You can put that down to the manager 100% though.

Taylor still had some very good players to work with, but he didn't pick them. I still remember his refusal to play Chris Waddle even though he was playing out of his skin for Sheffield Wednesday. Totally crazy decision from a f**king useless manager.

The problem we have now is very different. Our squad is absolute shit and I don't think any manager could get much out of this bunch.

England have been in decline since 1966. There isn't a manager alive who could win the World Cup with England and it won't happen before 2066 either.

Play-offs are a relatively new thing, it used to be group winners and that was it, but back then there were only 33 European Countries now following the break up of the USSR and Yugoslavia plus some smaller nations being added we now have 53 European Countries (or may be 54 with Gibraltar).

Many people also fail to remember that even though the English League didn't have many foreign players (unlike today), we didn't class Scottish, Irish or Welsh players as foreign, so even though we had the only 4 foreign players allowed rule like other countries we never had a guaranteed 7 for the home nation playing unlike other countries. It'll be interesting to see what happens in the Premier League if the UK votes to leave the EU as a lot of the foreign players won't have EU employment law protection and will be classed the same as non-EU players are now with numbers restricted (the Bosman ruling as it was an EU law might not apply anymore either).

That's some incredibly specific wild guessing.

Roy Hodgson took a squad that had more players in the 2010 World Cup than any other PL side (including two who played in the final), had reached a European semi final the season before and had (apart from two players) trounced Real Madrid some 18 months previously to having to stave off relegation.

Somehow I think another manager could do a marginally better job.

As for the thread title, although it's not World Cup would McClaren's side not come under this umbrella?

And that was the first tournament I watched

Clarke, chivers, channon, hateley. Mcdonald,

Where are our centre forwards now.

Taylor was so bloody rubbish, why on earth do the BBC value his opinion on radio.

Armfield was always interesting.

30 years ago and further back every english team got loads of scottish players in their teams, most had scottish feeder clubs. Man utd had lou macari, and strachan. Liverpool had dalglish and souness. Loads more. Archie gemmill of trainspotting fame played for Derby.

They dont seem to come down here now.

When jacky charlton managed ireland he hunted out english league players with an irish qualification.

Scotland dont seem to do that any more. If i was a scottish manager, i would be looking hard for players in england qualified to play.

This is a very tough group.

FIFA World Rankings:

Uruguay 7th
Italy 9th
England 10th
Plus Costa Rica who appear to be a lot better than their 28th placing might indicate.

Italy and Uruguay are usually the type of teams we'd expect England to meet after we've qualified for the next round, not before.
Usually there are two teams who are obvious qualifiers, of which we expect England to be one. But to have to face two difficult teams to beat for any team, let alone England, plus Costa Rica who look to be one of the best of the 'minnows', then this group is really tough.

True.

Our Euros record was poor at one stage though.
Didn't qualify in 1984.
We got no points in the group games in 1988 (including a 1-0 defeat against Republic of Ireland in an appallingly bad game).
2 points to finish bottom of the group in Euro 1992.

Three very poor tournaments in succession


We have no right to succeed

He was also one of our best players in last night's game.

I think nationality rulings in domestic football varied from country to country in the old days.

For example, I think Portugal often had many Brazilians in their league

Another reason to vote to leave Europe in any future referendum!

They certainly were not feeder clubs.
English teams didn't buy mainly from one Scottish club