Mea culpa? Tua culpa?

"Sack the manager" is the knee-jerk reaction to the woeful England performance against Germany in the World Cup. And yet, who really failed? All the manager can do is put the players out on the pitch and tell them how to play, and clearly he did just that. So was it his choice of players that was at fault? Were his tactics to blame? Or was it the players that simply failed to deliver? I've no doubt it was the last of these - maybe we would have lost anyway - the Germans have a pretty formidable side - but there's no doubt that we could and should have played much better than we did. Our defence, which up until now had been the best aspect of our admittedly poor play, just disintegrated, and the first goal was a joke - even our local pub team could have defended against that one. So I don't think Capello should carry the can unless it can be clearly shown that it was his team choice or tactics that caused the defeat. Otherwise let these highly paid professional players explain just why they failed to live up to their billing.