Free Bet

Beckham trudged off after 63 minutes and, if nothing else, the moment gave England fans a chance to applaud something as they sat through yet another dismal performance. There's no doubt he's done well to get to 100 caps and he probably has an England future in matches which require his excellent delivery. Unfortunately, the tenacity and energy on which Beckham's game was built a few years ago has gone. Who knows whether this is down to his decision to sell out and move to LA Galaxy?

As usual, the tired old excuses were being wheeled out again after Wednesday night's game. We need time to adapt to a new style, we play too many games, the matches on Sunday took too much out of us...yawn, yawn, yawn.

England went back to playing their old style in the second half and were absolutely dreadful. Peter "Bambi on Ice" Crouch was woeful but this is to be expected as he isn't getting a kick for his club. And as for playing too many games, four of the French starting XI play in the Premiership. Enough with the excuses. Capello set his stall out and said he would pick players on form. Wes Brown was on the bloody pitch again! Two words. Jermaine Defoe. Next...
Fabio Capello is apparently not the linguist many thought he was as he displayed a dramatic failure to grasp the basics of the English language by describing himself as "quite happy" with the performance when he clearly meant "absolutely disgusted." According to BBC Sport, Capello also said England "played with personality". Perhaps the FA should get an interpreter with International experience to help him come to grips with the new language. Someone like Jose Mourinho?

Unfortunately one common England disappointment reared its ugly head again Wednesday night. The goalkeeper. David James has been in sensational form for Pompey over the past few seasons and, had you never seen him play for England before, he'd have been the first name on the teamsheet. However, for those of us that have seen Calamity James in action between the sticks for his country- we know that the Three Lions does silly things to him, rendering his gloves slippy and his decision-making shoddy to say the least.
The sense of déjà vu as he bent down to pick up Clerc's through ball, completely oblivious to the on-rushing Anelka, was sickening. Before the Chelsea striker had completed his triple salko after the contact with James, England supporters united in a collective groan of, "not again". The exact same thing had happened during Euro 2004 when James upended Thierry Henry. France didn't look like they needed Henry, or even Benzema. We really are struggling.

Of course it's early days, but it doesn't look like Capello's learning from his predecessors' mistakes.