England's Inevitable World Cup Tactics

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Let's just get this over with before we have to suffer through mid-June.

We'll draw against the States and Algeria, then beat Slovenia by 2 goals to scrape first place in the group and get some false hope going around the nation.

Then Australia will take us to extra time before a Frank Lampard deflected effort off the scoreboard, corner flag, goalkeeper, post and finally crossbar gives us the win - despite never actually having crossed the line.

We'll then lose on penalties in the quarter finals.

The Same Again

This is despite Capello's facade of a new England. Mentally, this may be true but we've been beaten fair and square on the pitch at recent tournaments and the way we still play suggests that's not likely to change. We're still such a good target for other teams to beat - we're a bigger scalp than our talent suggests and this is a massive motivator for our opponents.

At The Back...

Terry's lack of pace over this season makes him an able replacement for Sol Campbell at the last World Cups he played in. Rio Ferdinand will make one or two mistakes that will cost us.

Ashley Cole will make some fantastic goal line clearances (see arrow on pitch), and mark Ronaldo out of the game single handedly if we play Portugal. Other than that he'll be the irrelevant, whinging little twat that we all know and hate.

Glen Johnson will do his best impression from right back but Aaron Lennon will offer him no help defensively so he'll have to deal with the pace of wingers single handedly.

The Left Midfield Problem was never Solved

Gareth Barry will do his best to cover for Lennon. In that respect, together they're a pretty good right midfielder, but unfortunately that takes up 2 spots in our 11.

Gerrard will play at left midfield but will constantly drift inside, leaving us with no width.

Lampard will run around the middle of the pitch and have the ball lots but never any options in front of him. So he'll shoot from distance and miss, or give it away.

Rooney's Frustration

The fragmentation of our midfield and lack of options there will lead Ferdinand, Terry and James to play classic Allardyce-style route 1. Heskey will win the ball every time - and also give away a foul to make up for it.

Rooney will become frustrated and wander back into midfield to try to get the ball. Unable still to control his temper, he'll collect his allocation of yellow cards early and miss the quarter final. Our team, which had relied on his magic to get to the quarters, will be pathetic with Defoe in his place and we'll lose. Maybe managing to drag the game out to penalties first.

Just because, you know, the English public don't suffer enough.

Now I've got that out the way I can enjoy the World Cup!