ENGLAND v LITHUANIA FEELGOOD
Today, 5PM
FIRST things first, we have to put Wednesday’s game against Germany into some context. It seems to be that the Germans, the same as the other big football nations, such as Spain, Italy, France and Brazil, just go through the motions when it comes to friendlies. I’ve never seen a Germany team give the ball away so much as they did in the first 30 or 35 minutes in Dortmund – their passing was off, balls were going out for throw-ins, touches were heavy. It was all a bit of a shambles. That said, I’m thinking of Gareth Southgate in that England dressing room and the things he spent time working on in the days leading up to the game and he should be pleased with what he saw. The change of system worked, the players winning first caps looked good, Jake Livermore slotted in well after being brought back into the fold and, as a group, they looked happy to go out and express themselves. That l ast point is t he all-important one and now the challenge for Southgate is in making sure the players feel comfortable on a consistent basis. They need to feel good every time they pull on their international shirt. I had an issue with the weight of the jersey and I know others have. I’m a football historian and when I walked into the dressing room at the old Wembley and saw the Three Lions in the tiles, s aw t he s hirts hanging up, I thought immediately about the greats who had been there before me. Bobby Moore, Geoff Hurst, Jimmy Greaves, Billy Wright… It was a massive gear change for me from walking into a club dressing room and when I entered it that first time, it was the most surreal situation of my life. It was hugely daunting. Imagine walking into a room and seeing Superman’s suit hanging there, yet, actually, when you put it on, it felt like one of those old diving suits. I found it horrific when that weight was on top of me. I could not get a minute’s sleep before my first game – against Japan – because I was tossing and turning all night. Looking at that shirt was a huge deal for me. I remember saying that to a group of journalists in the tunnel. Graham Taylor, the manager at the time, recognised it as an issue and tried to implement a club feel with England. And others have done since, so it’s a problem that has been identified.
If I’m being totally honest, I don’t think it will be truly sorted until we get a manager who is perceived to be so much bigger than the England team is at a given moment.
I always felt Sir Alex Ferguson could have done it and maybe Jose Mourinho and Pep Guardiola would fit the mould. A manager so cocky and confident, at the peak of their powers, that you can’t wait to join up with them.
But none of them would take the job at their peak.
That is no disrespect to Gareth and I’m quietly confident in him doing a very good job because he was of the generation, like me, which realised what a big deal it is to represent the country.
He can be disarming and a tub- thumping nationalist, and he seems to be doing a bit of both already with his talk of little island mentalities. The early signs are very good and if he can navigate his way through the first year, which would see us to the World Cup and get us up to par – as things stand that’s getting us out of the group stage – then he can buy himself time to figure out how to take us to the next level. We will beat Lithuania relatively comfortably today, but the challenge is to instil in the group that it’s all well and good playing at Wembley against Brazil in a friendly, but we need to do it against Senegal in Russia as well. For us to beat teams like that, or Iceland, on a regular basis he needs to make his players feel like they’re wearing Superman’s cape and not a shirt with an anvil stitched on the back. THE 3-4-3 formation Gareth Southgate employed works for me. I’d go as far as to say we’re tailor-made for it. But I was disappointed that we didn’t get into crossing positions that often. Kyle Walker and Ryan Bertrand must quickly understand they are a key component of the attacking threat.