HAVE the Emperor's New Clothes finally been seen through? writes Mick Jones

The European Championships qualifier with Turkey was a good performance but the honeymoon period seems to have run out for Sven Goran Eriksson.

The fact is, the odd result aside, you won't find too many people who think he is the best man for the job anymore.

The 5-1 in Germany seems a long time ago now and you'd be more likely to witness a performance like the one against Macedonia rather than the one in Munich.

So what's gone wrong? Maybe it was never right in the first place. The Brazil game in the World Cup was a perfect example.

We took the lead but couldn't hold it. You can moan all day about Ronaldinho's freak goal but the fact is England didn't have the guile to break them down when Brazil were down to 10 men.

Even the Argentina game was more luck and desperation than anything else.

When you have the midfield duo of David Beckham and Paul Scholes in there, would you expect that? Certainly not when they play at United.

There is no surprise in Steven Gerrard, Emile Heskey and Michael Owen playing that way: it's exactly what they're used to at Anfield. Long ball tedium from both teams and no idea what to do if they're behind.

England only look capable of playing on the break and have no idea how to open a team up.

The style of play is poor with long balls played into the channels for the strikers to chase. No wonder Scholes hasn't scored for some time.

With the ball launched all that way from the half way line, he can't get into the box fast enough before Heskey's fallen over after missing the ball all together.

Heskey amazes me every time he plays. For a long time, we had a striker who looks like he could fight Lennox Lewis and yet would go down under a challenge from Jerry Lewis.

Maybe it's too soon for Wayne Rooney but it will never be the right time for Heskey. Rooney couldn't have had an easier introduction.

He had a few great moments in an okay game and suddenly he's become the new Messiah.

Sven can't win people over the same way that Tel or our Kev used to be able to. He's as drab and as two dimensional as his team.

When he first came into the job, he was viewed as cool, aloof and intelligent.

Now he's just viewed as clueless. The continental version of Graham Taylor? Do we not like that.

One victory

doesn't stop

Sven being

prize turkey