Football News: An Open Letter To The English FA
Image from: en.wikipedia.org
England has recently suffered one of the worst defeats in the national team’s history, that resulted in the most embarrassing exit from a major tournament in living memory. But where can England go from here?
The FA need to avoid getting sucked in to the same trap they almost always get sucked in to; Employing average English coaches (Hodgson and McClaren) and employing ex-players with shocking managerial records because they are English and passionate (Pierce and Southgate with the U21’s).
There is already talking of Eddie Howe with Steven Gerrard as his assistant or Even Sam Allardyce! God help us if either of these scenarios actually happens. God help us if Southgate is actually handed the managerial position! There has only been a handful of English managers in recent history who are actually good manager and great coaches. Glenn Hoddle and Roy Evans stand out for me in particular.
Evans and Hoddle are both visionaries. They are managers who don’t just try and copy the success of others. They have the tactical understanding to actually create their own exciting and offensive style.
Evans is 67 now, and since he was absolutely shafted by the Liverpool FC board he hasn’t really managed to settle into a management job. He has stayed close to the game though and would be an absolutely inspired decision by the FA. Evans is a man who built a coaching career on the back of actually being a good coach, and not relying on his non-existent reputation as a good player. Evans barely had a playing career in fact. He was picked out by the famed Liverpool Boot room though as a person who could become a great coach. How right they were.
In Hoddle you have a coach who has also been out of the hot-seat for a long time, but has also stayed close to the game. Like Evans he is a massive believer in playing football the right way and his teams are very entertaining to watch. All England fans want to see is a team that can play good football and not embarrassingly crash out of every major tournament. Hoddle was not really given much time in the England job last time around and I personally think it came a bit early for him. At 38 years old, he still managed to do as a good a job as anyone in the last 40 years.
So now I’ve narrowed it down to the managers I would like to see, what about the players and how the teams could set up under these managers?
England has a massive shortage of good goalkeepers. They haven’t had a top keeper since Seaman retired, and they haven’t had decent competition for the England keeper position since the days of Ray Clemence and Peter Shilton. Joe Hart has walked in to the role by default, simply because he is the least bad of all the options. Going forward though, England does actually have a couple of young keepers who could be decent. Jack Butland of Stoke and Jordan Pickford of Sunderland. Both of these young lads have the potential to be excellent players. World class? Maybe not, but not every nation is as blessed in this department as the Germans! Hart should not play for the national team again though. Rob Green got the bullet for a single mistake. Hart arguably should’ve saved the Russian header, the Bale free kick, and the second Iceland goal. Of the 4 goals England conceded at the Euros, Hart could’ve stopped 3 of them. That just isn’t good enough.
The defence is a major problem for England right now. 2 years ago before the World Cup, Jon Flanagan and John Stones were both on the cusp of the team for being the two most exciting young defensive prospects. Yet since then they have struggled for different reasons. Stones has played plenty of football, but under a manager who couldn’t organise a stag do in a brewery, let alone a defence. However Flanagan has suffered terribly with injuries and still not made a recovery to regular football after about 700 days of struggle. England is actually suffering from a major lack of talent in defence right now. They have a plethora of players showing promise (Dier, Stones, Gomez, Shaw, Chilwell) but a real lack of players who are in their prime. Smalling and Cahill has to go down as potentially the worst centre back partnership in the national sides history. Neither player is good enough. Cahill is wilting and lost his place in the Chelsea team to OAP Terry. Smalling on the other hand has profited massively from having De Gea behind him at club level as when he invariably makes a mistake, De Gea more often than not bales him out. With Joe Hart though, you don’t get that cushion. In all honesty, England should probably just throw the young lads in at the deep end. Germany has done it this summer, taking the youngest squad in the tournament along, and are still looking like favourites. Walker and Rose should not play for England though. They are shockingly average and got picked based on the form of Tottenham this season, rather than their individual form. Clyne (who is not great) is still better than Walker, and Bertrand is miles better than Rose. This was yet another glaring error by Hodgson. Although in his defence, Clyne and Bertrand are okay players, but it’s unlikely they would’ve changed England’s fortunes. Clyne and Smalling are probably good enough to be squad options going forward. They should not be starting international football matches though unless injury forces it.
The midfield is actually an area England have a lot of up and coming quality. Unfortunately, Hodgson was weak and refused to drop Rooney, decided to try and copy Pochettino with Dier in midfield despite having no idea how Poch made it work, and then put Delle Alli in a deeper role than he is used to. What an earth he was doing, nobody will likely ever know. The inclusion of Wilshere was just laughable. The England midfield trio consisted of a striker, a centre back, and a No.10. Is it any wonder it got walked all over by Iceland? Rooney has surely played the last game of his England career now? England as I have said have quality here though. In Ruben Loftus Cheek, Delle Alli and Cameron Brannagan they have 3 players just breaking into the squads at top Premier League clubs, who are young lads already attracting interest from some of the top sides in world football. Added to these players, there are a handful of central midfielders who are cornerstones at their respective clubs. Jordan Henderson is one who was criminally left out to shoe horn Rooney in the team. Then there is Danny Drinkwater who was unbelievably not even picked for the Euros despite being a key figure in Leicester City’s incredible title win. Not to mention Ross Barkley, who despite being completely blanked by Hodgson in the dying minutes of the Iceland game, is actually a midfield game changer. The likes of Milner, Wilshere and Rooney are simply not good enough though.
A position that England notoriously struggles in down the years is wide players. Yet right now, they seem to have the best youth options here that they have had in years. Vardy and Sturridge are not wide men and should never be played there again for club or country. Players who undoubtedly should be considered though are Raheem Sterling who despite a poor tournament is still potentially a great player, Marcus Rashford who was man of the match against Iceland in 5 minutes on the pitch, and Sheyi Ojo who has just started breaking in to the Liverpool team and came from the same academy as Delle Alli. Another player who was rather harshly not even considered for the Euros is Jesse Lingard. He had a brilliant year for United, scoring the winning goal in a cup final. England needed that kind of big match player at the Euros. Lingard is player who even at 23 didn’t bottle it on the biggest stage in domestic English football at Wembley for the FA cup final. Marc Albrighton was wrongly ignored this summer. This despite the fact he was without a shadow of a doubt the best at delivering a ball into the box of every English player in the Premier League last season. His corners, free kicks and even open play deliveries were unrivalled and although he didn’t score many, he played a massively underappreciated part in the greatest story of the Premier League era. Another player who plays out wide but is more in the David Beckham mould than the flying winger kind is James Ward-Prowse. He like Albrighton has superb delivery but a complete lack of pace. The wide players we hopefully won’t have to endure again include Lallana, Walcott and Oxlade-Chamberlain though!
Finally we come to the strikers. England are fortunate enough to have one of the most technically gifted and clever strikers in Europe. Yet he played just 45 minutes as a striker in the whole Euros, in the second half against Wales. In that short time though, Daniel Sturridge created a goal and then scored the winner deep into the game. Sturridge is another Englishman to score in a cup final last season, and his composure to bury his goal against Wales was just another prime example of his ability to turn up in the big games when everyone else is panicking. Roy’s decision to utilise him on the wing was just ridiculous. There is of course Jamie Vardy, but by the time the next major tournament comes around he will be over 30 and I just don’t see him still being at the top of his game by then. He is so heavily reliant on his pace as his technique and composure are average. The one on one chance he missed against Slovakia from Henderson’s outside of the boot through ball is about as clear cut as chances come in International football and Vardy just isn’t clinical enough to play at that level. Vardy’s success was built on teams pushing up against Leicester due to a lack of respect for their quality, hence why after his hot streak of 11 goals in 11 games his goal record fell apart. Teams immediately gave Leicester the respect their team deserved and Vardy all of a sudden didn’t have space in behind to exploit so regularly. For all his goals, he missed a ridiculous amount of chances during his 11 game streak. Whilst Vardy can still be a goal poacher, he just isn’t clinical enough. He isn’t International quality. Harry Kane was probably the most disappointing player in the whole England squad at the Euros though. Not least because of his corners and free kicks, but his finishing was dreadful. He was taking upwards of 5 shots on goal a game and yet he barely ever hit the target. England undoubtedly didn’t play to his strengths as most of his shots were long range pop shots. At Tottenham he has Lamela, Alli and Eriksen all really close to him. All three of those attackers have the skill to create clear cut chances for Kane all day long. Yet for England he was reduced to having an out of form Sterling, an average Lallana, or an out of position Sturridge/Vardy supporting him. Alli was dropped too deep and it limited their link up play. It just didn’t click. I personally think Kane is over rated, but if you play to his strengths, he does score goals. Where England is lacking though is a standout young striker. Right now, there isn’t a single young player coming through who has shown unquestionable potential. It is for that reason that I wouldn’t be surprised to see Rashford play here long term for the national side. The country is not short of wingers, and Rashford can definitely lead the line as he has shown at United. If Kane continues to be a different player in an England shirt, and Sturridge has a recurrence of his injury problems, then Rashford is the man to turn to. Of course there are the more direct options in Danny Welbeck, Charlie Austin and Andy Carroll but whilst it is handy to have one of these lads in the squad, they are not the sort of players to build your team around. They are options to bring on in the 80th minute when you are chasing the game and don’t have time for intricate build up play. If Saido Berahino can improve his alleged attitude problems and escapes the dinosaur that is Pulis, then maybe he could be future option worth considering as the talent is blatantly there. Another young striker who may be worth mentioning is Danny Ings. If he recovers well from his ACL injury, he was showing great promise at Burnley a year ago.
Ultimately, the English FA need to go out and employ a manager who will be fearless and send out an England team trying to win each and every game. Not a team trying not to lose because they are scared of the media backlash. Hoddle and Evans both employ that brave brand of football. It is very much a case of “we are going to play good football, and if you score once, we’ll score twice.” England fans need that kind of excitement to be satisfied, because that is the nature of the Premier League. English supporters are not happy going from the excitement of the Premier League, to watching their country score just 4 goals in 4 games against average opposition, 2 of which came from set pieces. It is not just a results game now. The people of England will happily go out to Germany or Spain in the quarter or Semi-finals. They just want to see us trying to win for once, instead of notoriously trying not to lose, only to usually go out on penalties anyway! Take note, FA.
Written by Adam Jones July 07 2016 18:37:46
