Fabio Capello’s less than spectacular start to life as England coach has been forgotten of late, as the back pages have been dominated by the petrodollars at Manchester City, the mysterious goings on at Newcastle, where Kevin Keegan has not been seen for three days, and Alan Curbishley’s sudden resignation as West Ham manager.

With World Cup qualifiers coming up against Andorra and Croatia Capello will soon have everyone’s attention again … and he is about to discover the size of the task that awaits him.

The Italian was given a tough time by England’s ruthless football writers after an unimpressive 2-2 draw against the Czech Republic last month, when most of the country’s eyes were focused on the battle for gold medals in Beijing.

Only a 10-0 victory against Andorra in Barcelona is likely to gain him plaudits in Sunday’s papers and should England suffer a third consecutive defeat by Croatia, the team that haunted their doomed attempt to qualify for Euro 2008, all hell will break loose.

The Italian has put his head squarely on the chopping block by choosing a squad without the country’s best striker, Michael Owen.

The four strikers he has selected, Wayne Rooney, Emile Heskey, Theo Walcott and Jermain Defoe, have managed just 24 goals between them for England. Owen has 40 on his own.

While Capello could select a bunch of park strikers to beat Andorra, not even considering Owen for the Croatia match, one that could determine the outcome of a tough but not daunting group, could come back to haunt the coach.

Sadly for England, just as the domestic game gets richer and richer, the cupboard looks increasingly bare at international level.

With Steven Gerrard injured there is a real possibility that Fulham’s Jimmy Bullard, an honest player but hardly one to set the pulse racing, could be called in to play a midfield role in Zagreb after his shock call-up.

In some ways that is a refreshing prospect.

With all the money sloshing around the Premier League, the idea that a bloke who learned the game playing non-league football in the Thames estuary can be England’s knight in shining armour restores a little faith in the beautiful game.

PHOTO: Fabio Capello attends an England training session in London Colney, August 18, 2008. REUTERS/ Eddie Keogh

Manchester City fans have always had a good line in terrace songs and their latest offering is “Hey Thaksin, Leave Our Sven Alone” to the tune of Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall”.      

They may still be singing about Eriksson in Europe next season, if Richard Dunne’s final day red card in the 8-1 humiliation at Middlesbrough doesn’t scupper an unlikely route into the UEFA Cup via the wacky Fair Play League.  

City are a less than angelic fifth in the Premier League’s Fair Play stats but the teams above them will all be in Europe anyway. To make matters worse, the system is not even as simple as red and yellow cards or fouls committed. At least that criteria would be black and white.

Instead, Aston Villa and Blackburn Rovers, who finished higher than City, have missed out on the UEFA Cup because they did not tick enough boxes for things like “respect towards opponents” and “positive play”.

City’s hapless defenders would receive glowing references from Middlesbrough’s forwards on the first point.      

Positive play? Well, they definitely can’t be accused of playing for a 0-0….so more credit there then.      

Maybe football should scrap the three points for a win system and just have two teams of show ponies prancing about the pitch while a panel of judges marks them for artistic merit and choreography…It would make more sense than the Fair Play charts.

Martyn Herman, London

When Jose Mourinho burst onto the scene and Chelsea became the new force in English football, there were many who thought Alex Ferguson’s days as Manchester United boss were numbered.      

Those doubters are suddenly running for cover after the feisty Scot steered United to their 17th league title and the 10th of his glittering Old Trafford reign.      

Mourinho has long gone, Liverpool boss Rafael Benitez is still fathoming the secret of the Premier League and new Chelsea manager Avram Grant could be on his way like Jose if Chelsea don’t win the Champions League.      

Men like Ferguson, and Arsene Wenger for that matter, don’t come around often. 

What marks them out above the rest is their ability to constantly evolve new teams while maintaining their own attractive brand of football. Like Bob Paisley at Liverpool in the 1970s and 80s they never make wholesale signings. They are masters at tweaking their squads, replacing wearing parts only when needed.    

Ferguson’s current crop are arguably his best ever side and, apart from a new right back, his transfer wish list will probably be a small one. 

While Cristiano Ronaldo, signed to replace David Beckham, has grabbed the headlines and sackloads of awards for his incredible goal haul, Ferguson’s lesser-hyped recruits have been just as vital to the end product. 

United’s attacking play has TV pundits drooling but their march to the title was built on rock solid defensive foundations.      

United conceded just 22 goals in their 38 Premier League matches, a club record, with Nemanja Vidic and Rio Ferdinand forming probably the best central defensive axis in the country.

Full back Patrice Evra has also displayed solid defensive qualities to go with his raids down the left wing. With such a miserly rearguard and the ball-retaining powers of Owen Hargreaves and Michael Carrick in midfield, Ferguson has been able to unleash his attacking options at will.      

Few neutrals begrudged United another title. Chelsea have proved as tough as old boots to beat, but they have rarely quickened the pulse this season.      

While United have been expansive, Chelsea have been attritional. United regularly blew teams away with attacking verve as Chelsea relied on hard graft and individual moments of brilliance.      

Neither method will be a guarantee of glory in Moscow next week when the two sides contest the Champions League final, but millions of armchair fans around the world will be hoping flair and style shine through.

Martyn Herman, London

British sports fans hoping to cheer on a combined soccer team at the London 2012 Olympics look like being disappointed after an apparent U-turn from Sepp Blatter.

The FIFA president’s advice at the weekend, when he urged the four home nations to select only English players for a British 2012 Olympics team, would make a mockery of the Games. As Andrew McNair writes at Bleacher Report: “It’s almost funny, but I’m not laughing!”

In every other sport at the Olympics,athletes from Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and England compete under the British flag. Sadly, it seems soccer will not conform.

Previously, Blatter had gone on record saying that a Great Britain team could play at the 2012 Games without any danger of the individual associations losing their status in world football.

However at the weekend he said: “They should choose a solution which will not harm the special privileges they hold and should enter only a team composed of players from England.”

Those comments will likely put the final nail in the coffin of an idea that would have allowed for an Olympic celebration of the game in the islands where it began.

Surely it would be good for the Olympics, and world soccer, for a one-off British soccer team to compete for gold medals every four years, and what better place to start it than London?

FILE PHOTO: FIFA President Sepp Blatter attends a news conference in Doha, February 11, 2008. REUTERS/ Fadi Al-Assaad

Since that astonishing day in September when Chelsea ruthlessly showed Jose Mourinho the door at Stamford Bridge, Avram Grant has performed a pretty good impersonation of the special one, at least with results on the pitch.

Until Sunday’s 2-1 League Cup final defeat by Tottenham Hotspur, the Blues were going for silverware on four fronts and even the most pro-Mourinho fans were willing to concede that Grant was doing a decent job.

Now, however, Chelsea supporters may just be starting to question whether they got the wrong man. Round about the same time Mourinho was rewarded for two league titles, one FA Cup and two League Cups with the sack, Tottenham finally landed Sevilla coach Juande Ramos after shamefully undermining former boss Martin Jol.

Ramos, like Mourinho it seems, is a serial winner. He arrived at Spurs having won consecutive UEFA Cups with Sevilla, the European Super Cup and the Copa del Rey. He also took Sevilla to third in the Primera Liga and into the Champions League.

Grant’s time in Israeli football, though impressive, featured four defeats in showpiece cup finals. Now Ramos has given Spurs their first silverware since 1999 and their league form has improved beyond recognition.

Head to head with Grant at Wembley on Sunday, the Spaniard won hands down in all departments.

Grant’s 4-3-3 formation misfired so spectacularly that Chelsea’s only shot on target in the 90 minutes before extra time was the free kick scored by Didier Drogba. Nicolas Anelka was invisible, as was Shaun Wright Phillips, while Joe Cole, Chelsea’s most creative player, sat on the bench until deep into extra time.

Grant’s weekly mantra has been that Chelsea are much better to watch under his leadership. The evidence does not really stack up, however, and it is hard to imagine Chelsea playing such passive football under Mourinho as they did on Sunday. As Blue Champions note, they were lacklustre until a late bout of frenzied pressure.

As for Grant’s motivational qualities, before the start of extra time he stood around like a spare part while John Terry rallied his team mates.

Grant may yet mark his first season with an FA Cup triumph and maybe even land the Champions League. But should they end the season empty-handed, Chelsea fans’ pent-up anger at the treatment of Mourinho could come boiling to the surface, especially if Ramos goes on to clinch a hat-trick of UEFA Cup titles with Tottenham.

Martyn Herman, London

PHOTO: Tottenham’s Juande Ramos celebrates during the semi-final win over Arsenal, Jan. 22 REUTERS/Toby Melville

It would appear that common sense and logic are alien concepts around Newcastle United’s St James’ Park where another manager drove out of the gates for the last time on Wednesday.

Not even eight months after taking over as coach of Newcastle, Sam Allardyce was consigned to the club’s managerial scrapheap.

At least he is in good company. In the 22 years that Alex Ferguson has been winning league titles, FA Cups and European honours for Manchester United, the lesser United have been through 10 full-time managers and numerous caretakers.

Kenny Dalglish, Graeme Souness, Ruud Gullit and Bobby Robson have all tried and failed to stir what is not so much a sleeping giant as a creature of pure myth. After all, the Magpies have not won a trophy since the 1955 FA Cup.

The club’s supporters, the so-called Toon Army, are regularly touted as the “best fans in the country” but they are also notoriously fickle when it comes to supporting the manager.

Allardyce, it seems, was not to their liking right from the start, his functional football at odds with the fantasy football they appear to demand.
 
The problem is fantasy football doesn’t always get you very far.

Kevin Keegan almost cracked it when he took them out of the second division and turned Newcastle into genuine challengers for the title. They blew a 10-point lead in the 1995-96 season as Manchester United reeling them in and Keegan quit a few months later.

Under Bobby Robson Newcastle again challenged the top four and performed well in the Champions League and UEFA Cup, yet after a poor start to 2004-05 he was jettisoned.

Souness (2004-06) and Glenn Roeder (2006-07) came and went in quick succession. Now Allardyce.

Quite who would want the job next is hard to fathom. Not only must Newcastle play dashing, attacking football, they must also be challenging for the title every season.

The gap between them and the top four is now so large that a good three or four seasons would be needed to turn fans’ fantasy into anything resembling reality and let’s face it, nobody gets that long at Newcastle.

Jose Mourinho’s name has been banded about, as has Harry Redknapp’s. But Mourinho probably has his eyes on bigger fish and Redknapp is enjoying exciting times at Portsmouth where expectations are a little more realistic.

Alan Shearer is a Toon idol but has no coaching experience. In a world without logic and common sense, that probably makes him the favourite to become the club’s ninth manager in 11 years.

PHOTO: Former Newcastle United manager Sam Allardyce poses for photographers at his home in Durham, January 10, 2008. Allardyce became the latest example of Premier League impatience on Wednesday when he “parted company” with Newcastle United after half a season with the club. REUTERS/Nigel Roddis

Tottenham Hotspur’s Robbie Keane was controversially sent off in a 3-2 defeat by Birmingham City on Sunday after the referee appeared to consult his fourth official, sparking a fresh debate over the use of video evidence.
 
Keane had scored both goals as Tottenham led 2-1 but at 2-2 was shown a straight red card by Phil Dowd for a tackle on Fabrice Muamba. In most people’s eyes it was a yellow card at worst.

Television pictures showed Dowd talking into his microphone with fourth official Uriah Rennie in the seconds before dismissing the Spurs striker. Dowd has said he was only informing Rennie of the decision.

Rennie did not use a television monitor to review the challenge, but if a referee is going to consult him in some way, why not have a quick glance?

Isn’t it about time fourth officials were given a proper job to do other than patrol the technical area with an added time board?
 
Had Rennie watched the incident on a screen he probably would have told Dowd just to book Keane.
 
Last week Reading’s Stephen Hunt got away with a thigh-high, studs up tackle on Manchester City’s Gelson Fernandes. A quick look on a monitor and Hunt could have paid the full price immediately.
 
Tottenham will appeal but once again another big decision has cost a club dear. Without Keane, Spurs fell apart and their miserable season shows no sign of improving.
 
Martyn Herman, London

PHOTO: Tottenham Hotspur’s Keane is shown red card by referee Dowd against Birmingham City during their home Premier League match, Dec. 2 REUTERS/Dylan Martinez

Football, particularly English football, has got a pretty rough ride in recent months. A predictable top four full of millionaires and foreigners, an embarrassing national side and a Premier League manager getting arrested in connection with a corruption investigation.

My faith in the great game was restored on Friday night, however, when I sat down to watch a televised FA Cup second round tie between tiny, minor league Horsham and an upwardly mobile Swansea City, currently top of League One (the third tier of English football).

What I witnessed brought a warm glow to the soul. Torrential rain, a howling gale, ankle deep mud, a penalty equaliser from a landscape gardener and a giant yellow and green hornet mascot jigging in the puddles.

Lewis Taylor, who scored from the spot six minutes from time, high-fived virtually everybody inside what is known as the Atspeed Stadium at the final whistle (although calling it a “stadium” might be bending the truth somewhat).

Swansea, the relative aristocrats, gallantly tried to knock the ball about. They deserved their lead and should have killed off the tie. But Horsham, seventh in the Ryman Premier League, effectively the sixth level of the pyramid, refused to sink on the biggest night in the club’s 126-year history.

On came deaf substitute Lee Farrell and it was he who won the penalty that produced wild scenes of celebration and earned Horsham a replay in South Wales.

After 90 absorbing minutes of goalmouth scrambles, juddering tackles, mud-soaked shirts and no little skill, what really shone through was the complete lack of play-acting, bawling at the referee or foul-mouthed chanting.

Both sets of players were a credit to the sport and one was left to wonder why it can’t be like this every week.

The draw for the third round took place on Sunday and that means the big clubs are all now in the competition. It’s odds on either Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea or Liverpool will win it, and you can bet half the Premier League clubs will field weakened sides.

Whatever else was wrong with the England football team in the past there was always the reassuring fact that the man between the posts was one of the best in the world.

As a young boy I was convinced that English goalkeepers like Peter Shilton, Ray Clemence and Joe Corrigan were super-human, unbeatable, blessed with magical ball-stopping powers.

Obviously I was wrong, but then again the only argument regarding the No.1 shirt in those days was whether Shilton was slightly more brilliant than Clemence or vice versa.

Shilton, who barged 1966 World Cup winning keeper Gordon Banks out of the Leicester team as a teenager in 1967 and eventually replaced him for England, went on to win 125 caps and play in three World Cups.

I still remember one sensational save he made against Poland in a World Cup qualifier in 1989 that effectively sealed England’s place in Italy the following year.

Poor old Clemence, who kept goal for Liverpool as they dominated English football in the 70s. He would have been an automatic choice in pretty much every other country in the world but was restricted to 61 caps.

Arsenal’s David Seaman continued the trend, seizing the goalie’s shirt after Shilton’s international retirement to rack up 75 England caps. He was never quite as reliable though.

Now, the days of England fans taking the last line of defence for granted appear to be over.

Scott Carson kept a clean sheet on his debut for England against Austria on Friday and there is a suspicion that he may keep his place for the final Euro 2008 qualifier against Croatia on Wednesday.

That would have been unthinkable in days gone by, chucking a rookie into such a vital game, but coach Steve McClaren may have run out of confidence in first choice Paul Robinson. He has been error-prone all season, blundering against Croatia away, against Germany in a friendly and was also not blameless in the defeat in Russia.

Despite approaching 50 caps, he has never inspired the same confidence as Shilton, Clemence or Seaman (a situation not helped by the comedy gloves he wears that appear to be about four sizes too big).

However the options are limited these days. Carson, on loan from Liverpool at Aston Villa, has potential, but veteran David James, a superbly athletic stopper but guilty of moments of madness, is surely coming to the end of his career. West Ham’s Robert Green, Wigan’s injury-prone Chris Kirkland, and Manchester United reserve Ben Foster are all on the fringes. The chances of any of them getting near Shilton’s century of appearances appear remote.

Oh, for the days of green jerseys, Shilton’s frizzy perm and Clem’s sideburns. England were in safe hands back then.

PHOTO: Shilton saves a shot on goal by Argentina in the first half of the quarter-final of the World Cup June 22, 1986. Argentina won 2-1 at the Estadio Azteca in Mexico City. Scanned from negative. REUTERS/Gary Hershorn

England are teetering on the edge of failure to qualify for a major tournament for the first time since the 1994 World Cup finals. According to the doom-mongers it would be a disaster for the national sport if they are not at Euro 2008.

But while it might be painful to the egos of the millionaire players and the money-counters at the Football Association, failure could be the best thing to happen for the long-term health of the England national team.

Reading manager Steve Coppell said the status quo in English football was a “recipe for failure” for the national team, citing Arsenal’s completely foreign starting 11 on Monday night as a stark illustration of the problem.

Coppell is advocating a quota of English players in Premier League squads, while Liverpool’s Steven Gerrard also went on record this week to voice his concern at the ever-falling percentage of English players appearing regularly for the big clubs.

It is ironic that despite the millions spent paying the country’s superstars and the millions spent promoting the Premier League as the best league in the world, England are dependant on Israeli players they have never heard of to save their skin.

But if Israel do beat Russia and England then beat Croatia to scrape into the finals, would it not simply fuel the problem? English football would gain more profile, the money would pour in, and clubs would simply recruit more and more foreign stars.

If fans want a national team they can be proud of, maybe they have some hard choices to make. Do they want the fantasy football of Arsenal to spice up dark winter nights in front of the TV, or will they accept an inferior product with English players in the leading roles, but with the prospect of actually winning the 2018 World Cup which could potentially be on home soil?

It may be 11 years away, but failure to reverse the shrinking pool of genuine “world class” players eligible to pull on an England shirt could result in any home World Cup becoming a sense of acute humiliation.