World Cup 2010 paper view: England's press as disjointed as their team

The papers are still examining England's disjointed performance on Saturday night. In fact, some of them are imitating it. Take the Daily Express, for example. Their chief sports writer, John Dillon, calls for the nation not to lose its head over the Three Lions' failure to dismantle the USA, soberly commenting: "There is a craven and pathetic overreaction mirroring precisely the overwrought frenzy of hype and unfounded expectation which comes beforehand. It makes us appear a land of children. It would be no surprise if someone suggested Fabio Capello should base his decision on whether or not to drop [Robert] Green on a Britain's Got Talent-style telephone poll . It is the place celebrity culture has been carrying us to for some time." A lucid voice there, you must agree. But turn the page and there's Dillon's editor, Bill Bradshaw, wailing that "Fabio Capello today has to show he is worth his £6m salary by bringing some sanity to the Rustenberg madhouse." Madhouse? A craven and pathetic overreaction, surely. Michael Owen, in his column in the Telegraph, also holds forth on the subject of reactions. He tells us that Green apologised to his England team-mates for his elementary blunder straight after the match but reckons that West Ham's sometime-shot-stopper shouldn't have bothered because, according to Owen, who appears to have spotted a deviation in the trajectory of Clint Dempsey's piffler that no one else saw, the goal was all down to the new-fangled ball . Owen then offers a revealing insight into the mentality of modern footballers by suggesting that even if Green was at fault, he is not to blame. "There is no blame," says Owen. "I wouldn't have felt the need to apologise if I was him. He was just trying to stop a ball that squirmed around. I'm all for accepting responsibility but if I got into positions as a striker, and missed three or four chances, I have never come in and said to the lads: 'Sorry, the defeat it was my fault, I should have scored all those chances'." As you wonder whether Owen really is "all for accepting responsibility", why not ponder another intriguing insight from him, concering what appears to be a remarkably fatalistic mindset among England internationals: "No professional would blame Robert Green for what happened. That's what happens on the world stage." It is if you go there thinking like that. The Sun are bulling on about something too but we're darned if we can figure out what or why. Their front page features a photo of Green playing golf yesterday and the giddy headline PUTTER FINGERS . And then they exclusively reveal that they have spent the last two days dredging through the keeper's private life in an effort to find something salacious to which to attribute his error, but only discovered that "last night it emerged that he also let his gorgeous girlfriend slip through his fingers". The Sun can't help wondering whether he may have had the lingerie model he was formerly dating on his mind as Dempsey's trickler trundled towards him, though over in the Mirror the player's agent, Andy Evans, scoffs at such a notion. "Their relationship was over many months ago," explains Evans. "This really is not an issue and Rob has gone into the World Cup prepared mentally and as focused as possible." Most papers are carpeting Fabio Capello for his perceived selection and policy errors, and Martin Samuel in the Daily Mail is one of several scribes who believe that it is incumbent on the Italian to disclose immediately who will be in goal against Algeria on Friday. This is predicated on the belief, apparently, that England's goalkeepers are an extraordinarily fragile bunch. "[Green] needs to hear conviction, he needs to hear confidence, he needs to hear, indisputably, that his manager thinks he is the man for this job. And until early Saturday evening, roughly two hours prior to kick-off and just before the England team left on its short journey to the Royal Bafokeng stadium, Green had heard nothing." And if Joe Hart were selected for the next match, his state wouldn't be any better. "What message does it then send to Hart, in his first competitive start for England, if the strategy applied to the goalkeeper's position is that of one strike and you're out?" asks Samuel. "Hart would quite understandably be a nervous wreck." Over in the Times, Olvier Kay is taking the lesser-trodden, optimistic path. "Victory, in many ways, would have papered over the cracks," writes Kay. "Face up to those cracks and this could prove to be a blessing in disguise." He then lists the cracks, which are quite numerous and include the fact that "there was a disturbing lack of guile and imagination in their efforts to break down a defence superbly marshalled by Jay DeMerit." That, of course, is a defining feature of an England player and no doubt why Brazilian legend, Tostao, said in Saturday's Folha de S. Paolo that they are too "bureaucratic" to win the World Cup. The papers have still managed to find space for some transfer speculation. Manchester United want Raúl apparently, and also Neven Subotic , who couldn't even get into the Serbia starting team that lost to Ghana yesterday. Manchester City will try to convince Liverpool to part with Steven Gerrard by adding Stephen Ireland to a fat wad of cash. City are also chasing Dani Alves. Maratin O'Neill wants to hook up with Steven Pienaar while Everton are going to pay £20m, apparently, for Paraguay striker Oscar Cardozo.