Was it a good game? Was it a positive sign that things might improve at Euro 2012?
It was hard to judge from this game, England were defensive, the goal was somewhat 'lucky' and Fabregas thought that the best team lost, but then he plays for Arsenal, so that reaction was somewhat predictable.
Still I couldn't help feeling that normal service was still on offer. That come the serious competition England supporters will be disappointed again.
It is too easy to find excuses which might well be reasons.
Not enough investment in Youth Academies. Too many foreign players in the premiership. A lack of British candidates for the manager's job. Who know's but for anyone who follows a local team, whether as a season ticket holder, a viewer on TV or however they watch the game, whilst there will be disappointmens and cries of 'we wuz robbed', week by week the team will reward their support.
Sadly not so England, even if the team sheet reads like your favourite club, its performance will in all likelihood disappoint on the day.
When I lived in Newcastle, none other than Sir John Hall, he of Metro Centre fame commented in the local press, that when the team did well then production would improve in the Shipyards, he was talking historically of course.
But there was never any doubt that the Team's performance affected output.
Whether it was in a pit village, a shipyard or an engineering firm, from Birmingham, to Glasgow, from Tyneside to Sheffield and Manchester, Saturday's result influenced both attendance and attitude on the shopfloor during the week that followed.
Whether this explains the current state of the English economy is difficult to say but the latest news continues to be as depressing as the defensive display of the English football team.
Inflation is a regressive tax that impacts most severely on the poorest, but the Chancellor's latest proposal is designed to de-link the rise in benefits from the headline rate of inflation, which will be doubly regressive.
The Occupy protesters, supported by Ed Milliband, claim to represent the 99% who are now paying the price for the financial disarray which has resulted from the cavalier approach to the development of 'financial products' based essentially on re- packaged, unrepayable debts from sub-prime mortgagees in the United States.
In fact the proportion is possibly different in the sense that those who have prospered or been unaffected by the current crisis is more than 1% and the imbalance between reward and effort has seen CEO benefits increase disproportionally to the rewards for employees limited to an average 2.5% which the Chancellor is, apparently, seeing as the cut off point for increases in benefits.
Questions over the Government's record continue to rise with a conservative MP privately critical of the Prime Minister, the Home Secretary's performance over Border Controls raising eyebrows, the Lib- Dem's trying to face in two directions at once as they seek to support and oppose their coalition partners at one and the same time.
So whether football is a bell weather for the state of the nation or not, the economy, the Government and Fabio Cappello's youth policy, continue to struggle to convince, meanwhile apart from the weather, which continues to favour the South over the North, England remains as Shakespeare described it: a blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England ........
It was hard to judge from this game, England were defensive, the goal was somewhat 'lucky' and Fabregas thought that the best team lost, but then he plays for Arsenal, so that reaction was somewhat predictable.
Still I couldn't help feeling that normal service was still on offer. That come the serious competition England supporters will be disappointed again.
It is too easy to find excuses which might well be reasons.
Not enough investment in Youth Academies. Too many foreign players in the premiership. A lack of British candidates for the manager's job. Who know's but for anyone who follows a local team, whether as a season ticket holder, a viewer on TV or however they watch the game, whilst there will be disappointmens and cries of 'we wuz robbed', week by week the team will reward their support.
Sadly not so England, even if the team sheet reads like your favourite club, its performance will in all likelihood disappoint on the day.
When I lived in Newcastle, none other than Sir John Hall, he of Metro Centre fame commented in the local press, that when the team did well then production would improve in the Shipyards, he was talking historically of course.
But there was never any doubt that the Team's performance affected output.
Whether it was in a pit village, a shipyard or an engineering firm, from Birmingham, to Glasgow, from Tyneside to Sheffield and Manchester, Saturday's result influenced both attendance and attitude on the shopfloor during the week that followed.
Whether this explains the current state of the English economy is difficult to say but the latest news continues to be as depressing as the defensive display of the English football team.
Inflation is a regressive tax that impacts most severely on the poorest, but the Chancellor's latest proposal is designed to de-link the rise in benefits from the headline rate of inflation, which will be doubly regressive.
The Occupy protesters, supported by Ed Milliband, claim to represent the 99% who are now paying the price for the financial disarray which has resulted from the cavalier approach to the development of 'financial products' based essentially on re- packaged, unrepayable debts from sub-prime mortgagees in the United States.
In fact the proportion is possibly different in the sense that those who have prospered or been unaffected by the current crisis is more than 1% and the imbalance between reward and effort has seen CEO benefits increase disproportionally to the rewards for employees limited to an average 2.5% which the Chancellor is, apparently, seeing as the cut off point for increases in benefits.
Questions over the Government's record continue to rise with a conservative MP privately critical of the Prime Minister, the Home Secretary's performance over Border Controls raising eyebrows, the Lib- Dem's trying to face in two directions at once as they seek to support and oppose their coalition partners at one and the same time.
So whether football is a bell weather for the state of the nation or not, the economy, the Government and Fabio Cappello's youth policy, continue to struggle to convince, meanwhile apart from the weather, which continues to favour the South over the North, England remains as Shakespeare described it: a blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England ........
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