Southgate’s babes show promise
Perhaps the most pleasing aspect of England’s recent games against Germany and Brazil was the absence of that willing trier Jordan Henderson. I hold nothing personal against the lad other than his inability to show any flair or imagination when in possession of a football. He is the classic English default midfielder a player who you can count on to do a job without affecting the outcome of the game.
Ever since the retirement of Bobby Charlton in the early 1970’s English football teams have shown a stubborn tendency to shun those midfield players who were invariably described as “mercurial” even though they could do things with a football that others couldn’t. Rather than considering what they could do, they were judged for what they couldn’t which invariably meant an inability to tackle effectively or to track back and defend with sufficient vigour. Think Tony Currie who, in the seventies, gained barely a handful of England caps and was eventually replaced by those creative stalwarts Peter Storey and Trevor Cherry. Or Glenn Hoddle who, during his prime in the eighties, should have been the first name on the England team sheet rather than an also ran who had to be accommodated. Ditto Paul Scholes who during the late nineties and early noughties found himself shoved out on the left when he should have been running affairs from the centre spot in the manner of Andrea Pirlo. We never seemed to learn.
Or did we? Some twenty months ago England beat Germany 3-2 in a European Championship warm up, the young team that Roy Hodgson selected that night at last showing signs of flair and promise. More by accident than design Roy had discovered a side, yet by the time England played Slovakia in the third game of the Championships proper, Hodgson had lost his nerve. Needing a draw to progress to the knockout stage out went Adam Lallana and Marcus Rashford (who had done so well against Wales) and in came Jordan Henderson and the premium mediocre Raheem Sterling. The ensuing 0-0 draw was mind numbing in the extreme and served as a fitting precursor for what would subsequently unfold during the nightmare defeat against Iceland.
Three months after that low point Gareth Southgate was appointed to the England manager’s job. Yet the warm glow that greeted his arrival was barely sufficient to remove the chill from his hands. Honourable chap who had failed in his sole club management role at Middlesbrough FC, yet had done “ok” with the England U21 squad, was the zenith of the praise heaped upon him. But in the wake of the grubby antics of his predecessor, the safe option that he offered was a more than welcome tonic as he quickly set about by re-calibrating English football’s reputation with a public weary of watching the serial underachievement of pampered, arrogant and overpaid professionals. In that sense he was very much in the mould of Stuart Lancaster who, on becoming head coach of the English Rugby team, instilled a similar degree of humility following the unedifying antics at the 2011 World Cup.
But building a successful unit on the field takes more than creating moral responsibility off it as, four years later, England crashed out at the group stage of the World Cup the first host team to do so. Up to that point Lancaster’s stuttering reign had been characterised by the all too familiar refrain “we will take lessons from the defeat and come back stronger”. Only it never happened as the jam that was promised tomorrow never materialised. Few have been the excuses since Eddie Jones became head coach, turning a squad of essentially the same players into a highly effective team.
The Lancaster Trap, building for tomorrow whilst ignoring the present, is one into which it might be all too easy for Gareth Southgate to fall. The sides he has picked against Germany and Brazil are after all comprised of youngsters many of whom rarely get a run out in the Premier League let alone the national team. As such they are very much a team in development but it would be wrong to give them an out by saying that he is building to compete at the 2022 World Cup rather than the one that is coming next year.
For despite their inexperience there is clearly creative talent in the side all of which has been aided by a decision to revert to the far more flexible 5-3-2 formation. To play that system successfully requires the whole side to be comfortable on the ball and the evidence of the last two games has shown that to be very much the case. Furthermore in midfield Southgate has “discovered” (much to Chelsea’s shame) a class performer in Ruben Loftus Cheek. I’d never heard of the lad until Friday’s excellent game v Germany when he more than held his own. To Loftus Cheek one can add Eric Dier, Dele Alli, Adam Lallana (if fit), Marcus Rashford and a confident Harry Kane all of whom offer creative options and goals. Thus, for the first time in a generation, England have a core of young talented players around which to build.
It’s only taken forty years for the penny to drop but could the days of the willing trier at last be over?
@Mark Brennand