AFTER that 0-0 in Israel, we can all see that England coach Steve McClaren doesn’t know how to do the job.
He doesn’t know how to get a grip of the team. He doesn’t command respect. He’s not in charge. He can’t drop a superstar because he’s scared of losing the dressing room, so he puts up with Rooney playing like a zombie.
At this moment, on this Monday morning, most of us think Steve McClaren should be managing a gym in Burton-on-Trent.
Like Sven, he can’t change a game. Sven used to sit on his hands and Sven II just scribbles in his notebook. Although, to be fair, only Scolari, Mourinho and Benitez can change a game. Those three can win a big, tight game from the bench. Very few can do that.
Clearly, Steve McLaren has been promoted far above his abilities and is embarrassing himself.
It’s really no fun for 15 million English football fans watching him crippled by the challenge, the spotlight, the expectations, the rigid hierarchy of superstars who refuse to give him a performance. England have scored one goal in their last five games.
The more you look at Wayne Rooney recently, the more you realise he is like Patrick Vieira in 2004. He will win the Premier League while having a generally poor season.
As we have seen many times before, a fantastic talent is not always a fantastic footballer. Footballers have good and bad seasons, especially when they are young. Physically, Rooney is a man, but mentally he is a boy. When he grows up mentally he might be able to give us a good season.
In Tel Aviv, Rooney played like a zombie after the first half hour. He let Andy Johnson do all the work in a deeper position while he walked about or stood still, maybe thinking about his next Champions League game for Man United.
I’m told Clive Woodward was on Radio 5 Live on Sunday morning and said : If somebody’s not doing it, you have to get him to do it or drop him. You have to be ruthless.
What is the way forward for England? Should the idiot who gave McClaren the job now resign?
Well, Brian Barwick’s is a manager of committees in the television industry. He has scored a colossal own-goal in making McClaren the England coach. It’s probably too soon for McClaren to go, but it’s exactly the right time for Barwick to fall on his sword.
The England team now have two walkover games against two minnows, Andorra and Estonia, and a new Chief Executive would have time to figure out if he should keep McClaren for the remaining qualification games or not. If McClaren stays and qualifies, he should be replaced after Euro 2008.
Then, and only then, you would have the starting point for a solution. What you have now is an England team built on fear of its stars and fear of the media. You cannot succeed on that basis. Not now, not ever.
The next coach will be badly short of quality strikers but he has to find a solution. And he has to be ruthless. He has to ask : If Rooney has not scored in a competitive game for England for three years, why is he in the team? Would that happen in Germany? In Spain ? In Italy?
McClaren is not strong enough to choose between Lampard and Gerrard, or even to switch Gerrard to the left and put Lennon on the right, where Lennon might have won the game. Again, it’s like Sven, it’s about pecking order. A proper coach knows that shape and balance is far more important than pecking order. Football is a team game and you need the machinery which makes a team roll along and function.
With Carragher, Gerrard and Lennon playing out of position, it was just like Sven’s England. The Swede was a groupie who loved to put square pegs in round holes and this team is the same farce but without Beckham. And Beckham at his worst had 200% more commitment to the cause than Lampard and Rooney showed in Tel Aviv.
Basically, Lampard is a super-competent club player. One-paced and one-dimensional, he often lends you the ball rather than passing it to you.
Owen Hargreaves had sloppy moments but he was always doing the right things. But what chance did Hargreaves have in a team with no left-footed player? With Rooney giving 30%? With Lampard unable to score from three chances?
McClaren should have brought Stuart Downing or Gareth Barry on for Lampard and switched Lennon to the right, his best position, where Lennon might have won the game.
Yossi Benayoun, who hadn’t played for four weeks, looked more like a footballer than Rooney or Lampard.
ISRAEL (4-4-2): Aouate (Deportivo La Coruna); Shpungin (Maccabi Tel Aviv), Gershon (Beitar Jerusalem), Ben Haim (Bolton), Ziv (Beitar Jerusalem); Ben Shushan (Beitar Jerusalem), Benado (Beitar Jerusalem), Badir (Hapoel Tel Aviv); Tamuz (Beitar Jeruslaem); Benayoun (West Ham), Balili (Sivasspor). Subs used: Sahar (Chelsea) for Balili, 69; Barda (Hapoel Tel Aviv) for Tamuz, 76; Alberman (Beitar Jerusalem) for Ben Shushan, 87.
ENGLAND (4-4-1-1): Robinson (Tottenham); Phil Neville (Everton), Terry (Chelsea), Ferdinand (Manchester United), Carragher (Liverpool); Gerrard (Liverpool), Lampard (Chelsea), Hargreaves (Bayern Munich), Lennon (Tottenham); Johnson (Everton); Rooney (Manchester United). Subs used: Richards (Manchester City) for P Neville, 72; Defoe (Tottenham) for Johnson, 80; Downing (Middlesbrough) for Lennon, 83.
Overall, as I said last week, Israel are not very good and neither are we. But sometimes we forget how bad we are, as I did on Saturday morning, and psyche ourselves into believing England will put on a performance worth watching. What a mug I was to believe what I wrote on Saturday morning !
Andorra v England is on at the same time as Italy v Scotland, so we can avoid England on Wednesday.
The FA has a history of giving the England job to people who are unqualified to do it, like Graham Taylor and Kevin Keegan.
Graham Taylor impressed the FA blazers but should never have been allowed near the job. He managed England for 38 games between 1990 and 1993, failing to qualify for the World Cup in USA. I can remember being at Wembley when we played Turkey and thinking, “In only 14 games he’s turned England into Watford !”
Tel Aviv reminded me of Turkey in 1991, although McClaren achieved unwatchable mediocrity much quicker than Taylor. He has turned England into Middlesbrough in 8 games.
The next England coach has to be somebody who is (1) tough-minded and (2) independent of the media and (3) who doesn’t need the money and (4) who has coached internationally before.
That is your starting point. That is your brief.
SATURDAY was the first time I’ve ever watched the England Under 21s and the senior team on the same day.
The difference between the two levels is huge. It’s massive and we should always, always, always bear that in mind. Your full international opponents are far sharper mentally, far quicker and smarter, so you have to raise your game and keep raising it.
Having said that, the Under-21 game against Italy was marvellous entertainment, despite the presence of the abysmal Nigel Reo-Coker and Anton Ferdinand, who brought their sloppy West Ham habits to an exciting 3-3 draw.
Arsenal reject David Bentley, fouled on the 30-yard line, got up to swing his free-kick over the wall and into the net to make it 1-1.
My son Michael went to the game with friends and I didn’t see him till Sunday morning, when he said, “It’s a magnificent stadium but it doesn’t have Emirates seats. When Mazzini went off we all stood up and clapped him off the field : Fair play, son, you’ve scored a hat-trick!”
FRANCE played Lithuania and Willy Sagnol made an incredible block just before half-time to keep it 0-0. What a player that guy is ! France were without Vieira, Henry, Ribery and Saha. In the 73rd minute, Anelka cruised into the inside left position and rifled a low shot inside the near post to give them a 1-0 win. Diaby replaced Malouda for one minute at the end.
That was the second best goal of the weekend. The best was by David Villa in Spain’s 2-1 win over Denmark. Fabregas was an unused sub.