THEIR performance at Wembley against France was very poor and in the second half, England were outclassed.

I accept that France are the world champions and a very good side, but, even so, I expected England to give them a harder game than they did.

The new manager has a difficult job ahead of him to make England a force again in international football.

The job would be a lot easier if the media and the supporters did not have unrealistic ambitions for the England team. At present, England just do not have the players who are good enough to compete at the highest level with the likes of France, Brazil, etc.

For the life of me, I could not see the sense in bringing back Lee Dixon at the age of 35 after a five-year absence from the international scene. In friendly games, England should be blooding younger players because, hopefully, they are our international players of the future.

I wonder how much English football is suffering from having so many foreign footballers playing in the Premiership? In cricket the counties are only allowed so many foreign players on their books. Maybe the FA should do the same with our football clubs.

DAVE PEARSON, Rawstorne Street, Blackburn.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.