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A large broom needed to clean up England's doom



Its been a week since England’s exit from the World Cup and on goes the seemingly never ending fall out in the media, the text message jokes and the angry pub based debates.

It’s fair to say that England’s dismal failings in this World Cup have upset a lot of people. Phone-ins have been littered with cockneys shouting that the overpaid players and manager should now tip up their wages to nurses before being sent to do battle in Afghanistan.

But should we be that upset? Did we not see it coming? How really did we expect players that struggled against the USA and Algeria to come out and knock out a young exciting German team that has played some of the best football of the competition so far?

The answer is of course that we always believe that this team will come good. No matter how they play we are one game away from turning things around and becoming the world force we all hope for. Sadly, it never comes true. Oh there are flashes of hope and promise but that flicker of genius that we all know that’s in there somewhere never fully comes to fruition.

The reason why it doesn’t is never fully clear because of the alphabet of tired and worn excuses being flown around for failure. Tactics, exhaustion, the ball, the climate, pampered players, splits in the camp, coups, affairs and over discipline are just some that have been thrown out over the last seven days.

But while each fan, journalist and ex professional all have an opinion on how to fix our broken national team it’s the men at the top who have to act. But unfortunately our jurassic F.A don’t have the track record to show that a change of approach will be introduced.

In the past they have invested inflated wages in foreign coaches who are just as tactically stubborn as our own, built an overpriced national stadium and thrown money at a Burton training complex which still remains unfinished and unused. Doesn’t fill you with much hope does it?

The foreign coach experiment was supposed to bring in forward thinking football men from the continent who could change the way we approach international football. What did we get? Sven and Fabio, who although they do have individual good points are ultimately flawed by their reliance on an outdated system that does not suit the players they seem intent on playing.

The Lampard and Gerrard situation is a prime example. Capello came and promised to sort out England’s biggest unsolved mystery of how to get these two great players into the team and replicating something near their club form. Sadly as we enter the twilight of their international careers still no workable solution has been found.

Playing Gerrard from the left works when England are setting the tempo and playing well against lesser teams; unfortunately against more intelligent, stronger and ultimately better opposition the system becomes rigid and the players start sticking to their positions when what’s needed for it to work is freedom and flexibility.

It’s extremely sad to see that the most obvious solution to getting two of England’s most outstanding footballers to play together has never been given a run of games. Namely playing both of them together with a holding midfielder with either Gerrard playing off Rooney with a more natural left sided player or with a middle three including Lampard and Gerrard with more forward thinking players providing the width in a interchangeable 4-5-1/4-3-3 formation. Sadly the F.A decided to pay six million pounds to a year to another man who is less open to change than they are.

This is just one element of Capello’s failures during this tournament. The Italian’s become a shadow of the solid, respectable coach we saw during the early days of his tenure. His confusing selection policies, substitutions and contradictory policies over things like contract negations have left a lot to be desired.

The BBC yesterday showed a montage of all the managers that have fallen on their sword since their country’s exit from the World Cup. There were a considerable amount but there was one notable exception, Fabio Capello. The money the Italian’s paid means there is no way he would’ve done the honourable thing and resigned. Now a get out clause in his contract has been removed the F.A can’t afford to pay off the rest of his contract, so now we are left with a manager who it seems nobody has faith in anymore.

The fact is that the sorry circles that the F.A work in has left the England national team in a mess. We will now see Capello in charge for at least the next two years up until the end of the next European Championships. That is perhaps until he’s given a new contract to 2014 after England qualify top of an easy looking qualification group. It really wouldn’t surprise me.

But like it or not we are stuck with him now so let’s hope Capello is as "ruthless" as the press make him out to be and actually ditches some of the old guard who no longer should be relied on to take England forward. What’s needed is a sprinkling of young and exciting talent that Capello says will add “new energy” to the team.

The good thing for me is that at least he recognises that he has to change to save his reputation. Come the opening Euro 2012 qualification game in September must be ready to make regular starters of the likes of Adam Johnson, Michael Dawson and Joe Hart while blooding others like Gary Cahill, Jack Rodwell and Jack Wilshire as regular squad members. Theo Walcott must also return in some form, England definitely missed having a player with pace that opponents actually fear during this tournament.

I’m not entirely sure which of the “golden generation” should survive. One thing that is for certain is that John Terry must go and England must move on from his era in the side. If the Chelsea man can’t be captain he isn’t worth his place and should be replaced in order to form a new partnership’s at the back. Players like David James, Jamie Carragher and Emile Heskey must also be forgotten if we are to start to move forward.

While Capello has decisions to make over which players should go and which young talent he should blood, he must also give them the freedom of expression by implementing a variation of the 4-3-3 system. He definitely needs to experiment to make these group of players into a well oiled international unit.

Let’s start doing things other teams do. Why not start Crouch? The Tottenham man is our nearest thing to someone like Klose, who has an outstanding goal record for Germany but not for his cub.

Let’s play Rooney wide from a three man attack, where he can cut inside and do some damage. At Manchester United there are an abundance of creative players to feed Rooney, England don’t have that. In qualifying he was far more effective and got the team playing from deeper positions which was rarely seen at this World Cup. Let’s not have our best footballer swallowed up by intelligent sides whose centre backs and holding midfielders stunt his influence when he is left to rot up front. We need to srop trying to turn our most naturally gifted footballer into an old fashioned target man. Sir Alex Ferguson can play him where he wants but England need more from Rooney outside the box than United do.

Below is how I’d like the side to set up come September with the players who should be nearest the starting eleven.


GK: Hart

DF: Johnson Cahill/Dawson/R. Ferdinand A.Cole

HM: Hargreaves/Rodwell

CM: Lampard/Gerrard/Wilshere/Milner/Huddlestone

AT: Lennon, Walcott/A. Johnson/Crouch/Rooney

Other squad members; Foster, Green, Gibbs, Barry, J. Cole, Defoe, Bent.

It may not be overly radical but for England the change in formation is the most important part of how we recover from this dismal showing in South Africa.

For me it’s the grass levels of the game that needs to see wholesale changes; for starters we need a more workable solution to getting more English youngsters into Premier League sides must be achieved. At a much lower level the FA must now champion skill and technique by getting more children playing football in the right way. Sir Trevor Brooking is currently trying to implement this and I wish him well in his attempt to single headedly move our tired old FA into looking at 21st Century models like the one that is seeing Germany storm into another World Cup semi final with a young and vibrant side.

England may have been unlucky in that Lampard’s goal was never given in that quarter final a week ago today. But in fact that non-goal may have done us a huge favour as without the total capitulation that followed it may not have given us the chance to force changes to the personnel, the way we play our football and the whole way we approach developing our young talent. Sweeping changes are needed across the board, now can someone please get Fabio and the rest of the F.A a big brush and tell them how to use it?