By Myles Palmer
I happened to catch Sven’s Monday press conference live on Sky News this morning.
He said nothing for about ten minutes and they cut back to the studio before he finished talking.
Still,Sven was visibly different.
He looked and sounded contrite.
He never said “I got it completely wrong” because he could not admit that.
But his voice and face told the story.
His England had been found out and his system had been found out and his selections had been found out and his risky,unbalanced squad had been found out.
I don’t think many coaches can think on their feet – or on their arses on the bench.
When Ayala was injured in the warm-up, Nigeria should have bombarded his position for the first 20 minutes.
What did they have to lose?
In general terms I think Sven has been badly briefed by Crozier,Newman and Davies.
His £2 million a year job is to SHARE IT WITH US.
It’s not his job to win the World Cup.We are not stupid. We know we are not good enough to win the World Cup.
So the job of the England coach is to SHARE IT WITH US.
But the man the Italians call “the rubber wall” is so tight-lipped that he says nothing and gives us nothing much to chew on. No details about our team, no juice.
Even this morning he didn’t say much.
He said that Beckham did well for 35-40 minutes and then tired.
SO WHY DID BECKS COME OUT FOR THE SECOND HALF?
Sven said that we gave the ball away too much in the second half, so confidence collapsed.
BUT WHY DID WE GIVE IT AWAY SO MUCH?
Because the team is too young.The squad is too young.
A 4-3-3 style seeks penetration, not possession.When it was not working he needed more craft,more experience, a Fowler, a Sheringham.
We lost the ball because we had nobody to pass to. Because the white shirts were too far away.
We ran away from the ball, not towards the ball, as we often did throught the Seventies, Eighties and early Nineties.
It fell apart because Sven had no half-striker to link the play, no captain who could read the game, no defender bright enough to push us up.
THE TEAM SVEN PICKED WAS DESIGNED TO GIVE THE BALL AWAY.
THAT WAS HIS FAULT-nobody else’s.
But do teams with elderly keepers ever push up?
Packy Bonner was over the hill when Ireland played in USA 94.He only won two caps after that.
The Irish defence knew Bonner would not make saves, so they defended deep, as you do with old keepers.
You know they will not come out of their penalty area, so you sit deeper.
Paul McGrath was playing 15 yards deeper than he did at Villa with young Mark Bosnich behind him.
There’s an element of that now, with Seaman.
We defended the box aganst SWEDEN!
That was a tactical bungle that was not rectified by Sven or Rio or Sol or anybody. Are they all so DIM?
IN SOME OTHER TERRIFYING QUOTES I read today Sven said Sweden won the second half because their long balls were more accurate than our long balls.
And they won more second balls in midfield.
THE ENGLAND TEAM has been trying to evolve away from such neanderthal thinking for ten years.
Why does Sven want to play that way?Because he thinks we can’t play good football?
Also : He is fixated on Beckham and Owen.
If he could get the other nine right, Beckham and Owen would be fine, fitness permitting.
Bringing Dyer on for Becks was crazy.You do NOT replace a crock with a crock.
It’s quite AMAZING that somebody we thought was so smart could get so much wrong in one game.I’m gobsmacked by the whole shambles.
But I will remember today’s press conference as the day the cool finally cracked.
Sven was no longer smiling, inscrutable, neutral, bland.
He was a man who had suffered compound stress fractures in everything from his designer glasses to his metatarsals.
HUMPTY DUMPTY HAD A GREAT FALL.
Friday? I don’t know.
I’m still thinking about it.
I’ve got three more days to think about it.
Tonight,in my heart of hearts, I think we are out of the World Cup.
I don’t want to write Sven off after one game, but I don’t see any good signs.He took off Vassall, our best player.
We cannot beat Argentina, that’s for sure.
We will need seven or eight men playing out of their skins, and all the luck in the world, to get a 1-1 draw on Friday.
He lost the press before England left for Dubai. He was too remote, too unwilling to share it with us, too busy being the Mr Cool of world football,enjoying his dinner parties and his endorsement deals.
It’s a crucible, the World Cup.
It’s already changed Mick McCarthy’s life.
It could change Sven Goran-Eriksson’s in the next two matches.
June 4th 2002.