Forget Paris...

Well, what can you say? A poor, poor performance from the boys last night, and despite France's first goal being offside, and us being denied at least one penalty, you can't argue that we deserved to lose, so inept were we at creating a single chance from open play.

Okay, so we knew the French would be more up for it than us after losing the World Cup Final, and there is no shame in losing to France in France. They are a very good team after all. No, it was the performance that was worrying. With the exception of Gilardino, who did well when he could, and to a lesser extent, Grosso, Pirlo and Gattuso, everyone played poorly. And at least some of that must be Donadoni's fault.

I don't buy into the "lack of conditioning/fitness" argument - French players have only just started back and some of our players have been involved in Champions League qualifiers, and, of course, a couple now play abroad. Vieira looked pretty fit to me and he's with Inter. It is true that we never play that well in September, but playing so poorly was a worrying sign.

To me, the players Donadoni has drafted in are mediocre. For example, and no offence to the man, but who the hell is Gennaro Del Vecchio?? Where did he get the idea that Dainelli or Semioli can play at international level?? Playing well for Chievo is one thing. Playing at international level is quite another. He should be keeping with the world cup squad, where he can (and I see he is now talking about getting Totti, Del P, Toni etc for next month's games), and if he is wanting to draft a couple in, bring some of the younger promising talents - like Montolivio or Aquilani.

Add to that the fact that his tactics are at least misguided and, at worst, bizarre. Perrotta is not and never has been a right winger. The substitutions that he made last night were perplexing - it was obvious 5 minutes into the second half the midfield needed shored up and we needed to try and get hold of the ball, but instead he waited until we had conceded a third and then he brought on Di Michele, who didn't seem to know where he was meant to play. Then he brought on Inzaghi, when up front wasn't the area that needed fixing - midfield did. I think he would have been better to bring De Rossi on for Semioli and push Cassano out wide.

There is a school of thought (voiced by my cugino, amongst others) that Donadoni was put in there to tide things over until we can get one of the more established managers - eg. Ancelotti, Capello. Let's face it, taking over at the world champions is a pretty tough task as any slip up will be viewed as failure. But the fact is Donadoni has never proved himself at a high managerial level and has not been involved in big games like last night as a manager. Perhaps we are wrong to expect so much from him so soon - the difficulty is that at national level, unless you are in a group like England's, you don't get much time to bed in.

There are still 10 games to go, and two wins next month will put us in a fine position in the group, but the performances need to improve. The concern is that I am not sure that they will under Donadoni.