Ok, a week on from plucky England’s draw with the USA, and the press have spent the week mauling the previously infallible Fabio Capello. None of his big decisions on the day really went his way, Milner having to be subbed within half an hour, Shaun Wright-Phillips failing to impress in his stead (and missing possibly the best chance of the evening), Jamie Carragher getting carded within minutes of his appearance and then being embarrassingly outpaced by a Hull City striker.

Actually none of his decisions for the week went well either.

Emile Heskey, preferred to actual goal-scoring front men like Defoe and Crouch, failed to add to his impressive 7 in 58 strike rate, although we can all draw strength from the knowledge that his international goals tend to be annual affairs and that his previous goal was last June.

On top of this, Ledley King, England’s very own Rolls Royce in the garage, has predictably been recalled by the main dealer, and is unlikely to be seen again this tournament. What are the chances. Eh?

And then there’s the goalie thing.

Everyone in the England camp has been lining up behind Rob Green desperate to add their support for him and assert their confidence that he’ll bounce straight back. The general feeling, however, is that England simply can’t afford the luxury of an error-prone keeper which is why we all expect … David James to be in for the Algeria game. No worries there, then.

It may some relief to Fabio, however, that the press appear to be training their sights on another target, in the shape of the TV broadcasters, BBC and ITV. All the World Cup games are being shown by one or the other of the two main (free) channels, none have been given to Sky or ESPN.

Neither channel has covered themselves in glory, however, with the standard of their punditry. ITV have brought out their big money signing (their David Villa, if you will), ex BBC anchor-man and West Brom fan, Adrian Chiles for their main shows, but this hasn’t really masked the averageness of their other contributors. Their pundits are pretty dull and their commentators intensely irritating. My personal bête noir is Peter Drury, who clearly has a series of epoch-defining lines that he has crafted the previous day, and is loathe to waste them. When South Africa scored the opening goal of the tournament, he even appeared to slip in a series of Swahili phrases, he’d handily prepared earlier.

To be honest, ITV’s coverage is not generally taken very seriously and so this sort of inanity is a given, but we all like to think that the BBC do these things properly (they generally have done, in previous years). But this year, the laziness of pundits such as Alan Shearer, Alan Hansen and special guest Clarence Seedorf, who appear not to know very much (or indeed anything) about some of the smaller nations, is quite astonishing. With the resources of the BBC, not to mention the Internet, this really is inexcusable.

Mick McCarthy, co-commentating on the first Argentina game, appeared not to have known that the Juan Sebastian Veron running the midfield for Maradona, was the same one who had played three seasons in England. Clarence Seedorf could not even name the top scorer in his own league this year. John Motson must be spinning in his (metaphorical) grave…

Even more irritating is the fact that Messieurs Hansen and co don’t actually seem to be enjoying their stay. Granted the football’s been largely uninspiring so far, but I’m sure there are many who’d be grateful for their job. Heck, I’d even come out and watch the Slovakia/Paraguay clash myself…(and I’d find out who the Slovakian danger men were.)

For the greatest crime of all, however, you have to return to ITV, who managed to cut to a car advert in the third minute of their HD coverage of the England game, only to return bemused viewers, 30 seconds later, to the sight of England players slapping captain Gerrard on the back having given his team the dream start. (It’s not even the first time they’ve done this – last season, viewers of the Liverpool/Everton FA Cup derby missed the Blues’ extra time winner, although they did find out where to get a great deal on their car insurance.)

And they say that poor technique in the English game always let us down…