'We deserved to be booed'
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Cape Town - Gareth Barry has admitted England deserved to be booed off the field in Cape Town after failing to produce their best form during a drab goalless World Cup draw against Algeria.
The drab display on Friday leaves their qualification for the last 16 hanging in the balance.
England, who were also criticised for their performance in a 1-1 draw against the United States in the opening match of the tournament, once again failed to live up to expectations.
The result leaves them two points adrift of leaders Slovenia with only one more match, against the Slovenians, remaining in the group stage.
Thousands of England fans turned up to support them at the Cape Town Stadium, turning it into a sea of red and white.
But Barry accepts Fabio Capello's side did not deliver and cannot complain about being booed.
"That's to be expected," he said.
"They have come a long way to watch us and they deserve a better performance than that. They wanted to see us attack and score goals and win the game, and we didn't.
"We were below par and that's what you get when that happens - boos.
"I think everyone knows we're a bit disappointed. We wanted to win the game and come away with three points. But the positives are that it's still in our own hands.
"We know we need to improve to beat Slovenia and we'll be working hard over the next few days to do that. We'll be looking at this performance to see what we've done wrong and see where we can put it right."
Unfortunately for England they may well find there are an awful lot of things to put right when they study the DVD of the game, and Barry spotted a few of them pretty quickly.
"The disappointing thing is the lack of chances we created, we didn't attack with enough purpose and not enough belief going forward," he said.
"We know we have to score to win the next game so that's what we'll be working on."
Capello chose to play Barry in central midfield even though the Manchester City star has been out for six weeks with an ankle injury and had not played a single minute since the end of the season.
His performance was mixed but there were a string of players who performed below par, including striker Wayne Rooney who found it impossible to impose himself on the match.
Rooney appeared annoyed at the supporters' jeers, sarcastically telling a television camera as he left the field: "It's nice to see your own fans booing you."
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