…or “managing England without musical accompaniment”.

Fabio Capello is the second non-Englishman to take over as manager of the England football team. Like Sven, his track record was (mostly) established in Italy. Unlike Sven, he has a reputation of being more defensively minded: he came with the impression that the important thing to do in the game was to win, and you’d take a guaranteed 1-0 as opposed to a 70% chance of winning 7-0. He also came with a reputation for insisting things were done exactly how he wanted, whether this was tactics or squad discipline.

It really is too early to judge him: it will be more appropriate to judge him when England play the better nations — and of the other teams in England’s group, only Croatia are rated in FIFA’s top 10. During attempts to qualify for major tournaments, you tend — as one of the major footballing nations — to come up against many weaker sides. You’re expected to qualify.

The time to really assess how good a manager is comes when they are under pressure. When they are playing a better team; or when they are a goal down. In important games, tournament finals and the like (although I’m more than happy to judge England managers who don’t achieve qualification as not good enough). On that basis, it’s far too early to judge Capello.

But as it doesn’t seem to have stopped anyone else, I’ll chip in.

One of the things I’ve noticed about Capello’s reign is the sheer amount of times people have been critical of England’s performances. Players have been “disappointing”, performances have not been good enough, and so on.

Two-goal hero Joe Cole spared England’s blushes as Fabio Capello’s side began their World Cup qualifying campaign with a stuttering victory over AndorraBBC News, 6 September 2008

The next game saw an unexpected 4-1 win in Zagreb against a strong Croatian team, where England were seen as ‘inspired’ by some sources, but for others, even Theo Walcott’s hat-trick didn’t see him exempt from criticism…

Despite his hat-trick, Walcott began the match very poorly in Croatia. He couldn’t control the ball, he looked very edgy and nervous. I would even go so far as to say that I wouldn’t necessarily pick him on the right flank against Kazakhstan and Belarus. Chris Waddle, quoted in The Metro, 8 October 2008

And normal service (criticising the performances as a whole) were resumed for the next match.

Three goals in the final 14 minutes put a gloss on an underwhelming England performance this evening, as they spluttered to a 5-1 win over the world’s 131st ranked team. The Wembley crowd obeyed the calls of Fabio Capello and resisted the urge to boo his team, despite a turgid first half where his team failed to carve out any clear-cut chances.The Guardian, 11 October 2008

I’m not entirely sure how winning 5-1 can be described as ‘underwhelming’, mind you…

Belarus tested a shaky David James with some long-range efforts as well and Capello was doing his nut on the touchline – as he had against Kazakhstan last weekend. [...] Belarus were looking dangerous though and it was no huge surprise when they equalised at the end of an amazing 23-pass move.The Sun, 16 October 2008

Right, so that’s now four wins out of four for Capello, yet still people are looking far from convinced, even when England take a late victory over Ukraine to make it five from five…

Fabio Capello spent 11 uncomfortable minutes in which he learned just how confounded so many previous England managers had felt. His erratic side had been flagging well before an equaliser from the substitute Andriy Shevchenko.The Guardian, 1 April 2009

The Mail perhaps highlight the problem with football journalists, who normally can’t be accused of a lack of imagination…

Yet no-one who witnessed the extraordinary opening half-hour of a game played out against the stunning backdrop of the snow-capped Tian Shan mountains could have predicted such a comfortable result for Fabio Capello’s team. In that remarkable period, some of the world’s most exalted players were played off the pitch by a Kazakhstan team fuelled by a combination of frenzied nationalism, which had engulfed the faded grandeur of Almaty’s Central Stadium, and their own physical endeavour.Daily Mail, 7th June 2009

Let’s just look at that. “No-one who witnessed the extraordinary opening half hour [blah] could have predicted such a comfortable result”. Why not? According to the press, England have been “poor”, or “shaky”, “disappointing” or “nervous” in all but one of their qualifying games so far, and they have won every single one of them.

They are now in a position where wins against Andorra and Belarus would be enough to secure top spot, irrespective of our results against Croatia and Ukraine. I don’t know about you, but I’ve witnessed England taking some time to get into the game but emerging comfortably on top in er… pretty much all of our qualification games so far to believe that it’s entirely possible that England could repeat it once more.

I can only presume that the football journalists either hadn’t seen, or couldn’t remember England’s previous games.

But from my opinion, England are playing well. Six games, six victories; virtually assured of qualification with four games to play. Winning. Not always being on top for the whole game, but being the ones ahead at the end of it. If that’s a disappointing performance, another four of them will do me quite nicely.

For that matter, I wish Newcastle had achieved a few more of those sorts of “disappointing performances” last season…