My Thoughts on the New England Manager

Today the English FA have formally spat in the face of "popular" opinion and appointed (Uncle) Roy Hodgson as the new England manager, following the ignominious resignation of Fabio Capello (despite having the best win ratio since 1966).  In what can be considered a ballsy move, the media darling that is Harry Redknapp was not even interviewed for the role so naturally the knives are already out.

The televised press conference probably had around 20 questions asked of Hodgson and Bernstein (the FA chairman) of which no more than 2 or so were actually related to the matter of football.  The remainder of the questions were along the lines of questioning selection process, who else was considered, etc.  It was almost disappointing that not a single journalist had the courage to ask what they were really thinking "why didn't you appoint Harry Redknapp?"

Despite the Hodgson's struggles at Liverpool, I do think that he will prove to be an effective England manager - he already has international management experience, having got Switzerland to the last 16 of the 1994 World Cup (and 3rd in the FIFA rankings). As long as the press and the England fans can get behind the team, that is.  He will also be reliant on the England players following his instructions, but I am sure that there won't be any attempt to make them play unfamiliar formations or putting in inexperienced keepers in critical games.

As can possibly be appreciated, I am slightly more supportive of Hodgson than the last English manager that lead England to a lack of glory.  I may even renew my membership to England fans+ - although I may wait until after the Euros.  Although, naturally we are now destined to win it!

Next stop, franchising...

I was happily surfing the 'net today and found saw this disturbing piece. The Premiere League today agreed in principle for each to team to have to play an additional match. Opposing teams will be selected by a random draw, and the game will then be played on neutral territory - not Wembley, not the Millenium Stadium but virtually any country on the planet, in any city. The Premiere League's motivation for this is that it will give fans in overseas countries the opportunity to see a live game. In my opinion, there are several problems with this idea, a few of them are:

1. Local leagues not appreciating the intrusion. Whichever country is hosting a game, it will mean revenues for that local league are likely to be negatively affected. The rationale for this is that fans will pay more to watch the Premiership game, and therefore not attend local fixtures. Additionaly, sponsors would rather put their money towards something that is going to get a world-wide screening.
2. Fixture congestion getting worse. Premiership teams can currently expect play games in (depending on their position) the Premiership, the FA cup, the Coca Cola cup, the Champions League or UEFA cup and pre-season friendlies/tournaments. Add to this, International commitments and the players themselves are going to be reaching a point of burn-out very much earlier in the seasons, and potentially their careers.
3. Local teams draw local fans. Something that is apparently hard to fathom for some, but (with a few notable exceptions), a team's fanbase comes from the immediate vicinity surrounding it. Is a Wigan - Derby match played in Bangkok going draw local interest? No disrespect to either team, but they do not have "marquee players" like Ronaldo, Rooney, etc.

I hope the Premiership see sense and avoid this stupid idea. However, their Chief Executive (Scudamore) seems to have little respect for the common fan, even though they were the ones that got him here in the first place.

It's not always good to be right.

Last night the expected happened, and England failed to qualify for a major tournament for the first time in 14 years. This has been quickly followed up by the FA sacking McClaren and starting an urgent review of football in the country.

On the replacement coach a number of names have been mentioned as possible successors. Personally, I hope whomever is appointed is picked for his skills and not because he is a "safe" option, as McClaren was considered. Among the listed are:

• Scolari: current Portugal coach and former coach of Brazil when they won the World Cup in 2002. He is proven on the international scene with a good pedigree while leading Brazil, I think he has been found a bit lacking for Portugal. This makes me question whether he can achieve much with England.
• Mourhino: the controversial former Chelsea boss is currently sunning himself somewhere. Unproven on the international circuit but impeccable in domestic tournaments, he has stated that he is only interested in club football at present and would only consider coaching Portugal. Still, if there were enough 0's on the cheque, I am sure he could be persuaded.
• Lippi: former Italian coach who won them the World Cup. Also whereabouts unknown, but may be worth a punt. However, Italy did not play particularly attractive football last year.
• Klinsmann: the former German coach took them to the semis, even though it was his first managerial role. I cannot see the English press taking a German as the national coach though.
• Hiddink: just signed a contract with Russia, who made it to Euro 2008 at England's expense. I cannot see him giving up that role; he doesn't want ex-KGB hitmen after him for a start!

Then there are some British names in the mix:

• Sanchez: got a win over England when coaching Northern Ireland although currently with Fulham. A possible candidate.
• Allerdyce: was annoyed he wasn't offered the role last time and to be frank, I would rather have had McClaren. I am not convinced that Allerdyce has enough to offer and has been found to be somewhat lacking in the more pressured environment of Newcastle.
• O'Neill: the Aston Villa was turned down for the role originally, and although I think he has a lot of potential, it may be too early for him.
• Shearer: there has been talk of the former Newcastle captain taking the coaching position. The worst that could happen is that this is done to try and emulate Klinsmann's success.

The selection process I imagine will be a drawn out affair, especially as a couple of the candidates are tied up until post Euro 2008. Personally, I favour Mourinho - as mentioned is untested in the international arena, but on the plus side he can eat the English press for breakfast and spit them out; and unfortunately that is prerequisite of the job nowadays. Failing that, given that we have such a long time to the next qualifying campaign, give O'Neill a run and allow him to build the team up.

For the review, I have written before about what I believe England needs to introduce in to their coaching. Hopefully, they will use this opportunity to reconstruct themselves as France did post Euro 1994. It is however a long shot if they can't get the clubs on board...

Flapping McClaren = problems for England

Perusing the sports section of the Telegraph today, I noticed that Steve McClaren is considering bringing Sol Campbell back into the England fold, after firing him via an answer machine when he took over the reins. This has been brought about by a "defensive crisis" in the England squad with John Terry, Jonathan Woodgate and probably Gary Neville (woo hoo!) out injured.

Although the role of England manager is a thankless task, and I have tried not to criticise too much, McClaren has brought this all on himself. He would rather have players out of position on the field, rather than mustering the courage to drop those that were under-performing. This has lead to players being heckled on the pitch, him storming out of press conferences and quality players considering retirement from international football.

Since taking the England mantle, McClaren has travelled round the country to watch a number of Premiereship games (and will shortly be adding America to the mix), supposedly to pick the best squad available. However, the result of all this travelling is that he will have reverted to the same pre-World Cup squad of Sven. The World Cup 2006 squad was not the "golden generation" as heralded by the press; although it did possess a great deal of talent, it was not enough to see the result home. England need to build for the future, they need a squad that will last and and calling back Campbell and (allegedly) David James is not going to be the answer in the long term, despite how well they played last season.

The England line-up should be (subs are in brackets):

GK: Robinson (Carson, as Foster is injured)

RB: Richards (Shorey)

CD: Carragher (Neville)

CD: Ferdinand (Campbell)

LB: Cole, A (Bridge)

RW: Lennon (Wright-Phillips, Beckham)

CM: Hargreaves (Carrick)

CM: Gerrard (Lampard)

LW: Cole, J (Taylor, Downing)

ST: Owen (Crouch)

ST: Rooney (Smith)

Add to the squad a few players such as Johnson and Nugent up front, a few of the younger midfielders such as Jenas, Dyer and Bentley. It also may be worth calling up a couple of others from the U21 that impressed in Holland this year.

The FA Need This Man!

Flicking through the BBC Sports website at lunchtime, I ran across this interesting article about football skills. It has been said that the current teaching methodology employed by the FA produces nothing but "leather-lunged athletes" with good pace (not that England uses that pace in their tactics) and able to withstand knocks from the opposition (a positive hinderence in the era of diving that FIFA encourages).

If England were to employ this guy to coach in all junior training and complement this with the existing training techniques (there is space in the curriculum, England trainees do the least number of hours per week of any European team), there is the real danger that we may win a meaningul trophy.

All we need to do is develop a coaching programme for trainee managers that a) improves their tactical abilities, b) makes them less bloody arrogant and c) removes their reliance on teeth whitening products.

Never a truer word spoken

I was reading this impassioned piece over my morning coffee and pill breakfast and have got say that I fully agree with everything that Danielle Murphy has to say. Charlton Athletic have shot themselves in the foot with this: to disband a successful team to try and save money is short-sighted at best. The fact that the team is composed of part-timers means that the overall savings will amount to much I imagine.

Women's football in England is starting to gain momentum, as indeed it is internationally. Leveraging off this popularity could have enabled Charlton to sell more shirts, or whatever it is they have set as their corporate goal. Now, all that will come to naught for short-term gain; a poor decision, I believe.

I understand Ms Murphy's resentment at how the board managed situation. I hope her and her team-mates soon find success at another club.

We're still going anyway...

After my last rant about the FA only allowing the sale of tickets to the England-Brazil game to paid-up members, today they started the sale to the general public. Preceeding this sale, there was a ballot to members of the England fan club, which we entered. Unlike our last attempt at a football ballot, we were actually successful.

Heather and I had a quick discussion about how much to spend and came to the agreement that we should go for the best available. By the time I had got to the front of the queue on the ticketing website, the £60 ones were all taken and the most expensive available were £50. Two tickets were duly bought and we got our allocated seats.

1 June, 8pm kick off - we will be there!

Damn English Thugs

Yet another major football hoolganism incident happened in continental Europe. In this case, an Italian policeman was murdered by a bunch thugs who had thrown a homemade inciderary device, which subsequently exploded in his face.

This sadly is not an isolated case, the English fans in Germany during the World Cup 2006 were among the best behaved of the fans. There were a couple of incidents that warranted few arrests, but by and large the English fans were well behaved. Not least part of the reason for this was that the German police had a really great policy of non-intervention unless necessary. When I was at the England-Sweden game in the fan enclosure, a cretinous English fan thought it would be clever to set fire to a German flag in front some riot police. The self-policing of the English fans soon ensured that the flag was soon put out (repeated chants of "You are a wanker" soon embarrassed him).

However despite the years of relatively good behaviour, there is still the perception of England fans being the troublemakers abroad. Repeatedly, the England team is threatened with expulsion from tournaments due to a small percentage of people getting drunk and causing problems. Some while ago (just after Euro 2004 to be precise) I posted on Usenet a counter-argument about English football hooligans which I have reproduced below

• The largest incident of hooliganism in the tournament so far has between Germany and Holland fans.
• Portuguese police have praised the English fans behaviour in recent weeks.
• The "rioting" in the first week was well away from any games being played by England, and has been attributed to excessive alcohol consumption.
• Any fan deported from Portugal will be subject to a ban ranging from 2 to 5 years (IIRC). This has already been used in this tournament

Some other hooliganism facts:

• English fans have not instigated a major hooliganism incident for 5/6 years, both at club and national level

• During the 1998 World Cup a French policeman nearly died after being badly beaten by German fans.
• In 2000 two Leeds United supporters were stabbed to death by followers of the Turkish club Galatasaray
• Italy's ultras (their organised hooligans) are said to view the English drunkenness with disdain because it impairs the ability to fight.
• In 2000, Den Bosch (Holland) supporters rioting for three days after a match was called off after a fan was shot
• In 1998, about 26,000 Manchester United fans travelled to Holland and there were just 28 arrests, mostly just for
  drunkenness.

Of course, I don't have answer for all these problems, but consistency of treatment would be a good start.

Come on, England! x 2

Today is the start of the Six Nations tournament, and it's the first time that a certain England player who has not had an international start since 2003 will be having a run-out. Having been ravaged by injuries for so long, some are concerned that throwing Wilkinson straight into the bear-pit exposes him to unnecessary risks both to him as an individual and the team due to his lack of match practice.



Wilkinson however is the consummate professional and as long as Scotland do not go out to deliberately injure him, I believe he will be more than capable of holding up his end of the bargain. If anything the risks come from him throwing himself into the game with the same level as gusto and reinjuring himself rather than being a liability on the pitch.

The England Rugby squad do have a number of World Cup veterans who have not seen much International game time since 2003. The one I most delighted to see is the return of Jason Robinson. He scored a fantastic try in the World Cup final, and has an amazing ability to jink his way around a defensive line. Bringing him out of International retirement is great for us in the short-term, but we need to look to the future.

And on Wednesday, the England football play a friendly at Old Trafford against Spain. Hmm, an underperforming team playing against an underperforming team. I am a paid-up member of the England Fan Club, and to be frank I am not entirely convinced that I am getting value for money. There are players in the England squad that I have the utmost respect for, but England are constantly coming up short. As I said earlier, I do not believe that we are likely to qualify for the Europe, although if we do, it will be a struggle. We have (and have had for a long time) a problem with at the management level. Sven was risk averse to the detriment of the England game, and when he did take risks it was illogical ones such as taking Walcott, rather than adopting aggressive formations. If he seriously believed that a 4-5-1 formation was going to get England through to the finals of the World Cup, then he was misguided at best.

Despite my pessimism, I would have gone and seen the game if it was either a) not at Old Trafford or b) not on a Wednesday night. As it is, I am going to have to take my England regalia to work and find a pub showing it before kick off. And Wednesday is meant to be a gym night...

The players that I have the most respect for are:

• Paul Robinson: the stick he got after the Croatia game from the gutter press was a disgrace. The team are responsible for the result - not one man.
• Jamie Carragher: should be the first-choice right-back for both club and country.
• Steve Gerrard: this guy is the best midfielder in England bar none, but carries himself off the pitch with humility.
• Owen Hargreaves: I am not a bandwaggon jumper - I voted for SG as the fan's player of 2006 - however, Owen Hargreaves gained my respect a long time ago for no other reason than the abuse that was levelled at him by "fans" and he continued to put on the England shirt and play the game.

Post Game Review

Well, England played their game against Holland last night in the Amsterdam Arena. Allegedly, they played with a 4-3-3 formation, with Joe Cole, Rooney and Johnson up front. In my opinion, if they are going to be playing 3 up front, it would have been better to play a striker there rather than an out of place midfielder. I think combination of say Crouch, Rooney and Johnson would have been quite interesting to have seen.

Nevertheless, I think England played a reasonably good game and were probably deserved a win, rather than draw. The goal they conceded however smacked of poor defending that is untypical of the back four, the scoring player having been unmarked at the time. Not too sure who you can blame: Terry, Ferdinand or Ashley Cole. That being said Micah Richards had an impressive debut for an 18 year old, with no signs of stage fright and a good shot on target. How nice would it have been to score on your England debut as a right-back?

Steve McLaren's email to fans was pretty upbeat about the performance, however England are now in the position of having to win just about every remaining game in their qualifying group to get through to the tournamenet. I hope they can do it, but we still have to face Croatia again and two legs with Russia and Israel (both of whom I would not write off as easy to beat). I think that we may not make Euro 2008.

My other concern, is that England have found their position in Europe: mid-table fodder unable to throw of the shackles of Sweden or Holland and rise above them. I include Portugal in that group, who constantly are found wanting against strong opposition.

Will this squad do it?

So Stevie Mac has announced his squad for the international friendly on Wednesday night, which can be found here. Unfortunately, I am not that impressed.

It's good to see Joe Cole back in a 3 Lions jersey so we have something on the left, and I assume Frank Lampard is going to hog his spot in the centre and push Gerrard out to the right wing. Gerrard hates playing there, and everyone can see his best form comes when he has freedom in the centre. Lamps has had a poor run of form recently, but seems to be returning to his normal ways for Chelsea - can he continue like that for England though? Personally, I would have Lamps on the subs bench, the lack of certainty over a starting position may help him find some form.

Up front, there is not a lot to shout about. Rooney has seen his form improve recently, although he missed a sitter on Saturday, Crouch is Crouch; he can have a brilliant night or an absolute pudding of one, once he figures out how to prevent the puddings, then he'll be consistently dangerous. I'm undecided about Johnson, his club form is great but he hasn't sparked in the England jersey. And as for Defoe, lets just hope he eats well before the match!!

The defence is as solid as ever, no complaints there at all. I am intrigued to see how new boy Micah Richards performs though. I guess every friendly squad needs a Theo though.

He's at it again...

I see Graham Poll is getting himself in the papers, again. After a dismal World Cup performance, and his alleged behaviour on Saturday refereeing Chelsea vs. Spurs, the ego in black red-carded Everton player James McFadden last night in the Carling Cup match against Arsenal. The reason he was red-carded? Abusing an official.

Now, I have no problems with referees trying to put some discipline in to the game. It is something that needs to be addressed, but likewise swearing happens all the time and to start making random sending offs for it is going to lead to nothing but controversy.

Still, if the FA decide that Poll's ego has become too much for the game, they could demote him to the Championship League or expel him all together. Here's hoping it's the latter...

Your voice is needed!

The FA is conducting a survey to determine the future of grassroots football accross England. Anyone that completes not only has a say in how the sport is run in the country but also gets into a draw to win various prizes (I am hoping for friendly tickets myself).

The way I see it, the future of English football is to get kids at young age having the fantastic balls skills as seen on South American and certain European sides. England for years has produced players that are "hard", they push around the opposition and when they go down, they get right up again and keep running. The problem is, ball skills are sometimes left behind so that anyone that is slightly above normal skill is labelled a wonderkid.


Not that I want to see anything like this mind.

Do the Swiss understand irony?

It was mentioned today in the Sydney Morning Herald that Sepp Blatter, the distinguished head of the football world governing body FIFA has apologised to Australia for the way they exited this year's World Cup. For those that didn't see it or have erased it from their memories, in stoppage time some Italian dived in the box when closed in on by Lucas Neill, which lead to a penalty and a very underserving ride into the quarter finals by Italy (along with their win, which was also undeserved IMO). Subsequent replays showed no contact whatsoever was made.

Ok, Blatter has the nerve to apologise for something that FIFA has consistently refused to do anything to fix? Perhaps if he could move his corpulent frame away far enough from the sponsorship trough so that fans can get to see the games live, he may be able to summon up the energy to fix the diving that has ruined the last two tournaments. Something that I have already ranted about.

Fix the diving, fix the unequal allocations of tickets and fix the bias of referees, then I will take anything that comes out of FIFA executives with something less than a Lott-sized grain of salt.

It's a disturbing trend that has to stop

NOW!

What am I talking about? Well, let me run you by a brief story: I was wondering around WH Smiths today looking around for something to read, as nothing on my bookshelves was inspiring me. Now, I have read some really bad stuff in my time (the Da Vinci Code being an example) and I have some stuff that although bad is a guilty pleasure of mine (the Sven Hassel series of books for example). As such, I will consider buying something that may provide me with some entertainment, no matter how bad it appears.

Today, however what I saw beggars belief; and that is not hyperbole. I was wondering around the biographies section seeking inspiration as I have read a couple and as long as the person in question I either respect or looks interesting, I will always give it a crack. The tome I saw today was the biography of someone that I neither respected nor did it look interesting. No, it wasn't GW Bush, it wasn't Blair, Major or any politician. It was Wayne Rooney's girlfriend and I am not kidding. Look, Victoria Beckham (hate her or love her) did achieve a degree of fame by being the near mute one of the Spice Girls. To the best of my knowledge, Ms McLoughlin's road to fame was to snog Wayne Rooney as a teenager. What on earth is there to say?

It's a sorry state of affairs when the wives and girlfriends of footballers (I refuse to use the acronym as it is another sign of society dumbing down) start getting as much or more attention than the players. In the same vein, there is talk about Frank Lampard heading off to Spain to play for Barcelona as his girlfriend is from that region and misses home. Given the success of every English player since Steve McManaman left Spain, if Lamps has any plans on having a future in football he might be advised to deal with the nagging.

Some people need more bran...

Because they seem to be full of sh!t :)

I am talking about the uproar surrounding Jermain Defoe's "bite" on the arm of someone who had repeatedly tackled him from behind, the last one being a two-footed tackle.

Yesterday's Telegraph covered it in an article that did not really dwell on it greatly other than to mention the incumbent Minister of Sport whining like a spoiled child to the FA (via the media of course) to do something about it. Contrast this to an article in the Sun where not content with publishing the picture again, they have a diatribe from Javier Mascherano claiming it the most outrageous thing he has suffered in the UK.

My biggest issue with the incident is not the biting; tempers get riled in all sports nowadays and people forget these sportsmen and women are only human. My issue is that the moment Defoe made contact with Mascherano, Mascherano immediately started rolling around in agony on the floor - it's the diving mentality in him immediately taking effect. It appeared to me that the intention was to get him red-carded. This is the behaviour that has to stop, as diving has ruined two World Cups but it doesn't look as if it is going to end any time soon.

And if that is the worse thing Mascherano has suffered, he should head to a few home counties towns and deal with drunken ASBO candidates on a Saturday night like the police force have to.