Three and in – not just another football blog

Never a year goes by without the future of the current England manager and speculation over his potential replacements dominating at least one slow-sports-news week. It’s a go-to topic, like ‘Fabregas Wanted by Barcelona’, ‘Giggs is Really Quite Good, Have You Noticed?’ or ‘Terry Family Member Questioned by Police Over ——-‘

One of the recent speculators’ favourites, after getting Tottenham into the Champions League for the first time in their history, is the excitable Harry Redknapp.

On the one hand he seems to be a good man-manager, he’s tactically-competent, and has brought several teams from ‘lowly’ positions (as, in some cases, he’ll never tire of reminding us) to arguable over-achievement. And over-achievement is something the national side is yet to sample. You never know – they might like it – the media certainly would.

But for all his white-flag-waving at Manchester City, Harry also spends a lot of money to bring his teams success – not a luxury afforded to national managers – so would the quality at his disposal in the England set-up be enough to work his magic on? There’s certainly plenty there, with a decent crop of youth creeping in already, but would it be enough?

And would he be able to handle the ‘big personalities’? Harry’s got a bit of a history of falling out with players and though he’ll do his best to keep it internal, it’s pretty obvious when players like Bentley and Pavlyuchenko are only justifying big transfer fees by doing an extra-high-quality job of warming the bench. How would he react to being undermined by an ex-captain, or having a star-striker tell him to procreate off? And what if he, god forbid, froze-out a star player during a tournament? How would he handle the media-frenzy at every following draw or loss?

Perhaps the biggest loss he’d have to handle in moving to a high-profile team, would be his pressure-relieving tactic of telling everyone who’ll listen that his team don’t have a chance against their opponents but that they should just get credit for ‘having a go’. I’m not sure that kind of talk would be met with much sympathy when England lined-up against Denmark. Or Belgium. Or Liechtenstein.

It seems that Harry’s real talent really is, like many other lauded managers who suddenly lose all respect as soon as they fail to make the grade in a higher-expectation role (step forward Woy) getting the best out of average players. To take England to the next level we need someone who can get the best out of quality players. Someone the players ‘like’ purely out of fear of upsetting. And as far as I can see, there are only two working managers we’ve seen in the Premiership recently who fit that bill, and one’s far too Scottish to take the job.

I’m sorry to say it English-manager-demanders, it would be great if we had a home-grown manager capable of getting the results we’re all so desperate to finally achieve, but if we want to get anywhere with the current crop of Lamborghini-driving English talent, there’s only one man for the job. And he’s Portuguese.

Since the 2018 World Cup was awarded to Russia, England have been up in arms.  There’s been dismay at defeat, followed by renewed accusations of corruption, and even rumours of a breakaway organisation to overthrow football’s world governing body.

One can only wonder: if England had triumphed in this competition, if Prince William had poured Jack Warner enough cups of tea, or David Beckham had given Michel Platini enough sensual back-rubs, would we still be calling for FIFA to be brought to justice?

I don’t believe for a minute that the English bidding team were naive enough not to understand how the committee votes were won and lost.  If they were, all they needed to do was watch Panorama on the Monday night to understand the kind of corruption they were dealing with.  I’m not one to say ‘once a crook, always a crook’, but Jack Warner is a convicted ticket tout.  Fact.  And he’s not the only FIFA delegate with a rubber-stamped, official black mark against his name.

The one foreign vote England did win, that of Issa Hayatou, was from a man in the line of Panorama’s fire.  And how did that come about?  Because the FA promised to back him in his bid to take over from Sepp Blatter.

England may not have followed Russia and Quatar’s alleged lead by offering cash for votes.  But equally it’s not as if they launched their bid on its technical facets alone.  They committed to friendlies all over the world in a bid to win global favour.  These would have brought revenue, as would their ‘Football United’ policy.  Whilst there’s no suggestion they were attempting to line the pockets of individuals, the message was simple: vote for us, and your federation will benefit financially.

As soon as there was the slightest sniff of corruption, England’s bid should have been withdrawn.  Now, having lost, legitimate accusations sound like nothing more than sour grapes.  By participating in a charade of a system we have lost the moral high-ground.

Our presence among the bidders endorsed what we already knew to be a flawed, corrupt process.  Like Eurovision, with more old men in suits.  To point fingers at men we were so keen to woo just a matter of days ago is hypocritical in the extreme.

Still, it’s not all doom and gloom.  It is better to be a nation with a honest and free-spoken press than to host a World Cup.  It’s right that the truth was told – it’s just a shame that ethics of the bid committee only became an issue once we were defeated.

Without wanting to take anything away from Jay Bothroyd, who must be delighted with his call up to the England squad, doesn’t it say a lot that a Championship player is in the squad at all?

Bothroyd is described by John Cross, Daily Mirror football writer, as ‘a Premier League star in waiting‘. Yet Bothroyd is no bright young thing, no emerging talent. He’s an experienced but limited pro best known for the way he threw a strop at Arsenal and put paid to any chance of making it with the Gunners. Since then he’s gone from pillar to post, playing for Coventry City, Perugia, Blackburn Rovers, Charlton, Wolves, Stoke and now Cardiff City.

He’s scored an impressive 13 league goals so far this season but with the caveat that these are goals in the Championship. The list of players who score frequently in that league yet fail to do so when they make the step up to the Premier League is long indeed. Let’s face it, Bothroyd is one of them, he’s had his chances in the top flight and failed to make an impact. The Championship appears to be his level.

When you think back to the days when England had Shearer, Sheringham, Wright, Fowler, Ferdinand etc, strikers of real and proven quality, the paucity of options that sees Capello turn turn to a journeyman Championship player, even if it is for a friendly, says a lot about the state of English football talent right now.

…which, for a man who has spent much of his life having his 6 ft 7 ” frame gawped at, both on account of his fame and his physical oddity, must feel somewhat bizarre.

Yesterday, when Darren Bent pulled out of the England squad, a nation’s media mourned.  Some claim the presenter on duty at Sky Sports News at the time shed a solitary tear.  Radio stations could be heard stating confidently that this meant a guaranteed start for first-time call-up Kevin Davies.  Even Carlton Cole waded in to the debate, via his twitter feed.

The whole thing is absurd.  Carlton Cole, on current form, is about as good at football as he is eloquent*.  Kevin Davies is a journeyman clogger who represents no improvement whatsoever on the maligned Emile Heskey.  Darren Bent, meanwhile, is about as reliable at international level as Concorde.

And all the while, Crouch has been available: a man with an England goalscoring ratio better than a goal every other game.  His form for Spurs is good, and he’s a dependable foil for Wayne Rooney.  Carlton Cole can rest assured he’ll be able to tweet all through tonight’s game: in the absence of Defoe, there oughtn’t be any debate about who should start alongside Rooney.

If, that is, Capello persist with a 4-4-2.  Switching to 4-3-3 would allow Rooney to plough the central furrow alone, supported by two from Adam Johnson, Ashley Young and James Milner.

As it is, we’re likely to see Rooney and Crouch, with a midfield four of Johnson, Milner, Barry and Gerrard.  Joe Hart will play in goal, whilst Rio Ferdinand will be the senior member of a back four including Joleon Lescott, Ashley Cole, and Glen Johnson.  Ferdinand will be glad not only to be playing but to have been spared the ignominy of losing the England armband as well as the United one.

Capello is more likely to start responding to interviews with nuanced colloquialisms than shift from his preferred formation.  That means he needs a target man, and for now Crouch remains the man to step up to the job.

—

*if, as part of me suspects, Cole’s account turns out to be a fake, then I apologise for questioning his eloquence.  He is probably a master of rhetoric to rival Wilde, Fry, and Kamara.

It was supposed to be a fresh start.  A shiny new era, lit up by the as-yet-untainted youth of Adam Johnson, Theo Walcott, and Jack Wilshere.  Fabio Capello promised an England squad shorn of deadweight and fuelled by the enthusiasm of a new generation, and the early signs were good.  In the absence of David James, Rio Ferdinand and Emile Heskey, the likes of Joe Hart, Phil Jagielka and Jermaine Defoe all made a positive impression.  Progress and evolution were in the offing.

So what, in God’s name, is Kevin Davies doing in the current England squad?

I’m not questioning his value as a player.  He has matured in to a dependable Premier League forward, a nuisance to any defence, and an aerial threat.  But in March, Davies will turn 34.  By the time Euro 2012, he’ll be 35 – the same age that Fabio Capello recently called “too old” in reference to David Beckham.  At a time when we’re supposed to be building for the future, is this kind of pragmatic short-termism what we need?  And if it is, what does ‘needing’ Davies say about the state of English football?

Perhaps more disturbing than Davies’ call-up is the fact that he wasn’t Capello’s first-choice.  Just a couple of months after his international retirement, Emile Heskey found himself on the receiving end of the customary pleading call from Franco Baldini, asking him to reverse his decision.  Like Paul Scholes before him, Heskey declined, possibly feeling his improved form for Villa is due in part to taking the weight of international football off his broad shoulders.  But the fact that Heskey was called back in to action, after just one significant injury to Defoe, is mighty worrying.

Davies’ presence is made all the more surprising by the availability of a younger, similar alternative in Newcastle’s Andy Carroll.  Come 2014, he’s surely far more likely to make the squad than the Bolton striker.

Capello’s squad selections are becoming increasingly irrational and unpredictable.  What has Joe Cole done in the last month to warrant a call up?  What has Gary Cahill done wrong to deserve being dropped?  And why are we spending time ‘developing’ a 33-year old striker who in all likelihood won’t be around to play tournament football in 18 months time?

During England’s thrashing by Germany at this summer’s World Cup, Germany were the better side in every department.  In one particular area, however, England offered no competition at all: that of playmaker.  The Germans had Mesut Ozil, one of the tournament’s stars, whilst the England midfield of Gerrard, Barry, Lampard & Co looked comparatively one-dimensional. They’re good players – great players, even – but they’re not playmakers.  Barry is a continuity player, Gerrard an impact player, and Lampard an intriguing cross-breed of the two.  But England’s midfield has no conductor, and occasionally, no flair.

In the aftermath of the tournament, great hopes were placed upon the low but sturdy shoulders of Jack Wilshere.  Despite the hype, I’m not sure anyone expected him to make as big an impact in the Arsenal side as he has.  He’s emerged as a first-choice player, playing a part in every game so far, and excelling in both the Premier League and Europe.  He’s been both consistent and creative, with some moments of sublime skill to boot, including this backheel to set up Andrey Arshavin’s goal in midweek:

Despite his seeming reluctance to use Wilshere during the last international break, it’s no surprise that Stuart Pearce has named him in his England U-21 squad for a crucial play-off against Romania.  However, if I were Fabio Capello, I would take Wilshere out of the U-21 squad.  Partly to avoid the risk of burnout, but mainly because he’s needed in the senior side.

The next England squad will be without the likes of Frank Lampard, James Milner, and Theo Walcott.  Midfielders with attacking impetus and drive are in short supply, and Wilshere is one of the nation’s most in-form players.  He might only be 18 years old, but he is more than ready to take his place on the international stage.

Capello may well be intending to pick him for the game against Montenegro, which comes a few days after the U-21 game.  But why make Wilshere play in both games?  The FA ought to have learnt the lesson of forcing Theo Walcott to compete at both levels – he followed up that ordeal with an injury-filled 09/10 season.

Capello needs Wilshere more than Pearce does, and ought to protect his brightest emerging talent.  When you’re playing regularly in the Champions League, the ‘experience’ of working under a middling manager with the U-21s is nothing more than an unnecessary distraction.

Wayne Rooney must have known they would one day come for him.  The knives were sharpened six years ago, but Rooney was spared on account of his extraordinary gifts.  Here was a young player seemingly capable of driving the England team on to glory.

This summer’s failed World Cup campaign, then, might have heralded the end of the ceasefire on Rooney.  Like Beckham and Gazza before him, he will be hung out to dry because it is ruled that the torment of his personal life will sell more papers than average England performances.

The character limit of twitter doesn’t often produce eloquence, but Gareth Miller‘s summary of the Rooney situation merits repeating:

“I find it difficult that Murdoch funds the the footballer lifestyle and profits from articles based on excesses he created.”

It’s like Simon Cowell being behind Heat magazine as well as the X-Factor, simultaneously chronicling the downfall of the mentally ill ‘contestants’ he parades before the public.  Britain’s media are happy to overhype their footballers, safe in the knowledge that the greater their stock, the more cash there is to made from knocking them down.

Don’t get me wrong – my sympathies with Rooney himself don’t extend too far.  Assuming that the reports in this weekends papers are true, it is his stupidity that bothers me most.  But I daren’t pass any kind of judgement on the moral vaguaries of another man’s life.  Frankly, it doesn’t feel like it’s any of my business.

I feel nothing towards Rooney.  Neither pity nor anger.  But I do feel disappointed and frustrated by a media so full of contradictions and hypocrisy.  Take Gary Lineker, who left the Mail on Sunday after they derailed England’s World Cup bid by secretly recording Lord Triesman in conversation, only to turn up at the News of the World – currently embroiled in a tapping scandal of their own.  Then there are the peverse ethics of the red-tops, at once glamourising the ‘vice girls’ in question yet condemning the footballers who stoop to take their custom.  Their moral parameters shift according to who and what will sell the most papers.

Rooney is not the first, and will not be the last.  And for whoever follows him as the golden boy of English football, let him be warned that those same publications that make you a star will oversee your implosion, in a supernova of slander, sleaze, and poorly-punned headlines.

Ever since the World Cup, there has been a media-led witch-hunt against Fabio Capello.  The press have performed an extraordinary volte-face to reimagine the once omnipotent Italian as a disaster.  He’s non-communicative, he’s disorganised, he’s tactically unimaginative.  Oh, and of course, he’s foreign.

Never mind the fact that Capello’s calamitous predecessor was Steve McClaren, a man who at the time of his appointment was still English and yet to undergo his transformation into “Schteve”.  Cappello’s foreignness is, it turns out, a key factor in his failure at the World Cup.  How typical of the inherently xenophobic English press to blame the one foreigner on the sidelines rather than the eleven Englishmen on the pitch.  If any proof were needed of their bias, look at how Jermain Defoe escaped censure for his handball against Young Boys.  The same lenience wasn’t offered to Thierry Henry – or even the diving Eduardo, in a similarly meaningless game this time last year, and one can’t help but feel that’s to do with their nationality.

Anyhow, in to this climate of discrimination and discontent, the FA’s Adrian Bevington has dropped a particularly pungent bombshell:

“We are working on the basis that Fabio will be with us until 2012.  The view beyond that, based on the discussions I’ve been involved in, is that we should have an English manager after that. I think the English team should be managed by an English manager.”

Bevington, now managing director of Club England, was formerly the Head of Communications at the FA.  He understands better than anyone the significance of such a statement.  This is almost a verbal contract, binding he and the FA in to a commitment to appointment an Englishman in 2012  – whether or not they’re the best man for the job.

It is particularly foolish considering the paucity of candidates.  There are thee competent English managers currently operating in the Premier League: Roy Hodgson, Sam Allardyce, and Harry Redknapp.  Hodgson has just accepted a job at Liverpool, which arguably represents a greater and more enthralling challenge.  By 2012, he’ll be 65 – retirement age – and arguably unwilling to return to the strain of international management. And all this assumes that his reputation and mental health survives two years at a Liverpool Football Club in decline.

Allardyce was interviewed for the job when it went to McClaren, and was famously laughed out of the FA on the back of his Powerpoint and pyrotechnics presentation.  Whether or not he’d swallow his pride enough to reapply is one question.  A bigger concern is whether or not his rough-and-tumble tactics are suited to the increasingly elegant game of International football.

Of the available candidates, Redknapp looks the most promising, but I suspect the FA simply won’t want to appoint a man with more skeletons in the closet than a fancy dress shop in the week before Halloween.

Bevington was unwise enough to use the term “English” rather than “British”, ruling out other potential candidates like Mark Hughes and Martin O’Neill, who’d otherwise be the favourite.  So who are we left with?  The charming, chubby but clueless Steve Bruce?  Stewart Pearce, whose work experience placement with Fabio seems to have done little to increase his standing?  There was a lot of fanfare about the forthcoming appointment of another English coach to work as part of the England set-up, but no-one has yet arrived.  The cupboard is bare.

Ironically, based on the last few seasons there is one guy who has held an English passport who looks like he might be decent.  He won the Dutch league with Twente and is now in charge at Wolfsburg: it’s our old friend Schteve McClaren.

Still, we can rule him out too.  He’s Dutch now.

Every year the media collectively swoon over certain archetypal figures: the breakout star, the bad boy turned good, and the golden oldie.  Typically, they’re British, and the national newspapers choose to use a good run of form as excuse to deify them.  For last season, read: James Milner, Craig Bellamy, and Ryan Giggs.

The final category, that of the ‘golden oldie’, tends to have been hogged by Man United’s veteran contingent in recent years.  Giggs, Gary Neville, and van der Sar have all enjoyed their spell in the limelight – and this season it seems to be the turn of thirty-five year old midfield marvel, Paul Scholes.

It’s all strangely reminiscent.  I could’ve sworn Scholes had his renaissance – his last hurrah – a couple of years back.  Turns out that was just his ‘penultimate hurrah’.  A good start to the season has thrown him right to the top of of the papers’ agenda.

He’s doubtless a wonderful footballer, who deserves credit for the way he’s handled himself off the pitch.  Ask any great player, from Fabregas to Zidane, and they will laud Scholes as one of the all-time greats.  And he has started the season well, providing a couple of assists against Newcastle before that thumping goal against Fulham.

What worries me, however, is that the press get so over-excited that they leave rational assessment behind.  A bias emerges.  Take, for example, the criticism Arsene Wenger received for the following assessment of Scholes’ career:

“I believe Paul Scholes is still one of the greatest football players in England.  His contribution to the success of Manchester United is absolutely huge. He did not get completely [the credit] he deserves as a football player, because he is not a ‘media lion’, a player [that] runs after the media to be in the papers. And I respect that a lot.

The regret I have personally is that he was not always the fairest player. But there is a little bit of a darker side in him and he sometimes did things which I did not like.”

The mugs on Sky’s Sunday Supplement scoffed and retorted, “Well what about Patrick Vieira?”  But Wenger wasn’t asked about Vieira – he was asked about Scholes.  The fact remains that one of two things is due criticism: Scholes’ inability to improve his tackling, or his unwillingness to.  A Scholes lunge is typically met with misty-eyed remarks about “good old Scholesy”.  The stud marks on the legs of his midfield opponents tell another story.

And now there’s a campaign to get Scholes included in the squad for Euro 2012, by which time he will be almost 38.  This is a campaign driven largely by the same hacks who recently rejoiced at the ditching of the younger David Beckham.  Whilst Scholes’ age alone makes the suggestion ludicrous, there’s something else worth pointing out: only a couple of months ago, he rejected the opportunity to go to the World Cup with England.  Had, say, Jamie Carragher made the same decision, he would have been castigated and denounced for letting down his country.

I’m not questioning Scholes’ ability or service to both the game and Manchester United – even, for a time, England.  But I do wish the media would keep their assessment of the player’s current form within the bounds of realism.  At the risk of blaspheming, I’ll gladly state that he is a dirty tackler, and he’s no part of England’s future.  The way things are currently going, I wonder if Scholes will be handed the Player of the Year award rather than the Lifetime Achievement prize that’d be more appropriate.

During Sky’s build-up to Sunday’s Community Shield, the camera focused in on the attendant Fabio Capello.  “He’s lost something”, noted Richard Keys, feigning concern in his voice.  Jamie Redknapp then made spectacular use of his hitherto unknown psychic capabilities to declare that “his aura is gone”.

Redknapp, probably unintentionally, is right.  The bubblewrap is off and the media are out to get the Italian.  The Times’ Paddy Barclay, who I usually have some time for, declared in this week’s Game Podcast that Capello was, “the worst England manager [he] had ever seen”.  Fabio Capello, who succeeded Steve McClaren.  Remarkable.

This week has seen a flurry of criticism hurled at the national coach.  The blame for the international retirements of Paul Robinson and Wes Brown has somehow been landed at his door.  Barclay was in bizarre form again, arguing that Fabio Capello should have checked that Robinson was happy to be called up before naming his squad.

Is this what International football has come to?

“Hi Paul, Fabio Capello here.  I’m thinking of offering you the chance to represent your country, doing the thing you love most.  I just wanted to warn you.”

Sky’s Sunday Supplement is devoid of intelligent analysis at the best of times – it usually consists of a bit of tub-thumping from one of the Custis brothers, and Henry Winter trying to argue that £30m is cheap for James Milner.  This Sunday it reached new depths.  The four cretins sat around the table decided that if Capello, as he recently confessed, knew that the English players fitness levels were not up to scratch, he should have announced it before the World Cup.

Can you imagine their reaction if, in his press conference before the USA game, Capello had stated, in his faltering English:

“The players no can run.  We have no chance.”

There would have been pandemonium.

I’ve seen journalists arguing that Capello should have followed France’s example and dropped all 23 members of the World Cup squad.  I’m not sure how helpful that would be as preparation for the Euro qualifiers.  At the same time, Harry Redknapp, whose family seem to be attempting to carry out a transparent and public sabotage of Capello’s reign in a desperate attempt to land Daddy a job, has criticised the Italian for bringing in new blood.  He can’t do anything right.

What’s most infuriating is that everything Capello is criticised for now was deemed worthy of praise during our impressive qualification.  Being “authoritative” has become “treating the players like children”.  “Keeping the players on their toes” has become “failing to prepare the team properly”.  “Making brave decisions” has become “erratic”.

The press seem annoyed because Capello has made them look like idiots.  They believed in him, and they believed in England.  So impressive was our qualification campaign that there isn’t a paper that didn’t toy with the idea of an England World Cup win.  When we failed, they were left hurt, and looking foolish.  Capello is an obvious target.

But it wasn’t Capello out on that pitch in Bloomfontein.  It wasn’t Capello who misjudged a bouncing goal-kick, failed to track runs, or was outsprinted at the crucial moment.  The Italian is a great manager – his record speaks for itself.  If the press hound him out now it will leave England in more disarray than ever.