Three Lions Victorious at Wembley

Yes it was only a friendly. Yes it was Switzerland. And yes at times it was a bit spastic. But, this goes in the win column and that’s a start. There were fits and starts throughout the match. With players struggling to fit into Capello’s team concept while trying to impress the new boss, there were some boneheaded plays happening on the pitch.

But, I was happy to see that they played like a team. They didn’t play like eleven individuals and that is what we needed in our national team. Interestingly when the lads held the ball and probed for an opening, the England supporters started to jeer. Then Jermaine Jenas gave them a healthy “Shut your hole” when he directed a great Joe Cole pass past Swiss goalkeeper Diego Benaglio for the opening goal. The pressure swept up and out of Wembley with that one quick touch.

The defense played well for the most part, but they did face a couple of close calls. Then Eren Derdiyok made it look to easy as he snapped a shot into the corner of the net and tied up the game early in the second half. The goal brought out the best in the England attack and Peter Crouch flicked the ball to Steven Gerrard who found Shaun Wright-Phillips for the winning goal and The Lions roared.

Rooney takes some stick from some punters for not being a prolific scorer for England. When he plays for club or country Rooney is a dynamo on the pitch. He had some great shots against the Swiss and could have a couple of goals for himself.

I wish we would see these guys again soon in some actual competition. Oh well.

    

Foriegn Policy

I can’t believe that I’m defending the FA! Arsenal chairman Peter Hill-Wood has hit out at the League governing body over their comments about the influx of foreign players in the Premiership. First, here is Hill-Wood’s comment to the Daily Mirror:

 ”It seems to me the people at the FA are out of touch with reality. I can’t think why anybody would make these comments when Arsenal and many Premier League clubs are spending a lot of money on their academies. It is not our fault if many English players are not good enough. It is the same for every one of the big clubs now. We find players worldwide. Football is now global. It is also the same in any other industry. You go along with the trends or you suffer badly.”

I have nothing against foriegn players at all. Some of the players that made the Premier League the top league in the world were foreign. Eric Cantona, Jurgen Klinsmann, Gianfranco Zola and Thierry Henry are just a few of the men who came to England and brought a new kind of excitement to the League. Our game used to be a grind it out type and they brought a free flowing style. I for one am grateful to them for it.

                     

But to say that English players are not good enough is one of the dumbest things that I have ever heard. Many Brazilian players got their start by kicking a stuffed sock around in an alley. You can’t tell me that a well run club academy can’t take a young player with raw talent and polish them up for the Premiership! When Manchester United won the treble in 1998-99 the core of that squad had come out of the Trafford Training Centre. Hill-Wood is trying to deflect the attention from his own woefully inadequate academy system and onto the FA “bigwigs”. Brian Barwick is still a world class idiot. We could end up with an English champion that has a foreign owner, manager and players. Half of the teams in the Premier League are foreign owned, of course they are going to bring in foreign players. The FA should have a mandate to develope young English players and turn them into world class footballers. The time of the English superstar is not over, but people like Barwick and Hill-Woods need to look beyond lining thier own pockets and take responsability to save our game.

Out of thirty-one first squad players for Arsenal, only six of them are from the home nations AND only Theo Walcott ever gets a shot at playing in the Premiership. That’s 19% of the team being British/Irish! Their closest rival Manchester United is 50% British/Irish. Yeah, I guess he’s right there are no good young English players to choose from.

Mark my words! I would not be surprised if one day the FA moves to bring in foriegn clubs to compete in the Premiership. I’m not talking about Scottish, Welsh or Irish clubs. I mean French, Dutch, Belgian, German, etc. They will talk about how it will benefit the domestic game and how the game is global and we must adapt to keep up.

When Steve McClaren was sent packing late last year some people called for Arsene Wenger to become the new England manager. How could he be the national team manager if he can’t go abroad to find players to wear the White and Blue?

England squad announced

                                  

Fabio Capello finally announced his first squad since taking over as England manager. To some people’s surprise David Beckham was not on the list to face Switzerland. I listened to a lot of debate this week about whether or not he should get his 100th cap in this friendly and it seemed to me that it was split fairly evenly between yes and no. I wasn’t surprised at all that he was left off. This really is a meaningless friendly and if the 100th cap is going to be a milestone then let it be against quality opposition, France or Germany come to mind. Beckham still has a lot to offer the game, unfortunately his decision to go to the LA Galaxy and chase the cash could and should hurt his international chances. The MLS is not a quality league so I don’t see him factoring in for England long term.

                                         

Some of the picks surprised me though. Peter Crouch has scored some good goals for the Three Lions recently, but he hasn’t gotten much of a look this season at Liverpool and only has two goals in the league, hardly prolific. I also think that Michael Owen is a bit of an odd choice. Don’t get me wrong. I think the lad is a fantastic player, however he was out of action for a long spell due to injury. This friendly means nothing so let him get more game time in before putting him out for England. And Stuart Downing has had a far from stellar season at Middlesbrough so I’m left scratching my head over his inclusion.

I am happy to see that Gabriel Agbonlahor and Ashley Young got called up to the senior squad. These two are pacey and will give the Swiss defenders nightmares. Joleon Lescott has been coming on as well for Everton and will do well to get the Wembley experience. 

                                         

Here’s the squad:

Goalkeepers:D James (Portsmouth), S Carson (Aston Villa), C Kirkland (Wigan Athletic).

Defenders: W Bridge (Chelsea), W Brown (Manchester United), A Cole (Chelsea), C Davies (Aston Villa), R Ferdinand (Manchester United) G Johnson (Portsmouth), L King (Tottenham Hotspur), J Lescott (Everton), M Richards (Manchester City), N Shorey (Reading), M Upson (West Ham United), J Woodgate (Tottenham Hotspur).

Midfield players: G Barry (Aston Villa), D Bentley (Blackburn Rovers), M Carrick (Manchester United), J Cole (Chelsea), S Downing (Middlesbrough), S Gerrard (Liverpool), O Hargreaves (Manchester United), J Jenas (Tottenham Hotspur), S Wright-Phillips (Chelsea), A Young (Aston Villa).

Forwards: G Agbonlahor (Aston Villa), P Crouch (Liverpool), E Heskey (Wigan Athletic), M Owen (Newcastle United), W Rooney (Manchester United).

Brian Barwick is an IDIOT!

Apparently being the Chief Executive of the Football Association doesn’t require too much in the way of intelligence. Less than a week after introducing the new England manager Fabio Capello as “A winner with a capital W”, Brian Barwick is now telling us that we shouldn’t expect success. WHAT!!!!!!!!!!!! You have spent all this time selling us on the fact that Capello is the man who can resurrect the national team and bring back world respect. Now you are holding up your hands and saying ‘Let’s not get our hopes up’. He’s telling us that none of the current crop of English managers are good enough to be England manager. Yet by the sound of it he isn’t expecting a qualified candidate to do much. I don’t know exactly what the FA is paying Capello and his crew, but I’m sure we could have gotten the same result from a less qualified Englishman for less money. How the hell did Barwick get this job?

                             

I have nothing against Fabio Capello. In fact I feel that his no-nonsense approach is exactly what the current group of over paid underachievers needs to become successful on the world’s stage. I fail to see however why he had to have the top five members of his staff be Italian including his fitness coach. I may be a bit daft, but I fail to see why it was so imperative to bring in a fitness coach as part of the deal when fitness is usually the concern of the club and he’s only going to see these guys for a week and a half at a time. Did Barwick or Brooking have any backbone in these negotiations? Or did they have their hearts so set on Capello that they were willing to okay anything to get him to sign?

Brian Barwick claims that he wrote out a template and no English manager “ticked all of the boxes”. Did Tweedledee and Tweedledumb even interview anyone other that Capello? My guess on that would be no. When Stuart Pearce was hired to manage the England Under-21 squad I’m sure he didn’t “tick all of the boxes”. Pearce had an abismal record at Manchester City and more than a few of us scratched our heads at his appointment. But, he lead the U-21 team to the UEFA European Under-21 Championships semi-finals where they lost to the Netherlands (eventual champions) after sixteen rounds of penalty shootout. Did Psycho get an interview? Probably not, that would have made sense, and that’s just not Barwick’s style. Just ask Martin O’Neill.

                   

O’Neill interviewed for the England job in 2006 and would have been a great choice for the job. But, nooo! The FA’s finest morons appointed Luiz Felipe Scolari (who was managing Portugal in the upcoming World Cup) before the World Cup and drove the Brazilian away. They settled on Steve McClaren instead. So instead of going for a fully qualified O’Neill they settled for a manager who lost spectacularly in his UEFA Cup Final swan song (4-0 to FC Sevilla). In doing so they pissed off Martin O’Neill and drove away a British contender for the job.

I wonder if the FA is hiring? I don’t know anything about running a football association, but apparently that’s not a requirement for the job.