Allardyce: I will make country proud
England coach aims to lift mood after Euro disaster Shaw pulls out of Slovakia tie with muscle injury
Sam Allardyce believes he and his England players can make the nation proud again as they embark on their qualifying campaign for the 2018 World Cup in Russia.
The Allardyce era begins against Slovakia in Trnava today, with England aiming to bury the humiliation of the Iceland defeat that resulted in elimination from this summer’s European Championship. That result, judged as the worst in England’s history, left the country’s football fans disillusioned with the national team, but Allardyce is hopeful he can lift the mood.
“The nation was proud of the team up to Iceland,” said Allardyce. “It was only that result which turned everyone against them. It was a hugely disappointing result for everyone and none more so than them.
“Everyone involved in England hurt that night, but the players more than anyone else,” the new manager added. “There’s a perception that they don’t hurt, but they do. It’s something we have to try and achieve again, where 2014-16 was a fantastic ride for this young team. I just hope they gain in confidence, get there and then do better when they get there in Russia 2018.
“It’s so far away, that tournament, I can only focus on this game and, hopefully, the fans who watch on the TV and are here go home very happy, turning the television off saying England are back on track and looked great.”
England failed to beat Slovakia at Euro 2016 and Allardyce is aware they will be expected to kick-off their Group F campaign with a victory.
“Everyone will want us to win,” said Allardyce. “Some will expect us to win. I don’t think it will be that easy based on their record.
“Winning is what we want. If the nation thinks that’s the only thing we can have to make us feel better, we’ll try. But, personally, if we get a draw from the most difficult game of the group, I’ll be happy.”
Allardyce admitted he will be nervous when he steps out on to the pitch in Trnava for the first time as England manager, but also spoke of what will be his proudest moment in management.
“It’s been a great week for me,” said Allardyce. “I think that, hopefully, it goes as well on the pitch as I’ve seen in training, but it’s all about what happens on the pitch. It’s the best job for me at this stage of my life. I couldn’t have asked for anything better. Having met the players and chatted, I have a very talented squad. In the Euros, it was the youngest average age and this squad can only mature and get better.”
Captain Wayne Rooney will become England’s most capped outfield player today, making his 116th appearance in the No 10 position behind Harry Kane after playing at the Euros in midfield.
Luke Shaw did not travel with the squad to Slovakia after feeling pain in the leg he broke last season, but Allardyce does not expect the left-back to be sidelined for Manchester United.
“It’s a slight problem with the leg,” said Allardyce. “I don’t think it’ll keep him out too long. A little ache, muscular. He felt a little uncomfortable with it. With what he’s been through, we didn’t want to take a chance. I think he’s done exceptionally well given the games he’s played, but he didn’t feel comfortable so the wise thing to do was send him back to United. He wasn’t starting anyway. I’d be surprised if he wasn’t OK for United’s next game.”
Harry Kane has been through almost every challenge a young English footballer might be expected to face in the early stages of the modern elite-level career, and now he faces one of the last on the list from which every good player must recover: the legacy of a dismal England summer.
He is by no means the only one who has had to endure and then recover from one of England’s grim tournament failures and sure enough his turn has come. Alan Shearer, Michael Owen, Wayne Rooney – they have all been through this rites of passage in recent times and now it is Kane’s turn to show in the first 2018 World Cup qualifier of the Sam Allardyce era that the burden of being part of an English collapse can be borne and then forgotten.
It starts again for England today at the Stadion Antona Malatinskeho, capacity 17,500. Capacity for causing trouble at the start of a qualifying campaign for an already beleaguered Football Association: high.
This time last year, Kane was still mercifully free of the England curse, albeit then, as he is now, yet to score a goal in the new Premier League season for Tottenham Hotspur. He broke his duck with one goal in both Euro 2016 qualifiers against San Marino and Switzerland and although it was a lean two months at Spurs he never looked back from a hat-trick against Bournemouth in the last week of October.
There was no question that Kane looked tired at Euro 2016, as he did the previous summer at the Under-21s equivalent, after which last August came the pressure to show that he could do it for one more season. Allardyce has at least one striker in better recent goalscoring form than Kane in Jamie Vardy, and another in Marcus Rashford who is not even in the squad, but it is telling that he has backed Kane against Slovakia.
Allardyce was asked about Kane last night, his lack of goals so far this season and the parallels with 12 months ago, and at first tried to move the discussion away from the Spurs man in particular. The new England manager said that all his attacking players had the responsibility to score and create goals. This being Allardyce, there was a special mention for set-pieces too. Pushed on the subject of the dry run that Kane is on, Allardyce admitted it was “a concern – for me and Harry”.
He added: “He’d like to get off the mark, I’m sure. But I’ve watched all the goals he’s scored in training. I’ve seen his quality. But if Harry doesn’t score, Wayne will ...”
Rooney was sitting next to him at the time and it would have been interesting to know exactly what he felt about the new regime, which was there in the little things Allardyce said. For his attacking players, Kane and Rooney included, there will be a more direct approach.
“I’ve shown the lads their [Slovakia’s] weaknesses – where we can expose them if we get possession of the ball,” he said. “It’s important we out-possess [sic] the opposition because of the heat. As long as we’re possessing, not just for the sake of it, but to try and possess and create a chance to score.” This is Kane’s 17th cap in 17 months for England, a period in which he forced his way into the team, scored on his debut and stayed in the squad.
His rise has been remarkable and it is easy to forget the long years of preparation that have gone into the last three seasons including this one: the four loans, the willingness to play for England junior teams at summer tournaments when others might have swerved the responsibility. It was hard to become the first choice for Spurs and England, and it will be just as hard to stay there.
Kane’s experience last season will have demonstrated that he does not need to panic if the goals do not come immediately, and that will be reassuring for him. He fits the Allardyce prototype of a strong, hard-working forward who scores freely too, and yet there is no grace period with England in their current post-Euros torpor.
Allardyce is not picking Kane because he wants to launch the Spurs striker’s season. He is doing so to try to launch his own successful England management career and if Kane does not work out then he will turn to someone else. For Kane there is again that pressure to start well. He has done it before, when he seized his chance with Spurs and then again with England. If ever there was a time for a typically Kaneian intervention it is now.
Allardyce’s selection of forwards gives him a little of everything. Kane is the closest to an Allardyce targetman, capable of playing with his back to goal, but rather more than that. Vardy is the opposite, pushed up high for the ball over the top. Daniel Sturridge does what Daniel Sturridge does whether it is Allardyce, Jürgen Klopp or Carlo Ancelotti in charge of the team and there will be little his new manager can do to change that.
In many respects, Sturridge is the least likely Allardyce option until you consider that the England manager has always considered the moody mercurial forwards as a personal challenge.
Yet it is Kane to whom the England manager has turned first time around and it is now in the reign of Allardyce that impressions will be made that can last a long time. If Kane performs against Slovakia then it will not be forgotten by Allardyce. It will not be a free pass, of course, but the England manager will be looking for players who buy in quickly to what he wants.
“It is my first game as manager and you want to see players grab the shirt and maintain the level of performance you know they can achieve,” Allardyce said last night.
For Kane it is yet another challenge in the gruelling business of maintaining his position as one of the top goalscorers for club and country. Three years ago he was still yet to play a single minute of Premier League football for Spurs. Three years on and the transformation has been extraordinary but it never stops. The rewards for success are immense but the goals have to keep coming.