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McClaren calls off American visit

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LONDON, England -- England manager Steve McClaren has decided not to ahead with a planned trip to the United States next week, when he was going to look at coaching methods in American football's NFL.

McClaren has faced widespread criticism of his tactics in Wednesday's 2-0 defeat in the European Championship qualifier against Croatia in Zagreb, after another poor display in last weekend's 0-0 home draw with Macedonia.

The Football Association said in a letter to media editors that "the time is not right" for the five-day trip to Seattle.

McClaren will, instead, prepare for England's friendly against the Netherlands in Amsterdam on November 15.

McClaren, who has five months until England's next Group E qualifier away to Israel in March, is due to arrange another friendly in February.

Although he believes the current squad is good enough to qualify for the 2008 finals in Austria and Switzerland, McClaren indicated that he is willing to make changes and that he is also keeping an eye on young players coming up through the ranks.

"There are players in the Under-21s knocking on the door, we will be looking at them very, very closely," said McClaren.

"We will use the two friendlies effectively and maybe our approach will be different in some respects. We have to look at the young talent and there's a lot of it.

"We have to use the friendlies and really get into individuals and the squad, get into what wins and what will win, so that when we get to the qualification games in five months, the approach is different."


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McClaren says that he will studying the form of young up-and-coming England players.

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