Right, it’s soapbox time on TheChelseaBlog again after last night’s England game I’m afraid.

Strangely enough though, I won’t be going on about England’s inadequate performance against Algeria because if Fabio Capello can’t put his most creative first XI out, or even give the players he does put out enough warning to actually prepare themselves properly, that’s his bloody problem. No, for me it’s back to the same old gripes – the England ‘support’.

When Wayne Rooney walked off the pitch last night, saying “Nice to see your home fans booing you, that’s loyal supporters”, it immediately sparked a debate about his temperament but as far as I’m concerned that had nothing to do with the United man’s inability to contain himself. Wayne Rooney was only saying what some of us were thinking and he had every right to, he’d just been running around there for 90+ minutes representing the country the boo-boys are meant to be supporting.

Fair enough, from the supporters’ perspective, they’ll say it’s cost them a lot to be out there but that being the case, why not make the best of it? I mean to go all the way out to South Africa to watch them, you’d have to assume these are proper England supporters as opposed to the daytrippers who turn up at Wembley and boo, so why stop supporting them once they’ve gone to all that effort? Yes, it was another frustrating game, but England have always been frustrating – surely hardcore supporters should know and expect that?

It’s not like some big shock to see us making hard work of a tournament is it? We’ll qualify but we’ll do it the hard way the same as usual. I just fail to see how anyone out there thinks booing their side off the field will help the players raise their game. They’ve gone out there with the expectations of a country on them – expectations that have always been completely one-way as far as I’m concerned because whilst the country demands nothing less than 100% from the lads, those same lads would be lucky if they got as much as 50% back from their country.

You see, whilst ‘supporters’ are quick enough to hang flags from their houses and drive down the road with them flapping from their cars, the reality is that all too many of them are just waiting to lay into England players the minute they don’t live up to the hype. It’d be laughable really if it wasn’t so shameful. We have the best league in the world, supporters who claim to be the most passionate for their clubs and yet when it comes to their country, they offer about as much support as my nan’s bra.

Seriously, is it any wonder the players – the same players who perform so much better for their clubs – don’t play with anywhere near as much courage or confidence for their country when they know that unlike when they’re wearing their club colours, the England shirt brings with it only superficial support? It’s as if in every big tournament the nation is waiting on the edge of its seats, not for England to do well but for England to fail. This country seems to thrive on having something to whinge about – and for a country that’s always professed to be the home of football, that is seriously embarrassing.

So, I applaud our lads for getting out there to represent such a shockingly ungrateful nation in the first place and I applaud Wayne Rooney for letting the ‘supporters’ know how it feels on the pitch because if what they really want is to see us fail to get through the group stages of this World Cup, last night they went a long way to making sure that’s exactly what happens.

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