No, I think they just don't enjoy it

And although we haven't won anything since the year dot, the reasons we haven't done well in, say, the last five years are different to the reasons we didn't do well in the five years before that.

It is easy to forget that we were actually a decent side in 2002 and 2004. In the Japan/Korea World Cup there?s a very good argument to say we were the second best side there and in 04 we played some fantastic football. We led the QF against Portugal for about 85 minutes! And this was against a really good side, in their own country.

But 2006 was a watershed. Dreadful performances set against massive expectation and everyone stuck the knife in. Since then it?s been as bad, if not worse, and there is a core of England players who simply don?t like the experience of playing for their country.

Yes of course, there are lots of different factors, each contributing in their own way. But the last 10 years of watching England is split in to two distinct periods.

I?ll call one the ?Beckham years? and the other the ?Lampard years?, which I think sums it up neatly.

Posted By: norway, Nov 4, 11:31:38