The FIFA rankings will be announced on Thursday, but several websites are using the official methodology and have calculated that England will be ranked at No.20 (from the current No.10) - this will be the worst drop in England's history : they dropped six places after Euro 2008.

The official top 4 is expected to be 1. Germany 2.Argentina 3. Netherlands 4. Colombia

This would not be surprising considering how many of the teams currently ranked immediately below England out-performed England in the world cup,

11 Belgium
12 Greece
13 USA
14 Chile
15 Netherlands
17 France
20 Mexico
21 Bosnia and Herzegovina
22 Algeria

Is Brazil not no.4?

I suppose they have a year to get back into a seeded European spot for the next World Cup qualifying draw in about a years time.

They wouldn't want a qualifying group with the likes of Germany, Netherlands

Brazil's projected ranking is No.8 in fact

This is certainly pretty poor stuff from England. Their lowest ever ranking was No.24 in May 1996.

Not that we Irish are in any position to crow. The Republic of Ireland have slumped to a disastrous No.70 after failing to win a single one of their six matches in 2014.

Those rankings show just how bizarre the FIFA system is.

I really don't understand why England generally rank in the top 10 when we haven't beaten a top side in a competitive match since 2002.

At least then we had the excuse of no competitive matches for 2 years due to not needing to qualify for Euro 96. No such excuse this time.

Yes, in real terms it's the worst ever placing as it comes after a run of competitive matches.

England would want to be very careful or they could end up being second seeds for WC 2018 and could find themselves in a group containing Germany or the Netherlands, which would probably mean having to go through the play offs at best to qualify.

Rankings are very weird full stop. In rugby Argentina are usually ranked around 5 or so even though they never beat a team placed higher than them (1-4 etc) and rarely beat a team placed lower then them (5-10 etc) But it's only by beating the higher placed teams do you actually get any decent points.

We'll probably play a few "winnable" friendlies now to boost our position starting with Norway...

Cannot really complain!

Perhaps England should just not bother to take part at all. If they are more fussed about League games, then OK.

Struggle for england if they arent seeded in the top rank. If theyre lucky, they get switzerland.

Because we qualify for every tournament fairly easily that's why.

We usually qualify, but i wouldn't say we do it easily. It usually involves a stressful final game where we just about do what's required to qualify.

And they've been very lucky with qualifying groups in recent years. Ukraine (twice) and Russia are the only sides of note they've been paired with, neither of whom are any great shakes in the general scheme of things.

And how many decent sides do we ever beat during qualifying?

Our top ten status is totally undeserved.

I think England have been flattered by ending up in a series of straightforward qualifying groups. You pick up more points in competitive matches than in friendlies and it's probably this that lifted them into the top 10.

The top ten status is gone anyway.....looks like they'll be No.20 when the rankings are announced later today.

Mitigating circumstances as England didn't play a competitive match between November 93 & June 96 due to hosting Euro 96 & failing to qualify for the 94 World Cup.

Since 2000....

Greece
Germany
Turkey
Poland
Austria
Poland
Russia
Croatia
Croatia
Bulgaria
Switzerland
Poland

All of these are decent but not great teams with the exception of Croatia, but then again you can only beat the teams you are drawn against, When England have been drawn against good teams like Germany and Italy they have won the group!

I think the top 20 position is still very generous. Any business and the directors had not performed since 2002 would have been fired, and shut down.

I do think 20 is okay, maybe a bit generous.

Out of the 32 teams at the World Cup we weren't the worst, but came bottom of a group in which the top two teams didn't get that much further in the end.

Going by this we came approx 25-30th in the World Cup.

No we usually qualify pretty easily.

So using a complex mathematical formula where would you suggest we should be ranked? Thats what FIFA use, so unless you have a similar model then it's difficult to argue.

But doesn't England usually make the quarter finals at major tournaments? So the top 10 rating wasn't so way off. Obviously they were terrible this year and deserve the drop to 20th.