By Myles Palmer

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LAST WORD ON SVEN, following today's revelations of a major bust-up in the dressing room at half-time.

Knowing this was coming out, the FA put Sven on the sofa of Football Focus, where a teenage presenter and Mark Lawrenson were allowed to kick him around.

Belfast was a humiliation and Focus was a polite crucifixion for a remote Swede who announces his England squad on the FA website, with quotes, rather than facing questions from reporters.

Like millions of other fans on Wednesday night, I had a paroxysm of disgust.

But on Friday morning, before the Test match started, I watched a borrowed DVD of the whole England game in Belfast, all 94 minutes.

Having watched that DVD dispassionately, what do I think about England now ?

Well, three things stood out :

1. Sven is not in charge, Beckham is.

2. England have no midfield.

3. England have no striker.

Trevor Brooking and Bobby Robson should sit down with Sven and sort it out for him.

He HAS lost the plot. He has definitely lost the plot.

He has cracked.

So the fact that he has cracked, added to the fact that he is a groupie who tiptoes round superstars, means that England might not qualify.

SVEN IS NOW BLAMING ROONEY ! His best player. And his youngest player !

Sven said, "Rooney made a stupid challenge and could have been sent off. That is one of the reasons we lost the game."

Beckham arranged the team round himself and fired long balls out to SWP, ignoring Rooney, who got angry and got booked.

SWP was over-eager, less mature than Rooney, less able to help England score the first goal

NO WONDER HE GOT ANGRY !!!

Rooney swore at Beckham, and at Ferdinand as they left the field at the interval.

In the dressing room he verbally abused Beckham again, calling him a "flash bastard".

When Steve McClaren intervened, Rooney had a go at him.

WHILE SVEN, THE PSYCHOLOGIST we pay £5 million a year to pick a balanced England team, stood and watched all this !!!

After such a masculine display of raw emotions, Sven's substitutions, which are invariably ineffectual, were even worse than usual.

He put on Joe Cole for Shaun (53) and then he put on Defoe for Gerrard (76) just after Healy scored the only goal of the game, and then he put on Hargreaves for Lampard (80).

Each re-shuffle made England look more ridiculous !

Personally, I think qualifying is the same as not qualifying.

England won't do anything in Germany with Beckham as England manager.

So what's the difference? What's the point of being there?

September 11th 2005

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