Sure

But you could also say we only produced a couple of class performances at France 98 under Hoddle. Tunisia was average, Romania an utter cock-up. History tells us that even successful England sides have to scramble mightily hard to get to the semis: England at Italia 90 (my favourite England side ever, under my favourite manager) were exactly the same. Very good against Holland and Italy, excellent against West Germany; but awful against Ireland, tepid against Egypt, very shaky v Cameroon and outplayed for long spells by Belgium.

I was at the Switzerland and Spain games, so acknowledge how bad (and lucky) we were. But that doesn't take away how strong, how positive we looked against Holland and Germany - nor, indeed, that he even almost cracked our penalty troubles too. Twelve taken in the tournament, eleven scored: not bad at all.

Posted By: thebigfeller, Nov 19, 14:45:26