England 3 Switzerland 0

"Good result, poor performance". I've heard that a few times over the last day or so.

But…

Has anyone considered the possibility that England actually played really rather well?

Look at the facts:

a) we won
b) Switzerland didn't really look like scoring

"But what about possession? Look how we kept on giving the ball away." The assumption being that possession makes prizes. But is this true?

After all, who needs possession? Possession is nothing without penetration. And England are brilliant at penetration. In Gerrard and Beckham they have two of the best passers of the ball anywhere and in Owen and Rooney they have two players who can run the legs of almost any defence.

When they played Greece, Portugal had bags of possession. But to what effect?

I would even go so far as to suggest that giving the opposition the ball is a plus point for England. France had lots of the ball against us. What happened? For most of the game they achieved nothing and we came as close as you can to going two up. Ditto Switzerland. Ditto Germany (as far as I can remember).

I think Eriksson has worked this out. He has realised that as an international manager he can't work on players' skills and there's not much he can do about their teamwork either. All he can do is take what he is given, keep the guys fit and give them some self-belief. And encourage them to play the game they know. If that happens to be the long-ball game then so be it.

The France result may well be a blessing in disguise. I think it plays brilliantly into Eriksson's hands. Everyone has now seen England beaten. And everyone knows that beaten teams don't win tournaments, er, except Germany in 1974, Argentina in 1978, Holland in 1988 and Denmark in 1992.

And anyway if England weren't convincing who were? France? They could have lost both games. Italy? Oh my God. Holland? Sheesh. The only two teams who have looked good so far are Germany and Greece - neither of which are going to win the tournament (please).