I’m not going be posting too much in the next few days – I just moved to a new city and I’m still trying to get the bloody broadband installed.
Team England is always under huge pressure, and it’s not as if defeat is not acceptable (really – England has been beaten by better teams, and I for one accept those defeats, such as the 2002 WC quarterfinal).
But what IS unacceptable is that the manager does not deliver on his promises.
What is unacceptable is that instead of seeing something that works, we only see the same old, same old nonfunctioning midfield.
What is unacceptable is that we see nothing of the promised fluency in attack.
What is unacceptable is that we see the team abandoning basic tactics and get outplayed all over the park because the opposition.
I’m a fan of Phil Neville but his place is not at left-back, nor is Lampard a left-midfield player. A 4-3-3 leaves your left-back exposed unless it turns into a 4-5-1 when chasing the ball, but Carrick is never going to be a midfield hardman (you might as well push Ferdinand up as a holding midfielder) and Dyer and SWP never looked good when helping out in defence.
England need to get the basics right. They need to use the right people in the right positions. The England management needs to make some hard choices, and the England team needs a heavy dose of motivation (Lampard and Terry for England vs L and T for Chelsea is a case of motivation, nothing else).
Stevo has not done anything to suggest that he is the man who can give England all this. England do not have the luxury of ‘letting the man learn’ while on the job.
I doubt we would have lost this friendly under Eriksson, and I especially doubt that we would have done so poorly.
Going backwards? Definitely unacceptable.
Add Sportslens to your Google News Feed!
