One suggestion is that the England players have frozen and cannot perform because the expectancy is so high.  But watching England’s first two draws against USA and Algeria you would be forgiven for thinking they had been replaced by look-a-likes.

Wayne Rooney couldn’t control the ball, Steven Gerrard running round like a headless chicken and Emille Heskey??? Well, maybe all the players except Emille Heskey haven’t played as well as they can!

Of course, if England beat Slovenia with a hatful of goals then all this will be forgotten and instead the hype will swing completely the other way.  The media will once again be touting England as likely winners of the competition and the surviving members of the England 1966 team will be wheeled out to give their opinions on how Wayne Rooney, Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard and player manager John Terry will feel when they are crowned champions of the world!

The truth is that England are amongst the top eight best football playing nations in the world and are therefore expected to get to the quarter-finals in South Africa at the very least. Anything less and the trip to South Africa will be deemed a disaster.

While criticism for the England team performances, Fabio Capello’s strict regime, and debates on whether our footballers are even good enough continue Domino’s Pizza has launched a competition on Facebook to find the current squad’s best lookalikes. Maybe a look-a-like England team could play better than the real players!

To enter the Footballer Lookalike Competition, fans can upload a picture of themselves or their friends via the events tab of the Facebook fan page of Domino’s Pizza UK. Every week, Domino’s will hand out free pizza vouchers to the best Lampard lookalike, Defoe double or other imitation of one of Fabio Capello’s chosen 23. Meanwhile, Facebook users can vote for their favourite picture too by clicking ‘like’ under each picture. After four weeks, the public’s favourite will win a free pizza party (worth £100) for the final.

Football fans can also compete for the Domino’s Cup in the online football game On me ‘ead. Prizes include 25 Domino’s Pizza Parties, each worth £100, and various discount codes. Players have to head footballs from one side of the screen to the other, without letting them hit the ground.

So, will England turn it around?

C’mon England! Do it for Bobby Robson and do it for Frank Sidebottom!

Three Shirts on my Line! Home, Away and Goalie!!!

I’m not going to knock the players, because that would be the easy way out of it. What seems obvious to the viewing public is that there seems to be issues deeper than on the pitch, but politically and the way Fabio Capello is running our side.

The England players seemed completely and utterly despondent throughout the match. Some people may put this down to them not wanting to be there, but I put it down to the single minded, conservative style fashioned Fabio Capello who is putting fear into the players minds and is stopping them from expressing themselves on the pitch. What’s naming his side 2 hours before the game all about?  David James didn’t know he was even in the side for this evening until he got on the coach.

I mean look at Diego Maradona the Argentina manager, totally vilified throughout the world’s press but because of the laid back attitude style of his management, his players are able to perform to their capabilities and there is a fantastic team spirit as shown by the whole team and bench jumping, smiling and dancing together. Would you see Fabio Capello do this? No. Do we ever see our players enjoying themselves? No. Is there disharmony within the camp? Yes there is, and it isn’t helping our campaign to win the 2010 South Africa World Cup.

The tactically naive and negative Stuart Pierce is our under 21 coach and Fabio’s assistant. So having Pierce and Capello working together, what we can’t expect is our quality players to play free flowing football with the negativity coming from above. Overall this false dawn under Capello has been a total myth. When he was first appointed England Manager he needed to bring the players down to earth. But ever since then, we’ve played awful football with some of the best players in the world like Steven Gerrard and Wayne Rooney whose main forte is to play expansive football.

Every side needs organisation and the need to be humble, but Capello needs to work out a middle ground between organisation, fear and the ability to let his players express themselves. There is though something about his character that suggests and confirms that he is stubborn and won’t change his all out disciplinarian, mobile phones banned from dinner, bed by 11 and tailored suit wearing ways.

Am I saying he should go if we don’t win on Wednesday? Yes. With the FA appointing him as our manager was them confirming to us as a footballing nation that they were happy to maintain the image of English football being all about `gritty determination, hard working, technically limited but committed, strength over skill and kick and rush football.` This isn’t going to win us anything. Its all about the grassroots as well, the kids need to learn how to play attacking, free-flowing and flexible football.

The fact that Capello has left Joe Cole, the most creative player in the England squad on the bench for the first two games against USA and Algeria, shows his ignorance and shows he has a blind spot when it comes to attacking football that any team from any level needs to win games.

Furthermore, for Wayne Rooney to have the audacity to complain to the camera saying “nice for our home fans to boo us” is a total disgrace. Well Wayne, how dare you say that and degrade the passionate support of our England fans in South Africa currently. The fans over there have spent thousands of pounds flying to South Africa to support England and deserve better.

The players may not understand that our fantastic England fans could still be heard singing our national anthem over the noise of the great Vuvuzela, showing their sheer passion for the cause. Does he acknowledge this? No, because he is an out of touch, arrogant and an over commercialised spoilt child.

So, can on the basis of tonight, England win the World Cup? No we can’t.

Does that mean anything? No it doesn’t because we have another opportunity to win against Slovenia on Wednesday and finish top of the group.

We have got a lifeline, so the players need to grasp it with their manicured hands, otherwise its game and tournament over. Remember, Italy weren’t brilliant in 2006, but they dug in; and France were dreadful throughout the whole competition but still made the final. They achieved scrappy one nil’s here and there and most significantly, stuck together as a unified team unit.

England’s display against Algeria was worse than the French display against Mexico, but if the squad collectively confronted Capello last night with frank, open and honest opinions hopefully issues were resolved. Otherwise we should expect the same again, the same complaints and the same players underperforming.

So c’mon England. We know we put too much pressure on you, but that is because we believe in you as players and that belief is the reason why we’ll beat Slovenia on Wednesday and achieve top spot in the group irrespective of previous performances.

Hosts South Africa have been going through some troubled times on the pitch and sadly some fans are already deciding what team to back after their beloved Bafana Bafana have bowed out of the competition.

But World Cup 2010 Betting suggets that they are no certainties to exit in the opening round, despite a relatively tough draw against France, Mexico and Uruguay which sees them as Group A outsiders.

Although their squad lacks top level experience, especially in the absence of the omitted Benni McCarthy, they have home advantage, a massive fan-base and in their two Central/South American rivals, face two teams with just as many question marks.

While it might be difficult for them to progress, they will certainly give it a fight, as will Nigeria in Group B, a team who find themselves in a position as almost even-money shots to go through with most World Cup betting odds.

A really solid team with plenty of top-flight European experience, if they can get the goals they will need from the likes of Obafemi Martins and Yakubu, they have every chance of seeing off the challenge of Greece and South Korea, if you assume that a somewhat fallible Argentina should progress.

Group C looks far too tough for an Algeria side that has little in the way of form or star quality, and in Group D it is going to be difficult for Ghana to make it through when they are up against strong teams in Germany, Australia and Serbia – that is a four-team race if ever there was one and the loss of Michael Essien was a big blow.

Cameroon should go well in Group E but again it is not an easy group they find themselves in – two European powers in Holland and, to a lesser extent, Denmark, while Japan should not be overlooked based on their pre-tournament performance against England, albeit eventually in unlucky defeat.

And that leaves us with the Ivory Coast, who should really be the continent’s best hope of glory but who have been handed what has to go down as a nightmare draw.

Their Group F opponents basically mean that a win over either Brazil or Portugal is going to be needed to get through to the second round where there is every chance they could come up against Spain! And that is just the opening two rounds – what a story it would be if the Elephants went all the way.