Football's coming home?

Lots of column inches in the sports section of the papers bemoaning the lack-lustre England performance against Israel, and the real possibility that we will fail to qualify for the European Championships next year. Why can't we just accept that we are no longer a major footballing power, and that we're just not that good? If we could get rid of this mind-set that football somehow owes us a seat at the top table, we could perhaps put our performances into perspective. The fact is that in international terms we are very much a mid-table team, and have been for getting on for forty years (in my opinion the 1970 team was the last time we had a truly world class side). And changing the manager won't make any difference....