LIONS NOW AND SVEN
GARETH SOUTHGATE is another English coach who has been given a chance at the highest level, and many will argue he’s not exactly taking it with both hands.
Yet is he a victim of this positive bias towards foreign coaches again?
I don’t think he’s done any worse than Sven Goran Eriksson (below). Or Fabio Capello.
He’s qualified for the World Cup finals as group winners with a game to spare, so really, should we expect anything more?
You look at the players he has to work with, and putting all the usual expectation surrounding England aside, what is the best we can hope to achieve? Does anyone really think we have a team capable of winning the tournament?
I’m not undermining the squad, I’m not having a go at them – I’m just being a realist. We are not as good as most of the country thinks we are, or expects us to be, it is as simple as that.
There are many reasons, not least the lack of chances young English players get, but that’s for another column. I’ll say this though. I made my debut for Liverpool in 1993, but didn’t get my first England cap until 1996, when I had scored almost 100 goals at the top level.
Imagine a 21-year-old English kid scoring 100 goals in the Premier League now, and not getting a Three Lions call-up.
There’d be a national inquiry.
People say it’s different now, a higher standard.
I’m not so sure.