Ingerland, my view (part II)
Defence
Defence may be England’s strong point right now. An abundance of talented centre-backs to choose from; Terry, King, Campbell, Ferdinand and Woodgate come to mind. 2 decent left-backs as well, Cole and Bridge. The right-back position I’m still unsure of. Gary Neville doesn’t fill me with confidence, as I’ve previously mentioned, however I must admit I think he had a decent Euro 2004. Glen Johnson could be the long-term successor but he looks unlikely to get that many games at Chelsea this season which could hamper his chances. Despite that England look fairly solid at the back. The one big problem is the occasional lapse at set-pieces which they need to resolve, but overall it looks good.
Midfield
England’s midfield is a strange beast. In theory it looks great with Gerrard, Beckham and Lampard generally starting and Joe Cole, Kieron Dyer, Shaun Wright-Phillips and others on the bench. Sadly, it rarely seems to really work. Gerrard and Lampard are worthy of their places, in my opinion, both producing the goods on a regular basis. The rest is in need of a reevaluation.
Wright-Phillips has had one excellent game and may come good, he’s certainly in form and worth a try. As for some of the others they need to produce or be left in club football for a few years to mature. It’s not down to one reason but a number.
There is however one problem with midfield at the moment that really does need to be solved…
David Beckham
A talented player, yes. A world-beater? Doubtful. On his day Beckham can turn a game. Sadly his day comes very rarely and he generally only comes into his own in friendlies or against weaker opposition. The last game where Beckham really stood out was in the last game of the 2002 World Cup qualifiers against a dodgy Greek team. On that day he was magnificent; chasing everything down, passing wonderfully and finally scoring the crucial England goal. Since then he’s failed to produce a great performance. Think of the moments involving Beckham that really stick in the memory from the last few years. It pretty much boils down to 3 penalties, 2 missed in the European Championship and 1 scored against Argentina. Not exactly inspirational.
I think the time has come to drop Beckham from the England team. He’s a good player, but he’s not producing, and hasn’t for a long time (he’ll probably have a storming match against Poland later today!). A spell on the bench may be what he needs to focus his mind. Being guaranteed a place no matter how badly you play is not good for him and definitely not good for the team. The only question is, who should replace him as a player and as captain? More on that later.
Misfiring young guns
England have a number of “promising” young players who should be pushing for places in midfield, but something isn’t quite right. Kieron Dyer and Joe Cole are the prime examples of the problem, for different reasons. Both are talented players who can produce fine play at club level, but both struggle when they step up.
Cole seems to think that he has to do something dramatic at international level and keeps trying to beat one man too many. He needs to calm down and just fit in. Play the ball backwards if he must. Ease himself into the game. Don’t go on mazy runs to nowhere before losing the ball and then committing a stupid foul.
Dyer suffers a bit from that but then goes to the other extreme. He comes on and tries to do the dramatic stuff, fluffs it and then goes into his shell and spends his time playing simple balls. That’s not bad, but in his case he appears to be scared of trying anything from then on. He needs to be more brave and accept that some things won’t work.
Cole and Dyer aren’t the only players to have failed to step up to international level. The jury is out on Jenas, Parker and Hargreaves too. All are consistently in the squad but none of them have grasped their chances and forced themselves into the team. Lampard is the only player to have forced himself into the midfield lately, others need to follow him.
The sinister side of midfield
The other major issue with the England midfield is the well-known left-sided midfielder problem. Many players have been tried; Sinclair, Scholes, Gerrard and Bridge to name a few. Sinclair did fairly well but is out of form and out of the City team. Scholes has retired and didn’t play well on the left. Gerrard drifts into the middle if put on the left which sort of defeats the purpose. Bridge has had just one game there and is really a left-back. He may still form a good partnership with Cole, time will tell. It’s not an ideal solution but them again none of the others have been.
It may be time for England to consider a different system. If you don’t have a player to fill a position maybe it’s best to stop using that position. An experiment with a midfield diamond has been tried but was unsuccessful. If England can find a natural left-sided midfielder I think it would resolve a number of problems and help the other midfields relax a bit. For now I’d stick with Bridges and see how that goes, it can’t be any worse than other attempts in the last few years.