By Myles Palmer
England 2 Albania 0
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Sven knows what he is doing. Good team selection, good tactics, good subs. Sensible comments after the game.
He is getting to know the players, and they obviously respond to him, and it’s all looking much better.
So the Swedish smoothie has taken the angst out of watching England.
But I wish his team was better balanced. And had a better defence.
First half,I thought the Newcastle crowd managed England, so the tempo was faster than the skill of the players.It was frantic, so we took 44 minutes to score.
The Albanians defended deep to make sure it wasn’t 5-1 like Munich. England did not adapt to that.Played too fast,too many long balls.
Terrific through pass from Scholes, agile finish by Owen, but atrocious defending by the left back who was playing him onside.
Owen missed three other chances. He stopped using his left foot. But he still scored 9 out of 10 in some papers.
The hgype is so huge the tabloids can’t mark him realistically
Albania were better than Germany, as many of us thought they would be.So the game was a reality check.
Sven admitted,”It’s not easy to create when you’re faced with nine or ten defenders but we played rather well in the first half I think. We could have scored more then, the game could have been over by the end of 45 minutes. But when you don’t score you don’t close out the game and you use up a lot of energy. That happened and, of course, the players used up a lot of energy physically and mentally in Germany.
“But at the start of the second half we lost control a little, they had a very good chance but Seaman saved well. Football is strange, during that 15-minute spell we suffered more than against Germany in the whole game. We seemed a little bit afraid.”
I thought Scholes was by far our best player, although my best friend Doug just phoned and told me that, “Rio was our best player. When we panicked, he didn’t.”
SUMMARY :
SEAMAN – largely unemployed
G.NEVILLE – did OK
CAMPBELL – improved on Munich
FERDINAND – I wish he was left-footed
COLE – hope he doesn’t play as rashly at Chelsea
BECKHAM – tenacious, growing into captaincy
GERRARD – one fantastic 70-yard pass to Beckham
SCHOLES – held the team together
BARMBY – one of his most feeble games for England
HESKEY – was he playing?
OWEN – Michaelmania did not help him
Subs
McMANAMAN – still sloppy after all these years.
CARRAGHER – had fresh legs
FOWLER – a goal of genius after stuttering.
When Fowler skipped through to score with world class skill and end the tension after 88 minutes, I thought of Ted Powell, the England Under-18 coach I talked to a few years back.
Ted had Fowler, Scholes and Campbell and in the Under-18 team that won the European Championships in Nottingham.
He said that Sol had played centre forward at the National School, and then in midfield. But one day he decided to move him to centreback and split Chris Casper and Gary Neville, so he moved Neville to right back and that worked well.
Ted said he sometimes played a diamond with Robbie Fowler just behind Kevin Gallen and Julian Joachim.
I just found Ted’s quote on Fowler in my 1995 archives :
“He was always a very good finisher. He was always very good with his runs. He’s a bit like Yeboah, really. They say he’s left-footed, but he can hit it with his right or left. He’s a clinical finisher, and he’s a good lad as well. Robbie and Kevin Gallen always got on very well together. At that time and for the next two or three years, Robbie used to come down and stay with Kevin, and Kevin used to go up and stay with Robbie in Liverpool. If there was a microphone on the bus, they’d interview each other. When Martin Tyler interviewed them at Lilleshall they were very funny.
“But very level-headed lads, they weren’t over the top. We never had any problems with them, or any of the players, in terms of going out late or anything. If we asked them to rest, they rested.”
I thought that was a great comment.Fowler was like Yeboah!
No other striker in England could have picked up the ball where Fowler did against Albania, and beaten two defenders and the keeper as cleverly as he did.
Robbie Fowler is special, even now.
If Owen and Heskey doesn’t work, he can come on and score. Against anybody. He is good enough to score against France, Argentina, anybody.The guy has pedigree.He has freak ability, like Gazza. He has always been like that.
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ENGLAND : Seaman; G Neville, Campbell, Ferdinand, Ashley Cole; Beckham, Gerrard (Carragher, 83), Scholes, Barmby (McManaman, 64); Owen, Heskey (Fowler, 55).
ALBANIA:Strakosha; Fakaj, Cipi, Xhumba; Dede, Bellaj, F Vata, Hasi(Alban Bushi, h-t), Murati; Bogdani (Tare, 56), Rraklli(Mukaj, 63).
6th September 2001.