England is the country that created the lovely game of football. This should suggest that they would naturally be the dominant force at international level, but as we have witnessed over the past few years, this is certainly not the case.
Every time a world cup comes around, the whole nation gets excited only to be left heartbroken by a series of dismal performances by their team again. This pattern has been repeated quite a few times now, and it seems that it does not matter which players are representing their country, or which man is at the helm, England are bound for failure at the big stage. But when we look at the group of individuals in the squad that England possess, they were undoubtedly one of the strongest sides in the world cup on paper. So what went wrong?
The only thing wrong with the Three Lions is their manager, Roy Hodgson. The fact is, simply, Roy Hodgson is not good enough to be in charge of the team. No matter how you look at him, you will find faults, be it in a tactical, motivational or man managing way.
First off, Hodgson made some ridiculous gambles with his team at the world cup. Firstly, Roy played Gerrard in a two man midfield alongside Jordan Henderson, which turned out to be suicidal as expected. Gerrard does not have the legs to play in that role, and this clearly affected his performances, as we saw him create two clear cut scoring chances for the wrong team, both of which Luis Suarez gratefully slotted home to win the match. Secondly, Hodgson played Wayne Rooney as a winger against Uruguay, despite starting Danny Welbeck and Raheem Sterling in the same match. Rooney, a lethal centre forward or central attacking midfielder, was deployed on the wings. As expected, Rooney had a dismal match despite picking up an assist. The reason that Rooney cannot play as a winger is because tracking back is not Rooney’s best quality, nor does he have the pace to get up and down the pitch in an instance, which both Welbeck and Sturridge have. Rooney should have been played centrally, or not been played at all, because there were better ‘wingers’ on the bench, like Lallana.
Motivation was also virtually non-existent, and Hodgson failed to lead his team to make a comeback. We often see managers shouting at their players to inject some urgency into the play, but Roy usually looked relaxed in the dugout despite his team playing lifeless football.
When you look at how the players play for their clubs in the Premier League, and compare it with how they play while representing England, the transformation is mind-boggling. The quality in the players is present, but unfortunately the manager just does not know how to utilize it.
After the disastrous world cup campaign, the head of the FA publicly backed Roy Hodgson. This is a nice thing to see, especially when most managers’ stints are quite brief nowadays, however the question remains whether or not the FA are backing the right person.
The English media claimed that Hodgson and the team should draw their inspiration from Germany, but that would not be possible, simply because the English team does not have the depth or quality of the squad that Germany do. England can, and certainly should, however, draw their inspiration from lesser teams who were not expected to do anything at this world cup. An example of this would be Jurgen Klinsmann’s USA, who played neat, attractive and pretty football at this world cup, which ultimately got them farther than Hodgson’s England. Klinsmann did not have many big named players at his disposal, with the only real well known players being Clint Dempsey, Tim Howard and Jozy Altidore. He did, however, manage to make his team play in an efficient manner, where they kept the ball and usually managed to create some golden scoring opportunities. Even teams like Algeria managed to stick to their manager’s ideals when they played a compact formation against Germany, which almost paid off.
Looking towards teams like Germany would be foolish, because at the moment England are playing worse football than the likes of USA and Costa Rica. But England certainly do have a quality squad, and a group of players who will only get better as they gain experience and mature. Should Roy manage to get the team playing in an efficient, neat and tidy manner, England have a great chance of going head to head with some of the elite international teams and come out on top. But is that really possible with a tactically inept manager in charge?
Article contributed by: Mayank Tiwary
Twitter: @ VanPerseing.
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| England manager Roy Hodgson |
Every time a world cup comes around, the whole nation gets excited only to be left heartbroken by a series of dismal performances by their team again. This pattern has been repeated quite a few times now, and it seems that it does not matter which players are representing their country, or which man is at the helm, England are bound for failure at the big stage. But when we look at the group of individuals in the squad that England possess, they were undoubtedly one of the strongest sides in the world cup on paper. So what went wrong?
The only thing wrong with the Three Lions is their manager, Roy Hodgson. The fact is, simply, Roy Hodgson is not good enough to be in charge of the team. No matter how you look at him, you will find faults, be it in a tactical, motivational or man managing way.
First off, Hodgson made some ridiculous gambles with his team at the world cup. Firstly, Roy played Gerrard in a two man midfield alongside Jordan Henderson, which turned out to be suicidal as expected. Gerrard does not have the legs to play in that role, and this clearly affected his performances, as we saw him create two clear cut scoring chances for the wrong team, both of which Luis Suarez gratefully slotted home to win the match. Secondly, Hodgson played Wayne Rooney as a winger against Uruguay, despite starting Danny Welbeck and Raheem Sterling in the same match. Rooney, a lethal centre forward or central attacking midfielder, was deployed on the wings. As expected, Rooney had a dismal match despite picking up an assist. The reason that Rooney cannot play as a winger is because tracking back is not Rooney’s best quality, nor does he have the pace to get up and down the pitch in an instance, which both Welbeck and Sturridge have. Rooney should have been played centrally, or not been played at all, because there were better ‘wingers’ on the bench, like Lallana.
Motivation was also virtually non-existent, and Hodgson failed to lead his team to make a comeback. We often see managers shouting at their players to inject some urgency into the play, but Roy usually looked relaxed in the dugout despite his team playing lifeless football.
When you look at how the players play for their clubs in the Premier League, and compare it with how they play while representing England, the transformation is mind-boggling. The quality in the players is present, but unfortunately the manager just does not know how to utilize it.
After the disastrous world cup campaign, the head of the FA publicly backed Roy Hodgson. This is a nice thing to see, especially when most managers’ stints are quite brief nowadays, however the question remains whether or not the FA are backing the right person.
The English media claimed that Hodgson and the team should draw their inspiration from Germany, but that would not be possible, simply because the English team does not have the depth or quality of the squad that Germany do. England can, and certainly should, however, draw their inspiration from lesser teams who were not expected to do anything at this world cup. An example of this would be Jurgen Klinsmann’s USA, who played neat, attractive and pretty football at this world cup, which ultimately got them farther than Hodgson’s England. Klinsmann did not have many big named players at his disposal, with the only real well known players being Clint Dempsey, Tim Howard and Jozy Altidore. He did, however, manage to make his team play in an efficient manner, where they kept the ball and usually managed to create some golden scoring opportunities. Even teams like Algeria managed to stick to their manager’s ideals when they played a compact formation against Germany, which almost paid off.
Looking towards teams like Germany would be foolish, because at the moment England are playing worse football than the likes of USA and Costa Rica. But England certainly do have a quality squad, and a group of players who will only get better as they gain experience and mature. Should Roy manage to get the team playing in an efficient, neat and tidy manner, England have a great chance of going head to head with some of the elite international teams and come out on top. But is that really possible with a tactically inept manager in charge?
Article contributed by: Mayank Tiwary
Twitter: @ VanPerseing.
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