AN EMAIL from an Irish reader :
Myles,
Keen to hear your views on the England fiasco on Saturday against Paraguay. I’m an Irishman who genuinely wishes England well in this tournament, but I fear that you are shackled with an uncreative, stifling, percentage-playing manager.
I cannot believe the way England played in the second half. Paraguay were a shambles – a team crying out to be killed off. But no – England played within themselves, played in a way that – to my mind – is very unEnglish. As O’Neill (a proper manager) said, they surrendered the initiative ‘for no reason.’
Still, at least there’s scope to turn things around, however I fear that when England meet an Argentina, or a Brazil, or even an Italy – the Swede’s tactical shortcomings will be once again exposed.
I hope I’m wrong.
Pete
_____________________________
UNFORTUNATELY, Pete, I can believe the way England played in the second half.
Like you, I reckon we’ll lose as soon as we play anybody good.
How do I explain that performance? Yes, it was the usual nervous first game and a hot day.
Mostly, we don’t have players who run towards the ball. A football team needs some players running towards the ball while others run away from it. When we had Beardsley, or Sheringham, we could play a bit of football.
But now Rio, Ashley, Becks and Stevie just hit it 40 or 50 or 60 yards, as if Heskey was still there, as if Owen was still fast. Without Rooney, we have reverted.We now play as we did pre-Rooney.We play like Houllier’s Liverpool and it’s horrible because we don’t even have a Gary McAllister.
ON SATURDAY I didn’t write about the Paraguay game because my old flatmate John Mair and his son Rob came round. Rob is 13 and wore a red England shirt with ROONEY in gold letters on the back. He is a footballer who knows a helluva lot about the game and it’s a shame that watching England with two old cynics inevitably dampens the lad’s enthusiasm.
My complaints about England are simple : I don’t like Owen, I don’t like Sven. I like the ten other players but I don’t like Owen. I don’t think you can play football with Owen in the team, even when he is fit.
He wins matches but he can’t play football, so if you have Owen in the team you are choosing not to play football. And that is what Sven did when he took the job. He said to Tord Grip : Let’s play like Houllier’s Liverpool, let’s boot it long for Heskey and Owen.
Now they boot it up to Owen, who is not even fast any more, and Peter Crouch, who is not a bruiser like Heskey.
Against Paraguay, Owen was so bad that Crouch had to do two jobs. He had to be the target man and also the half-striker. For once, Sven owned up and took Owen off after 57 minutes. He was having such a nightmare that Sven could not leave him on. However, Sven knows that Owen can score when he’s playing badly. He can also be the worst player on the field and then score twice.
After 2002 I said that Sven now had to choose between playing football and playing Heskey. And he carried on playing Heskey.
And then Wayne Rooney came along and saved Sven’s job.
Sven invests huge faith in his icons : Beckham and Owen. He worships his icons.He worships Michael and he worships David. He has always believed that their focus, their determination, their ambition, would keep him in a very lucrative job. He worships ambitious, self-motivated winners.
In the depths of that appalling second half against Paraguay, when we had failed to build on an own-goal gift after three minutes, when we we were hanging on, I got really, really fed up and said :”There’s only three explanations for what Sven is doing. One, he has always been incompetent. Two, he’s had a breakdown, he’s a deeply damaged individual. Or, three, he’s doing it deliberately, for revenge. He’s picked a rubbish squad to wind us all up.”
I SAID HIS SQUAD was hopeless as soon as it was announced. Too many midfielders, not enough strikers.
The composition of Sven’s squad, in itself, disqualifies England from reaching the semi-finals.
If I was Brian Barwick, and Sven gave me that squad, I would have taken him by the lapels and thrown him against the wall and said, “This is NOT an England squad ! Come back to me within 24 hours with a proper England squad to play in the World Cup !”
AFTER THE PARAGUAY game, as I walked John and Rob round to the tube station, I saw the wife of a friend walking quickly towards us with some groceries in a plastic bag. Her husband Tony is a keen Arsenal fan who sometimes watches the reserves at Barnet. I thought she would nod and say hello, but she stopped.
“Disappointed?” she said.
“Not really. England don’t play good football in tournaments. I’ve long ago given up hope of seeing us play good football in tournaments.”
At 5.30 we drove over to Swiss Cottage and a fan ran across in front of the car with blood on his white England shirt, which was torn. Two short-haired guys followed, arguing with him.
As we went round the one-way system and came back past the Hampstead Theatre the same man was in the gutter being kicked by the other two. They kicked him ten or twelve times in the back and ribs as as we drove past. This at 6pm on a sunny Saturday in June.
We arrived at Doug and Kate’s in Primrose Hill and ate dinner and then Doug and I went upstairs to watch Argentina versus Ivory Coast. Then, after half an hour, Kate and Jan came up to join us with tea, strawberries and cream, and lemon cake.
We admired Argentina’s expertise and we liked Ivory Coast because, unlike most African teams, they have a striker, Didier Drogba. It’s all about goal threat. If you don’t have a goal threat, go home.
Bella, a lovely old cat, sat on my arm of the sofa during the second half. I picked up my dessert plate to see if Bella wanted to lap up some cream, which she meticulously did.
A little while later we drove home. It had been a long day and watching England-Paraguay was the worst part of it.
On Sunday I didn’t write about England because I was out of town.
TRINIDAD & Tobago’s best player is coach Leo Beenhakker, a wily old Dutchman who points out that five of England’s last seven goals came from dead balls..
Their centreback Brent Sancho plays for Gillingham, five of their team play in Scotland, and Sven’s multi-millionaires should win easily. It’s an easy group and England are lucky to be in an easy group
Right, Pete ?