Gareth Barry keen to put things right after England's World Cup fiasco

The punishment for an atrocious World Cup is the demand to relive it. Until the England side play well and win memorably in an important match such as Friday's Euro 2012 qualifier with Bulgaria, Fabio Capello's players will still feel as if they are trapped in the South Africa debacle. Gareth Barry and the others in the squad need matches more than ever. "You want to put things right," the Manchester City midfielder says. "You are on your holidays and not enjoying them. I was happy we had only two or three weeks and it was not long before we were into competition games again." Barry has the opportunity to pin the blame for his own underachievement at the World Cup on the ankle injury that had prevented him from training for six weeks. He regained fitness just before the start of the tournament, but it would be a rash footballer who sought sympathy from an irascible public. "I wasn't 100%," he says, before adding instantly: "There's no excuse there." There is a natural wariness to any member of an England squad that can no longer take the backing of the crowd for granted. "They showed a tiny bit of frustration in the Hungary game," Barry says, "but overall [they] turned out in great numbers and got behind the team, and we were delighted with that." An attendance of 72,024 for that friendly was uncanny, but it testifies more to loyalty than unconditional approval for the individuals put before the fans. There is an undercurrent of scepticism and someone such as Barry can come across as the equivalent of a junior government minister ordered to face the cameras in the wake of a fiasco. "Now the qualifying campaign starts it is important we look forward," he says. It is only fair, of course, to acknowledge that no quotation from any player would undo the damage done by the World Cup. The degree of dissatisfaction among England followers owed something to sheer disbelief after, for example, the magisterial routs of Croatia in the qualifiers. "We were on a high," he agrees. Barry can only return to a time-honoured topic when attempting to exclaim the steep decline. "We have to look at things like winter breaks, as that is an issue which keeps coming up," he says. "Ask any player who plays on a Sunday, plays midweek and then plays the week after. You don't feel as good. If you are rested in the week, which will happen at Manchester City due to the size of the squad, you will feel better the week after. It is just natural." In practice, there is no such restructuring of the programme in sight. Capello has to cope with a fairly old squad. The idea of finding new blood by seeking a UK passport for someone such as Everton's 28-year-old Spanish midfielder Mikel Arteta has been raised. It would have taken nine months or so before he could receive citizenship and, in any case, the FAs of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have an agreement that they will not adopt this approach . The FA has learned that, under Fifa rules, a player such as Arteta would not be eligible . The topic, of course, is still intriguing in principle. "A lot of other countries are doing it," Barry says. "The German team in the summer had players [including Lukas Podolski and Miroslav Klose] who weren't born in the country. It's such a hard debate and I myself don't know where to stand on it. If you're next in and then you find Mikel Arteta taking your place and suddenly you're waiting for another three or four years for a chance then of course it's going to be frustrating." Barry, by contrast, is a fixture in his national team, even if that position can be as much of a challenge as a privilege.