AB FAB

The soup-stained shambles of an international football team that is England shuffles embarassingly into a friendly against Hungary on Wednesday with all the c0cksure swagger of a drunken lemming. Over the years the national side has had more false dawns than a Vicar of Dibley fancy dress party, each major failure bringing hope of a better future. But no one is even bothering to kid themselves this time around. This is no false dawn. This is just the pitchy midnight black of an unrelenting, unending night.

Wes Brown and Paul Robinson were the latest to put the boot in over the weekend, telling Fabio Capello in no uncertain terms that they'd rather be sitting at home watching Top Gear reruns on Dave than turning out for the Three Lions. "I accept the decisions," said Capello today. "Robinson called us and said he wanted to stay at home. I spoke with Brown here. I told him why I didn't select him for the World Cup because he didn't play for the last two months [of last season]. This time I selected him because he played all the pre-season games but he said: 'Thank you, but I've decided I prefer to stay at home.'"

And those not staying at home through choice might be forced there through injury. Of the 23 players initially selected by Capello, only 16 trained today. Darren Bent, Glen Johnson and Gareth Barry are all injury doubts, while England's Loyal John Terry and Ashley Cole were excused after their Community Shield exploits. Most should be fit for Wednesday, but it seems this friendly, a game with less point than a three-month-old crayon, has served only to further erode what little credibility Capello had left after the World Cup debacle. Just ask Michael Carrick.

Capello said today that his side had "played not with confidence but with fear" in South Africa and that the mental state of the squad was vitally important. Still, at least he knows what he has to do to improve the mind of the players. "I don't know what we have to do to improve the mind of the players." £6m a year well spent.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

"He sullied my name without knowing what happened. Lilian thinks he's the new coach, president of the FFF and president of France. Walking around with books on slavery in glasses and a hat does not turn you into Malcolm X" - at least Patrice Evra stopped short of telling Lilian Thuram to do this.

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FIVER LETTERS

"If Capello has any guts, he'll send out as many of the players as possible that finished the game against Germany and let the crowd have their way with them" - Claire Santall.

"The Imperial Lord Ferg suggesting that the last great World Cup was 1986 (Friday's quote of the day). Who was the coach of Scotland that year? Want a clue?" - Martin Burke (and 1,056 others).

"Re: the Fiver headline not being sure about whether to go for the team name option or the stadium name option about Spurs drawing Young Boys (Friday's Fiver). If you were proper sports writers, you'd have gone for both options and then added a puerile double-entendre at the end for good measure" - Stewart Neil.

"A more proactive approach to the Ian King hunt (Fiver last line passim) may be required. Maybe the soccerKing would be most apropos or perhaps the fun-loving CEO of BAE Systems? The boss of a weapons firm might be just what the Fiver needs after three nights in Riga" - John Byrne.

"If the Ian King you refer to is the slightly hunched, balding c0ckney version that I know, he has been to Riga before. It didn't end well as he got robbed in the snow by a cashpoint and was left with a bruised noggin. No wonder he has pulled out" - Darren Collins.

Send your letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. And if you've nothing better to do you can also tweet the Fiver now.

BITS AND BOBS

It's taken barely a week for someone to register their interest in signing Marlon King, who was released from jail last week midway through his sentence for punching a 20-year-old woman while celebrating his wife's latest pregnancy. "People have killed people and they never got the stick this lad has got," chirped the interested party, QPR boss Neil Warnock.

Didier Drogba admits Chelsea must "step up" if they are to get their league title defence off to a half-decent start. "We have to improve our game, even if we are not fit, and hope that in two to three weeks' time we will be better," he sniffed.

Scotland pair David Marshall (elbow-ouch) and Graham Dorrans (groin-twang) have withdrawn from the squad to face Sweden.

And Steaua Bucharest owner Gigi Becali in falling out with another of his managers shock dept: boss Victor Piturca has left the club after claiming Becali "humiliated" him.

WIN! WIN! WIN!

We've got five copies of Daniel Harris's rather good new book, On The Road, a journey through a season of Man Utd's away games (don't worry non-United fans, you'll still enjoy it too), which is available in all top bookshops and plenty of less-decent ones too. All you've got to do is email the.boss@theguardian.com under the subject-header 'My Football Away Trip To Remember' and tell us your favourite tales. We'll print the best each day and send the winner a copy.

STILL WANT MORE?

Our season previews roll on. Today it's Man City and Newcastle (featuring Joey Barton doing a decent impression of a first world war officer).

Over at Big Paper they don't bother with club-by-club guides, they produce a preview of the season in one giant behemoth of a supplement.

How's your team faring after the first weekend of the Fitba League? Find out with our stupendulous stats centre.

And Amy Lawrence thinks Manchester United's new striker, Javier Hernandez, looks like an exciting talent following yesterday's Community Shield.

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