Fabio Capello has till September to figure out what he’s got and how best to use it.
He hasn’t got much. He’s only got what Sven had.
But we hope he can do more with them.
Last night England lost 1-0 in Paris after David James made a mistake and allowed Anelka to tumble over him for a 24-carat penalty in 31 minutes.
England started OK and passed briskly on the deck but the 4-2-3-1 system did Rooney no favours because you need three flair players in the three and he only had Joe Cole. On the right at Chelsea, Joe can go both ways. On the left, he can only go one way. Sounds Irish that, but it’s true,
We have no disguise in our play, no craft, no way to surprise Thuram-Gallas Makelele. We could not batter the fortress down or sneak into it.
Capello insists that England pass the ball to each other and they did that but we had no cutting edge and we haven’t had any cutting edge for years, apart from two games in Portugal in 2004, when Rooney was on fire.France, by contrast, had some perceptive link-play between Ribery, Anelka and Malouda. What they did, and tried to do, made sense.
France let England come on to them, and looked for the break, and had the right kind of players to effect a penetrating break. They moved the ball incisively and had some smart ideas.
I was surprised to see David James’s starting position and such a gross misjudgement when Anelka tumbled over him. That was TERRIBLE goalkeeping. Ribery slotted the penalty.
After that we lost belief and 4-4-2 didn’t improve it because France can absorb the obvious and we only do obvious. We don’t do flair. And, of course, our two most resourceful players, Joe Cole and Rooney, had gone off at half time, along with Gerrard, so that he could try Owen, Crouch and Downing.
If England don’t have width, they must have better movement. But we had neither. In 58, Ashley Cole was free and had three players in scoring positions and he hit his cross into Coupet’s hands.
Pointers to the future?
From day one the pragmatic Capello has sought to create a workmanlike England team. Two matches in, that’s all he can do. Maybe he will prefer Joleon Lescott to John Terry. Lescott looked pretty good.
Twin anchormen !!! He loves a belt-and-braces midfield and he will stick with Hargreaves-Barry. Those two played 90 and that tells you something about the future. Against serious opposition in serious games, that’s what it will be.
Paris was mostly more of the same. Beckham was past it in 2004 and will not start for England again after this. He made poor Wes Brown overlap him every time, to give himself time and room.
The bad news: we are not a producer nation.
The old news : we never were.
In 50 years we have only produced, going backwards, Gascoigne, Beardsley, Hoddle, Alan Hudson and Bobby Charlton. And two of them were alcoholics.
What we produce are yeomen, warriors and technicians Hundreds of yeomen who win thousands of caps. Sometimes a yeoman has a modicum of craft, like Gareth Barry. Sometimes he’s fast and tough, like Des Walker.Sometimes he’s a giant, like Terry Butcher. Sometimes he’s a super-soldier, like Alan Shearer. Sometimes he’s from Canada, like Owen Hargreaves, Sometimes he can shoot, like Lampard. Sometimes he’s an action-hero, like Gerrard. They are all method players, all technicians, all yeomen.Throughout the history of English football, the most of the flair has come from Scots, Irish, Welsh, Dutchmen, Argentinians, Frenchmen, and, now, Portuguese and Brazilians. Portugal and Brazil are producer nations, they produce loads of good craftsmen and flair players.
As Glenn Hoddle said on Sky, Capello’s learned a lot tonight, but most of it is negative.
If he had Nicky Barmby, Beardlsey and Darren Anderton, and an 19-year old Michael Owen, he could play 4-2-3-1.
I doubt if it would work with Bentley, Joe Cole and SWP. He can’t experiment too much. He doesn’t have time. At the moment he is finding out what he can’t do and what he hasn’t got.
As I say, Fabio hasn’t got much to work with.
Let’s wish him luck. He will need it. He has to grapple with the truth. And the truth is that our one-dimensional footballers play one-dimensional football.
Euro 2008 starts 74 days from now. You can see why we didn’t qualify.
We play USA next month and that’s good because it takes me a month to recover from an England game.
USA won 3-0 in Poland tonight. And David Villa hit a fabulous left foot volley into the top corner past Buffon. Spain 1 Italy 0.
PS : Writing the above late last night – at 12.45 a.m. – I was overcome by the biggest wave of fatigue that’s ever hit me. It was weird. It was like a tsunami of exhaustion and I thought I’d be knocked out of my chair.