England SHOULD have done better

What has really changed throughout the years for England’s national side?

This season alone has provided enough evidence that it does not take the best team on paper to take you to the finals, but takes the perfect amount balance in technical ability, hard workers and players who wear their heart on their sleeve.

Sometimes having a handful of players only able to do the basics is good enough. You get a style of play, work hard at it and own it!

As a South African, I support and follow the English Premier League and believe it is one of the best in the world, if not, the best! But I do not support England’s national team. I always hope in the Champions league, whoever the English team be, the team does well. At the same time, I hope the team selected to represent England always does well and hope they go far in tournaments.

This is far from what you get for those of you who are English fans. We all know that the media puts tons of pressure on whatever manager is at the helm, making his job harder than most international managers in the world. Making the team a victim of their own media success.

This is a crippling factor capable of making any manager’s life a living nightmare. Now you take a manager such as Roy Hogdson. He has nowhere near enough knowledge and experience to take a team of players that have achieved more than him in his career.

I look at sports and compare it to my daily life. You have a good, strong, experienced manager in charge. One outstanding team member as your team leader, who is capable of getting 100% out of a person only able to give you 50%.

With that type of leadership, you can take over the business and in this case, win trophies.

Roy got it wrong from the start! His team selection before the world cup demonstrated his unwillingness to gather the perfect balance. As a manager (and again IMO) you take a group of players and make a core.

Once you have that core, work around it and play players able to match that core. Closer to the time of that specific tournament you are about to feature in, you pick your best players in that season coupled with your core that have been playing together for a couple of years now.

Before the world cup in 2014, Roy picked almost the entire Liverpool team of English players and threw them in the national side. Now me as a Liverpool fan was not convinced by this and then what happened? England never left the group stages.

Now with that being said, who had the best players leading up to the Euro’s this season? I can honestly say for the Spurs players who got picked above others, lost their form in the closing stages of the league campaign.

Liverpool players played so well to achieve what they did with half a team and a brilliant gaffer. Leicester City won the league with Englishmen who I have never heard about before they entered the top flight.

All things Roy chose to ignore throughout the team selections.

How does James Milner go into a tournament being your third best player in Europe (according to stats) and not start a single game. Many wouldn’t agree with me on this, well you wouldn’t if you are not a Liverpool fan, but why is it your hardest workers and most experienced players are on the bench?

Do I see Dele Alli covering more ground than Jordan Henderson or James Milner? of courae not, but the young man was in the team. Eric Dyer is by far the only player I could say deserved to be in the starting 11. Jack Wilshere? OMG, what a waist of plane ticket money. People worried about getting Raheem Sterling back home, why did Jack travel at all?

Danny Rose was good, but better than Leighton Baines? Never true! Kyle Walker over Nathaniel Clyne – one of the most consistent right backs in the game? For the past 2-3 seasons Clyne has just improved and improved.

Kyle Walker is a one dimensional player that runs up and down the line and that’s it folks, come back next game for more of the same please. Clyne will cut in, run wide, come back in, play ball, work one-two’s. It’s the endless amount of effort he puts in, but still Hogdson was oblivious to all of this.

Chris Smalling and Gary Cahill? What they were doing at the back I have no explanation for. You have a kid who could possibly become one of the best defenders in the world. Yet he sat it out the entire tournament.

Chelsea with Cahill finished a lowly 10th in the league. Smalling took on a lot of criticism throughout the season and yes I do recall how bad Everton’s season was, but out of all your defenders you have to use Stones. Stones could have gone with anybody in the back line. Sad to see talent go unused.

Your dead ball specialist, where’s he? Oh yes, he’s on the bench with the rest of the players who were suppose to start. Rooney should have taken charge and made a statement of who is captain – taken control, ownership, but Rooney looked overpowered by Kane in the decision making (maybe I am the only one who feels that way).

Lastly the strikers playing up front. I don’t how you could choose between Jamie Vardy and Harry Kane. Impossible to say the least. You have the luxury and opportunity to be able to play the best and top two goal scorers in your domestic league, but you choose a formation only allowing you to play one at a time. Does that seem like a decision made after having countless sleepless nights? Nope it doesn’t.

England needs a new leader in a manager and captain. Once you sort out the fundamentals of your people at the top leading, I think it all just comes filtering down after and everything starts fitting into place.

So in an overall view from qualifying for Euro 2016 leading up to the tournament now, there was no thought put into it by Roy Hodgson. He had so much time to plan, but plan he didn’t.  He had more than enough to take players out of one of the best league in the world and get them ready to play in one of their biggest events. Simply put, he failed.