England's friendly defeat to Brazil on Saturday in Doha really proved nothing more than we already knew: that England's B team aren't good enough to win a World Cup, and that the expectations of the English public become distorted beyond reasonable levels in the run-up to any major tournament.
This starting XI was nothing like the side that England will line up with for their first match of the finals in South Africa - in fact only one player from that team will be guaranteed to start if fit. However, the prevailing mood of the British public in the wake of this narrow defeat is almost inevitably one of gloomy pessimism at our chances next summer.
Let's face it, England's reserve players are not really fit to lace the boots of the first-choicers, but as Patrick Barclay suggests in The Times this morning, is this really much of a surprise?
Maybe it would be better if we all harked back to the days of good ol' Sven, when no-one actually cared about the outcome of such meaningless friendlies.
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