Is blaming Rob Green simply papering over the ‘real’ cracks?

So England didn’t get off to the perfect start that everybody (including the team) would have wished for in South Africa, but in retrospect a point against the USA last Saturday is better than none…right?

Robert Green would have obviously taken the blame for his disastrous mistake, which led to the 1-1 draw against the US.

However, should the nation really be blaming Green, who made just one mistake in the entire match? Granted it was a bad one, but should we only focus on that one certain incident? Or were there other areas of the team which showed a particular weakness that Capello should look to improve on for the next game against Algeria this Friday?

Capello chose to give the no.1 jersey to Robert Green for their first group C match rather than David James or Joe Hart. He of course may not have been the fans choice, but the Italian entrusted him with the white gloves on the opening night of England’s voyage to the World Cup trophy.

The England keeper performed pretty well and dealt with several attacks which the USA produced. However, the 30-year-old shot-stopper failed to keep hold of a 25-yard drive from Clint Dempsey which wasn’t travelling at any real pace. The low shot trickled off the goalkeeper’s hands and somehow crept into the back of the net. It was a real howler, but despite this moment of madness Green (in some fans eyes) did an ok job in between the sticks.

It’s easy to blame the 2 dropped points on Green, but what about the other players in the team, did they put in a good performance, and equally, the effort to salvage all the points? Even more so, were Capello’s plans and tactics up to par? On all accounts, many would think not.

Capello decided to go with a 4-4-2 formation and for some reason (which is beyond me) chose Emile Heskey over Peter Crouch or Jermain Defoe to partner Wayne Rooney up front.

Emile Heskey will no doubt have to take some measure of the blame for England’s dropped points. The striker had a glorious chance to put England 2-1 up and effectively kill the game off, but instead of showing precision and composure, Heskey opted to smash it straight into Tim Howard’s midriff. Surprisingly the striker was named our man of the match, for what winning a few balls in the air and missing a golden opportunity like always? Quite laughable really.

Heskey has not got a good goal scoring record for his country, in fact its pretty poor, 7 goals in 59 appearances says it all really. As a striker his job is to bang in goals, which he hasn’t been able to do in over a year for his country. Capello can you please enhance England’s chances of lifting the World Cup in July by dropping this clown…he is simply not good enough.

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