Skysports.com scans this morning's papers and finds Fleet Street demanding recriminations.
As one might expect, there's a fair amount of bile and demands for recriminations in the morning papers, with a number of Fleet Street's finest demanding Italian blood, and soon...
There's a fair amount of bile and demands for recriminations in the morning papers following England's limp World Cup exit on Sunday. Germany's 4-1 demolition job sees the press pack foaming at the mouth and it is Fabio Capello who's most feeling their wrath.
Unsurprisingly, Oliver Holt of
The Daily Mirror leads the way.
'A legend turned into a myth before our eyes at the Free State Stadium yesterday. Fabio the Tyrant, Fabio the Great Dictator, Fabio the Scourge of the Baby Bentley Brigade, Fabio Our Saviour: lost in a fetid pool of disillusion and dismay.
'In his place, an ageing, out-of-touch England manager whose team played football out of the Dark Ages at this World Cup. In his place, an arrogant man who could not adapt to the demands of tournament football. A man who blew it. Spectacularly...
'Capello blew it. I mean, baby did he blow it...It's time for change. Capello has paralysed this team, not inspired it. He must be the first to go.'
The Sun's Steven Howard warms to the theme:
'As for Fabio Capello, should he contemplate staying on after this he must have a death wish. Regardless of the quality of a set of players who represent the weakest squad ever to leave England, his standing as a manager has been shredded by a series of blunders.
'The latest - his decision to play Matthew Upson after the West Ham defender's error-strewn display against Slovenia - defied all known logic. Anyone - or anyone, it seems, apart from the England coach - could see it was recipe for disaster against the bright, quick and technically-gifted Germans.'
Pulses are slightly slower in the 'quality' papers. Slightly. However,
The Daily Telegraph's Henry Winter still believes it is time for a change.
'Even after this embarrassment, even when presented with the distressing evidence, even when stepping over the stiffening corpse of England's World Cup campaign, Fabio Capello refused to acknowledge that his system was to blame. As Capello won't change his system, England must change the manager.
'They think it's all over for Capello. It can't be long now. He will on Monday talk to Sir Dave Richards, the chairman of Club England, but the FA and its expensive Italian now appear locked in a loveless marriage, heading for the divorce courts and a tidy pay-off.'
Matt Dickinson in
The Times has a little more sympathy for the coach.
'Anyone got a number for Jose Mourinho? Although last night, amid the wreckage of another World Cup campaign, we were left to wonder if managing England could turn even Mourinho into Mike Bassett. That's what the job has done for Fabio Capello; serial winner, a guarantor of success until he slipped on England's toxic tracksuit.
'The role has even made a mug of Capello, sticking a big, ugly black mark on his impeccable CV; knocked out of the World Cup finals in the last 16, thrashed 4-1 by Germany, his team utterly outclassed.'
Paul Hayward writes in
The Guardian:
'England have pulled off the memorable feat of daubing failure on to the managerial CV of Capello, who had been unfamiliar with the concept until this World Cup, but much of the ink is his. His players are heading for a dumping ground of reputations far more malodorous than the one he currently stands on. Yet it turns out the martinet was no more able to coax tournament-winning form from these household names than Sven-Goran Eriksson, the king of laissez-faire.
'With another splurge on foreign expertise - Capello earns more than £5m a year, and his five Italian assistants/friends will not come cheap - the FA thought it had found the antidote to Eriksson's starstruck geniality and the drift of the Steve McClaren years.'
Perhaps slightly surprisingly, it's over to
The Daily Mail for a staunch (ish) defence of the Italian.
Matt Lawton writes: 'what would the future hold if Sir Dave Richards and his colleagues did now decide to cut their ties with the Italian? Do we really believe Roy Hodgson would do a better job when there is nothing in his record to suggest he is a better manager than the man currently occupying the role?
When the problem clearly runs so much deeper than the identity of the guy in charge. With Capello, at least, the FA have someone who now probably has the best idea of what those problems are.
'A manager of considerable experience and expertise who could spend the next two years both rebuilding the team and drawing up a blueprint for England's future. England do have to start again after this. Call time on a few international careers and focus on the next World Cup, which right now looks beyond this current crop of under achievers. The FA have to pay Capello anyway. The best part of £12million if they want him to go now or over the next two years.
'They should get their money's worth and start the recovery process immediately with Capello at the helm.'
Finally, James Lawton articulates what is surely the primary problem for England in
The Independent:
'Capello left no player behind in England who might have significantly affected this latest example of German football's ability to remake itself into a formidable force every four years. And that those he brought to South Africa, whether it was because we grossly overestimated their ability, or (as Franz Beckenbauer has been suggesting so strongly these last few days) that they were indeed burnt out from too much football, simply were not equal to the challenge...
'For England, there was the pain of victimhood but also a terrible fact that could not be ignored. It was that they were leaving the World Cup, more than anything, for the most basic of reasons. They were simply not good enough.'
