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England and expectations
Whenever England are getting ready to play an international tournament, one thing is almost always guaranteed, and that is high expectations. That’s not exactly surprising, given how much the nation loves football. Sadly, the only other thing in English football that has remained as constant as high expectations are the regular failures of the Three Lions at international tournaments.
It’s mind-boggling when you sit down to think about it. The inventors of the beautiful game have only ever won a single World Cup, that too in 1966. Even England’s recent ‘Golden Generation’ – which included the likes of John Terry, Rio Ferdinand, Ashley Cole, Frank Lampard, Steven Gerrard, David Beckham, Joe Cole and Wayne Rooney in their prime – always put in flat performances in big tournaments. The blame for their failure was laid on everything: the WAGS, the manager, the FA, even the media and fans; the real problems were always ignored. But constant under-achievement has led to a lowering of expectations. Fans no longer go into international tournaments expecting to emerge victorious; they have now come to expect failure.
So…. what are the real problems in English football? That’s a question that cannot be answered in one line. The problems behind England’s decline as a footballing nation are varied. In this article, I’ll take a look at what went wrong in this World Cup along with what the FA must do to ensure that England start producing players that are good enough to perform well at international tournaments.
When Roy Hodgson announced his final 23-man squad for the World Cup, the reaction to his selection was, as always, mixed. The simple fact was that Hodgson chose his strongest squad. But expectations were low because England were drawn into the ‘Group of Death’ alongside Italy, Uruguay and Costa Rica. As it turns out, they ended up finishing bottom of the group. What makes this early exit more frustrating is that England could very easily have made it into the second round if Roy Hodgson had employed the right formation and utilised different tactics.
What went wrong in the World Cup?
In the matches against Italy and Uruguay, Hodgson employed a 4-2-3-1 with Gerrard and Henderson in midfield, which is a recipe for disaster. Gerrard will never be at his best in a two-man midfield; you either protect him in a three-man midfield or don’t play him at all. Unsurprisingly, he was England’s worst player in both games.
That’s not to say that some of the mistakes he made weren’t avoidable, but Hodgson must shoulder some of the blame for Gerrard’s performances. He could have employed a 4-3-3 or even simply used Liverpool’s diamond formation (Gerrard sitting deep, Henderson and Wilshere/Milner as box-to-box midfielders with Sterling sitting just behind Rooney and Sturridge) if he wanted to get the best out of the skipper and indeed the team. The fact that the midfield was weak meant the defence, which didn’t exactly look convincing to begin with, were made to look horrible.
As for the forwards, they managed to look threatening on occasion but lacked an end product. Not one of the wingers or strikers did enough; Rooney and Sturridge scored a goal each, but were often absent for crucial periods during games. Raheem Sterling was good in the game against Italy but didn’t turn up against Uruguay. And Danny Welbeck… well, let’s not go there. The United forward has always done well under Hodgson but failed to make any sort of impact this time around.
Another problem was Hodgson’s decision to not press the opposition in the final third. With players like Rooney, Sturridge, Sterling and Welbeck up front it would have made sense to look to press the opposition and maybe get a few errors out of them. These players do it at club level so the concept isn’t exactly an alien one. Winning the ball back in a dangerous position then breaking with speed would have made perfect sense. Instead, Roy chose to sit back and let the opposition come at them, giving them the time and space to do their thing. When England did have possession, it was clear they had no idea how to break down a team, which makes the decision to not base their game around quick transitions all the more baffling.
The truth about English Football
The simple truth is that Roy Hodgson isn’t good enough to be the manager of the England national team. The fact that FA chairman Greg Dyke backed Hodgson despite England’s embarrassing exit makes it apparent that even he should look to step down from his post as soon as possible. Despite what some might think, England’s World Cup was nothing short of abject failure and this will keep going on until incompetents like Dyke remain in power. That being said, the problems of English football run much deeper than Hodgson and Dyke.
The English Premier League is one of the most watched football Leagues in the world for a variety of reasons. However, of the few truly world-class players in the League right now , not one of them is English. Now, why exactly is that the case?
Many believe that Premier League clubs should stop looking at foreign markets and look to promote young English talent. Gary Neville has been a vocal advocate of this, and even Roy Hodgson had admitted that he’d like to have more English players to choose from. However, the vital question one has to ask in this case is why do English football clubs look abroad when it would be much easier to use local talent? The answer to this question is simple: most English players just aren’t good enough to cut it at the highest level.
The reason for this is the way young players are coached. If you’re asked to envisage a typical English player, it’s often someone who is a physical specimen; physicality is a key part of the English game. Yet the sad part is that in an effort to develop off-the-ball attributes such as pace, work-rate and physicality, basic skill attributes are often ignored.
In countries like Spain, Germany, Netherlands and Italy, the training is based more on skills and technical ability with the ball. Developing a players physique isn’t ignored, but it isn’t seen as central to their game. They build their players and teams around technical ability and physical ability plays second fiddle. Someone like Sergio Busquets isn’t exactly physically imposing, but he is arguably the best defensive midfielder in the world because of the way he reads the game. That reading of the game doesn’t come from relentless physical training. English coaches shouldn’t look to abandon their physical style altogether, but a way must be found to incorporate it along with technical on-the-ball training.
Home-grown rule
Aside from coaching, the other major issue (according to me anyway) is the home-grown players rule. The rule is defined as follows on the Premier League website:
“To ensure that Premier League Clubs continue to produce top home-grown talent, the 20 Clubs introduced a Home Grown Player rule from the start of the 2010/11 campaign. Clubs cannot name more than 17 non home grown players aged over 21.”
On the face of it, this rule is meant to ensure that clubs continue to promote local talent. If you want to have a 25-man squad, ensure that eight of them fit the home-grown quota or use a smaller squad. Seems fair enough. However, it hasn’t exactly worked out as planned.
The first problem is that you don’t have to be English to count as home-grown. A home-grown player is a player who has been registered with any club affiliated to the Football Association or the Football Association of Wales for a period, continuous or not, of three entire seasons or 36 months prior to his 21st birthday, or the end of the season during which he turns 21. In theory, English clubs can still bring in young foreigners and ensure they get three seasons in England before their 21st birthday, and voila… you have yourself a home-grown player. To cite an example, Chelsea’s recent signing Cesc Fabregas is a fully capped Spain international yet counts as home-grown due to his previous affiliation with Arsenal. This is a loophole that can be exploited by clubs if they wish to do so.
Over-priced Englishmen
The second problem is that Premier League clubs are either reluctant to sell English players or when they do, they manage to get extremely inflated sums in transfer fees. The players also benefit from this as they can demand extremely high wages even if they don’t really deserve it. No one will forget Liverpool paying a combined £55M for Andy Carroll and Stewart Downing only for them to flop massively. Manchester United recently signed Luke Shaw for a sum believed to be around £27M. I’m not saying Shaw is a bad player, but it’s safe to say that if he wasn’t English he would cost around half of that. These inflated prices mean most clubs prefer to look abroad because the players available there are not only available for cheap but are often better than their English counterparts.
Both of these issues discussed above (coaching and the home-grown rule) are linked. Picture this: if kids are properly coached from a young age, the number of talented players available in England will gradually start increasing. With the number of promising youngsters now increasing, English clubs will not need to look abroad on a regular basis and will instead look to give their own youngsters a chance, as is the case in Spain, Germany, France and even Holland. This will in turn make the home-grown rule unnecessary (even if it is still being implemented) and the inflated prices clubs have to pay for English talent might just come down. It sounds extremely idealistic, but it isn’t impossible either.
The problems English football currently faces aren’t massively difficult to address. But they will only be addressed once people actually acknowledge that there is a problem and focus on it instead of continuing to hide behind false statements like “Too many foreigners in the Premier League is damaging English football” or “We need to give the kids a chance”. Then, and only then, will English football manage to eventually drag itself out of the rut it currently finds itself in.
