jaffa
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Registered: 27th Mar 00
Location: Stoke-on-Trent
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taken from
http://football.guardian.co.uk/euro2004/story/0,14577,1247345,00.html
Why it's time for Sven to go
Eriksson is wasting England golden generation
Rob Smyth
Friday June 25, 2004
Sven Goran Eriksson: doesn't trust his players enough
Fatalism has always been an essential part of English sport, and it is in evidence everywhere again today: 'the same old story' ... 'debatable refereeing' ... 'f***ing penalties' .... 'some things just aren't meant to be' etc. Yet the assumption that England were somehow predestined to lose is naïve and fundamentally flawed.
The reason for England's failure is quite simple. It was not the referee, it was not a puddle of mud on the penalty spot, and, after 120 minutes in which they were for the most part given the run around, it was certainly not bad luck. It was yet another rank display of tactical cowardice from Sven-Goran Eriksson.
Three asinine substitutions were bad enough, but the negative philosophy that underpinned them was what lost England this match. It is a philosophy that has defined Eriksson's reign as England coach, and is the reason why he can take this side no further.
As the dust settled, the precedent to cite was Argentina 1998, yet Sweden 1992 held more relevant parallels: England met the hosts in a do-or-die contest, took an early lead, sat increasingly deep after half-time, and slowly, surely lost their grip on the game. But England do not have David Batty at right-back anymore. They do not have Neil Webb in midfield. And they do not have loose cannons like Tony Daley.
England now have their best crop of players at least since Italia 90, arguably way beyond that. Yet under Eriksson they play as underdogs, defending grimly and trying to scavenge a lead through a set piece or a defensive mistake, before defending even deeper. It is akin to walking home through the meanest streets of the Bronx: your pulse quickens, you look nervously at the clock and hope rather than expect to get home unscathed.
England got there against Argentina two years ago, and against Turkey last October, but they were always going to get duffed up eventually. It happened against France, and it happened again last night. The substitution of Phil Neville for Paul Scholes was a diabolical admission that England were no longer particularly interested in scoring. Ashley Cole may have been at breaking point against Ronaldo, and in need of support, but why not switch Scholes with Steven Gerrard?
There is a precedent here: in Milan in 1999, Manchester United were one goal ahead and the subject of a furious assault from Internazionale that was infinitely greater that Portugal's last night. Yet Sir Alex Ferguson took off Ronny Johnsen - a makeshift midfielder in the Phil Neville mould - and replaced him with Scholes.
It wasn't rocket science: Ferguson knew that Scholes would help United keep the ball better, and thus run down the clock much more easily. To ice the cake, Scholes scored the goal that killed the game. That substitution, and last night's, demonstrate the difference between great managers like Ferguson and Arsene Wenger (who himself took a long time to lose his penchant for negative substitutions), and decent ones like Eriksson and Gerard Houllier.
It did not take hindsight to show that Eriksson blundered badly with all three substitutions. Owen Hargreaves for Gerrard with less than ten minutes left was a horrible example of the execrable hope-for-the-best switch. In a league or group game it is just about acceptable - the worst that can happen, in theory, is that your opponent will equalise - but in a knockout game it is potentially fatal: if you concede, you are then saddled with a weakened side, and one that is geared to do nothing but defend, for extra-time.
England's equaliser was essentially freakish, testament to their relentless spirit, and inevitably from a set-piece. They scored 10 goals in four games despite Eriksson's tactics. How many would they have scored by using their front six properly? He is wasting England's golden generation.
Eriksson also blundered in bringing on Darius Vassell yet, in a sense, all our hands are dirty here. The constant comic carping at Emile Heskey has undermined him completely, but he was the correct replacement for Wayne Rooney last night. Aside from his goals, Rooney offers England two things: the guile to link the play, and the strength to hold the ball up. England needed to replace at least one of those qualities, either by dropping Scholes into the hole (and bringing on Hargreaves to support Cole), or by bringing on Heskey. Instead we got Vassell, a Michael Owen clone who hardly had a kick. The ball simply came back quicker, faster and, inevitably, the defence eventually cracked.
It may seem harsh to criticise Eriksson, who has taken England to back-to-back quarter-finals, but he has much greater riches at his disposal than previous England managers. Beckham only has one more major tournament left before he is finished at the top - if he isn't already - as do Scholes and the awesome Sol Campbell. Eriksson, like Nasser Hussain with the English cricket team, stopped the bleeding - but he can take this team no further. He transparently does not trust his players to outplay top-class opponents. It is time the FA found somebody who does.
rob.smyth@guardian.co.uk
[Edited on 25-06-2004 by jaffa]
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