WHAT IS WRONG WITH ENGLAND?
They have amazing physiques, but they’re overcoached and we’ve kicked every bit of imagination out of them Says Chris Waddle
I’m frustrated because we’ve been heading in the wrong direction since Glenn Hoddle was sacked.
We never properly kicked on from Euro 96 and the Premier League took off and killed the England team.
We’re desperate for players. There’s no depth in the pool, no production line and there’s too much money.
Academies are crammed with coaches, it’s too organised, regimented, all bibs and cones and two-touch football. Let them dribble.
They all have immaculate physiques. There’s not a fat, lazy, luxury player in sight.
And they are passing it 10 yards to someone who passes it 10 yards to someone who passes it 10 yards to someone who goes backwards.
They’re over- coached and scared to give it away and you are screaming: ‘Where are you going?!’
You need all sorts for a successful team — you need dogs and water-carriers — but we’ve got 11 players who are basically similar.
I don’t blame Gareth Southgate. Coaching has been taking us this way for years. Nothing is off the cuff. We need creativity and we’re not producing those players.
I mentioned Jonjo Shelvey of Newcastle on BBC Radio 5 Live the other night. He’s our best long-range passer but we don’t pick him for offfield reasons when we need him to give us something different.
Instead, we’ve kicked every bit of imagination out of our modern-day players and we’re left with an average team.
Slovenia could have easily nicked a point or three last week and the biggest cheer of the night was for a paper aeroplane landing on the touchline. People are sitting down. I want to hear the seats clicking when fans get to their feet.
I can’t see this changing overnight.
Getting away from Wembley and playing around different grounds might excite fans who don’t want to travel to London. That is something to look forward to.
Football has changed and the fan base has changed. Fans are quick to decide a certain player isn’t worth his place.
We all know what players earn these days and punters think they don’t care when they see them driving around in a RollsRoyce or flying off on holiday.
If they felt they were being entertained, they’d be saying: ‘Well played, enjoy your holiday lads, you’ve deserved it’.
England has the best fans in the world and it might be time to take the game back to them, but the team has to play better.
Harry Kane, who was on the scoresheet again in Lithuania yesterday, is in such good form, thank goodness, and Dele Alli is a bright spark, although he needs to learn some manners judging by what we have seen in recent times.
marcus Rashford looks very confident, playing without fear or pressure and he’s our big hope. I hope he doesn’t find fear.
We can play with more flair and take risks. We’ve never got the best out of flair players, never thrown the shackles off.
What helped us in 1990 was going to three at the back. It gave the players more space to express themselves. I played in a midfield with Paul Gascoigne and David Platt and people said we couldn’t play in a three, but we could keep the ball and we knew how to get around the pitch. Don’t forget the Euros in 1988 had been a nightmare, similar to Euro 2016. Going into the World Cup, we drew 1-1 in Tunisia and the newspapers were telling us to fly straight home, not to bother stopping in Italy.
We knew we had good players and we were lucky because Gazza had cotton wool in his ears and never listened to anyone telling him how to play.