Fabio Capello has made England one of the World Cup favourites. But lack of English born coaches capable of managing England remains a major concern.

I am simply blogging what most fans of international football around the world treat as a joke! The scarcity of English born coaches in the English Premier League!

Fabio Capello is one of the greatest coaches of the modern era & seems to have at last managed to make England a solid & reliable unit as a team. But shouldn't the mother home of the beautiful game be able to manage to produce an English born coach to lead it to the World Cup?

The answer is simply no! It can't! Outside a few true & trusted old hands such as Harry Redknapp of Tottenham & Roy Hodgson of Fulham, there are very few high calibre English born coaches around these days. The late Sir Bobby Robson was probably the last of that generation.

I rest my case by listing the names of the top 10 EPL Teams Managers for those of you who are not aware of their nationalities. This is based on the league table as of 1 March 2010:

1. Chelsea: Carlo Ancelotti (Italy)

2. Manchester Utd: Sir Alex Ferguson (Scotland)

3. Arsenal: Arsen Wenger (France)

4. Manchester City: Roberto Mancini (Italy)

5. Tottenham: Harry Redknapp (England)

6. Liverpool: Rafa Benitez (Spain)

7. Aston Villa: Martin O'Neill (Northern Ireland)

8. Brrmingham: Alex McLeish (Scotland)

9. Everton: David Moyes (Scotland)

10. Fulham: Roy Hodgson (England)

As you can see, only two out of ten were born in England. Of course, as you know the English would protest saying we & the Scots & Northern Irish are all British! That's OK! My question remains the same:

Are there any coaches born in England who can claim to have the calibre to lead a major footballing national side to the World Cup?

I believe the answer remains negative. As a result the international performance of England will continue to suffer & whilst they are a very good side, I don't think they can win the FIFA World Cup in South Africa in July 2010.

Liverpool & Bayern struggling in the absence of their creative playmakers & lack of goals against defensive teams

At the beginning of the season, I had great hopes for my two favourite football teams, Bayern Munich & Liverpool. I predicted Liverpool would win their first EPL title and their first since 1989. I had even higher hopes for my beloved Bayern predicting they would recapture the Bundesliga title and would even get to the CL final!

And what disastrous campaigns  both are having! Both are suffering from similar problems:

Injuries to Gerrard & Ribery respectively (although good to see Gerrard back in the second half against Birmingham)
Inability to score to win against packed defenses even with the lion share of possession in many crucial matches
Injury to the likes of Torres & Toni
And most crucially, players' inability to adapt to Rafa & Van Gaal's ever revolving tactical variations & player rotation systems (although Van Gaal has only been around this year whilst Rafa is notorious for doing this)

Both teams are now in serious danger of missing qualification to the second round of the CL, and losing too much ground to the leading teams in their respective domestic leagues. (both are quite a few points behind already)

Liverpool fans love Rafa & so far have stood by him, whilst Bayern fans have already started booing their team and murmurs of demands of retribution against the coach are beginning to spread.

In case of Bayern, whilst I was never a fan of Van Gaal & thought Frank Rijkaard was the best man for the job, I believe the legendary management team of Rumminegge & Hoeness got their transfer strategy badly wrong last summer and miscalculated some great opportunities in the process and as a result they should reappraise their strategy going forward.

As for Liverpool, I am not sure what the immediate solution is but Rafa has now had one win out of nine (6 losses) and surely the good will towrds him has its limitations.

And as a die hard fan of both clubs, I am still hoping for a major turn around in form & results by Christmas!