Much has been made recently on how poor a job Fabio Capello is doing and his inevitable villification and while he certainly has faults the criticism is overdone. He has not become a bad manager overnight and his CV speaks volumes but all the negative press against him overlooks one important fact: England are not a very good football team. Whilst the manager is excessively criticised for poor results so the players are lauded as "The Golden Generation" or "one of the top three players in the world" on the back of a couple of decent performances. This is not a new phenomenon but it seems that if we repeat the mantra often enough we start to believe it. The Premiership is often cited as the greatest league in the world and since the English players mainly play in that league it leads people to conclude that they are the greatest players ignoring the foreign contingent which actually raise the standard. Currently the transfer market has been skewed by Manchester City and to a lesser extent by Chelsea before them and just because they pay £20 million plus for an English player does not mean he is a £20 million + player.
   The recent friendly against France showed how we need to develop our youth but if and when we do it would be reassuring that any young players are not thrust into the spotlight straight away on massive wages with the threat of losing any hunger and repeating the cycle that the next Golden Generation does not become like the current one.