ANR reply from Andrew in Dallas
Myles,
Having watched only the second half of the England match tonight what struck me was how pedestrian and one-paced England’s midfield is.
Why will Capello not take a risk and play someone like Wilshire?
Surely with the form that little Jack is in, he would have brought a much needed directness and speed to the England midfield, if only he had been played by Mr Safe (Capello).
Barry and Gerrard both walked about and in the case of Barry passed sideways or backwards, or with Gerrard the long from in front of the defense to Crouch.
Wilshire would have seen the early forward pass to up the tempo.
This increased tempo would have allowed Rooney to drop off a little into the hole to pick up the early pass enabling him to turn and run at the defense like he loves to do.
Why is Capello such a manager that is risk adverse? He had such a poor World Cup that he needed to inspire the nation and this was not inspirational, people were leaving in the 85th minute….
Montenegro were always going to play deep and organised but Capello handicapped his team by playing slow-motion football.
What’s the point in making a move to create space if by the time the midfield has walked to the halfway line you’re double marked?
What’s the point in making a move to be near Peter Crouch if the long ball up to him is so late in coming that any flick he makes is covered by 3 or 4 defenders ?
Yes, international football is slower but it should also be explosive when needed and England’s midfield tonight was a bomb disposal unit, no explosions….
Myles replies :
You saw the good bit, Andrew.
The second half was the good bit.Thank your lucky stars you didn’t see the first half when the tempo was 50% of the second.
Jack Wilshere is the future of England, not the present. He should start friendlies. And come on in qualifiers when we’re winning.
Gerrard didn’t walk about, Andrew. He was our best player and he covered thousands of yards doing things that Gareth Barry and others should have been doing.
Unfortunately, we ain’t very good and Fabio Capello has proved to be too conservative, too inflexible and too deaf. Old generals only trust what has worked for them in the past and this is not Italy.
My theory : during the World Cup I began to believe that Capello is an abrasive character who scares the England players. They all think, to a man, that they’re not as good as the Italian, Spanish and Brazilian players that Capello has coached at Milan, Real Madrid and Roma. He tells them what he wants and they’re scared to disobey orders. They could play with a bit more flair but they’re too inhibited to do that. That was partly how I explained their rigidity in the World Cup.
We have some qualities and a few good players. But Capello cannot find a format which uses them or maximises their possible output. He cannot create an atmosphere in which they can blossom and make England a team greater than the sum of its parts.
Since qualifying for 2010, England have looked static, frozen and inhibited.
A hundred days after we got stuffed 4-1 by Germany, Wayne Rooney is still as bad as he was in South Africa. He used to be special but now he is ordinary.
Rigidity.
I want to talk about England’s rigidity.
Where does that rigidity come from?
Well, 50% comes from fear and the other 50% comes from bad habits. We don’t run towards the ball, we mostly run away from the ball.
From 1982 to 2000, I reported every England game at Wembley, apart from the last one in October, 2000, when I watched Germany train the night before.
I have a lot of memories from those 18 years. But one of the main ones is this :
When an England player got the ball, he looked up and saw four white shirts disappearing into the distance. We hit it too long and lost it too often.
You need a mixture of support (running towards the ball) and penetration (often achieved by runs off the ball). You have to mix your game up and you can’t play in one high gear all the time.
England played good football in the 1986 World Cup after Bryan Robson, Wilkins and Hateley didn’t play.
Hoddle came on from the right, Trevor Steven replaced him wide, Peter Reid played short passes, Hoddle played longer passes, and Beardsley used his dribbling and passing skills to send the ball where it needed to go. Lineker had the penalty area to himself, so he could run wherever he wanted to run. Beardsley was more of a link man than an assist man. If you looked at the stats you’d probably find that Teddy Sheringham, another link forward, supplied more assists than Beardsley, as well as more goals.
Ten years later, in Euro 96, Terry Venables often had six in midfield : Sheringham, Ince, Platt, Gazza, Anderton and Steve McManaman.
Having Gazza, Dazza and Macca in the same team was radical and that’s often forgotten. Three dribblers in midfield ! Tel often used slow, brainy players. At Crystal Palace, striker Mike Flanagan was a bit like Sheringham: a slow striker who could play. Centre half Jim Cannon never won any sprints but did a job.
In coaching, it’s all about balance and good habits.
Fabio Capello’s England don’t have balance or good habits. You can’t make the most of what Ashley Cole can do if you play that Aston Villa nitwit in front of him.
Capello’s selection was barmy and doomed : You can’t play two strikers PLUS two wingers on the wrong foot, as you would in a 4-3-3. And if you play those four, you can’t play somebody as slow as Gareth Barry in midfield. Crouch had his worst-ever game for England.
Capello’s subs were all like for like. His team was dysfunctional and he made sure it remained dysfunctional.
In mitigation, Don Fabio probably spent four days working on how to get the ball to Darren Bent, then lost him the night before the game.
In general, football is about players and teamwork.
A football team is a machine, or should be. A car is a machine with four wheels that must be balanced, and a football team is a machine with four midfielders who must be balanced.
Look at 1966 : Alf Ramsey would not have waited 70 minutes to put Kevin Davies on.
Alf was realistic and pragmatic but also radical. Alf didn’t hate wingers because he had played at right back for Spurs. He merely recognised that a second centre half cut out most crosses by wingers. In that, Alf was similar to Wenger today. But only in that.
In the Sixties, like today, most of the flair players and leaders in English football were not English : Cliff Jones, John White, Dave Mackay, Frank McLintock, Denis Law, Ian St John, Jimmy McIroy.
As Rob Hughes reminded me this morning, when he called as I was writing this, most midfielders saw the ball flying over their heads in the Sixties.
By trial and error, by evaluating what was in front of his eyes during the ’66 World Cup, Alf Ramsey arrived at the midfield balance that made history :
BOBBY CHARLTON was a former left winger with a cannonball shot in both feet. He matured and became a central playmaker.
NOBBY STILES was a quick ball-winner who played left centreback alongside Bill Foulkes for Manchester United. Alf put him in right midfield to win the ball and mark Eusebio.
ALAN BALL was fiery and passionate. He ran towards the ball, got it, kept it, played hundreds of short passes.
MARTIN PETERS was, Alf told us, “ten years ahead of his time.” An elegant midfielder. You would wonder where he was, wonder whether he was still in the pitch, tell your mate that Peters was absolutely useless, and then he’d score with a near-post header.
Like Jock Stein and Brian Clough, Alf Ramsey was very good at figuring out who could play with who.
Most England managers have not been good at that. And their efforts are always hampered by injuries, fatigue and lack of preparation time.
Where Bobby Robson was good was that when his players lost every game in 1988, he said : These are the best 20 players in the country. We didn’t play well, but these are the best 20 players we’ve got.
Bobby was right to keep the faith. That group knew each other and deserved another tournament and when they got it, Des Walker, Terry Butcher, Paul Parker, Mark Wright, Chris Waddle and Lineker gave us an exciting run for our money and came home as heroes. With the crucial addition of the sparky, belligerent young Gascoigne, we took Germany to a penalty shoot-out in the semi-final of Italy 90.
Sometimes football is about glory. Not about winning.