BILLY BUNTER

Weblog: The football punter

It could be worse, we could be Freiburg

HOW painfully predictable.

Fabio Capello resigns and suddenly England are all the rage for Euro 2012. Sorry but I just don't buy it.

Capello definitely had many flaws in the job. You can't question his tactical acumen or his managerial record, but there was more appetite for the job on show when someone began talk of a new mine in Chile.

The Italian obviously wasn't on the same wavelength as many of his players and was massively taken aback by the amount of press intrusion that came with the job.

But isn't all this missing the point? The main problem with the
England team has never been the manager - it's been a succession of moderate players.

We haven't won anything since 1966, for goodness sake, which makes the fact we're constantly put close to teams like Germany and Italy in the betting markets a complete nonsense.

This is hardly a golden generation either because other than Wayne Rooney there's precious little quality in between promising youngsters like Wilshere, Sturridge and Welbeck, and over-the-hill veterans like Terry, Lampard and Gerrard.

Still, at least England are in better shape than Freiburg, whose away form has them firmly rooted to the bottom of the Bundesliga.

Nine away matches have seen the Freiburg goal breached 28 times, leading to just one win, and Wolfsburg are good enough to oblige at odds-on.