When we're 1-0 against the best that Europe has to offer, that's when we need our fighting spirit, and England just give up too easily when they're on the ropes. Sure there are exceptions, but if we can't perform in just a single game of our Euro 2004 campaign, it could all be over. We need consistent top-class performances from every player on the pitch, and I can't see it happening.

Still, I hope they can manage it.