Sorry, but I won't be biting my nails when England play Malta, ranked 176 in the world rankings in October. When Alf Ramsey substituted Bobby Charlton and Martin Peters twenty-two minutes before the end of the quarter-final game against Germany in 1970 and Harold Wilson lost the election it's been downhill ever since, apart from David Platt's volley against Belgium in 1990, which lifted the nation's spirits momentarily.
I see there's to be some new investment in grass roots football, and so there should be when the transfer window reaches £1 billion expenditure, but isn't it 50 years too late, as the recent defeat to 300,000 population Iceland attests? I still don't understand why the head of the FA didn't resign, whoever he is. The ratio of English players in our own national league has fallen to a dismal 33% which doesn't augur well for role models in the sport, if one doesn't baulk that is to give any of them that nomenclature.