Regret and renewal: The tired old cycle of English football
Only when the obsession with manager ends will focus fall on the players
Gareth Southgate’s debut as “interim” England manager was a mere detail in a pattern of chaos he would need to be Superman to correct. Not the least of the mother nation’s delusions is an obsession with the man in charge: a job on a par with next-captain-of-the-Titanic.
If that sounds cynical, consider the backdrop of England crashing out of the 2014 World Cup after six days, losing to Iceland at Euro 2016 and then having to offload Sam Allardyce after one World Cup qualifier and 67 days.
Southgate was to blame for none of this, though he might have taken the job after Roy Hodgson’s downfall, rather than waited for Allardyce to implode as well. But it falls to him now to be interrogated for crimes he had no part in, while all the deeper faults in the system are overlooked again.
Malta or something, as Allardyce might have called them, were appropriately unthreatening opponents for a caretaker who must have felt the build-up was much tougher than the match itself. The questions came in a torrent (all were fair and most were necessary, journalistically). Such are the perils of the trade, though, that even Peter Shilton, England’s most capped player, went on the radio to use Southgate’s order to his team to be “brave” as a stick with which to beat him. Presumably Southgate meant in all games, rather than specifically against Malta.
Then there was a Saturday morning front page splash about HMRC’s pursuit of wealthy investors in a £620 million tax avoidance scheme: again, a fair subject for investigation, but also a reminder to Southgate that he has been launched into a new world, far from the developmental vibe of the under-21s (there is no suggestion of illegality on Southgate’s part).
Implicit in all this is an assumption that England have merely broken down by the side of the road and just need the right mechanic to get them going again. Does anyone seriously believe this after watching them labour for 72 minutes to equalise against Iceland?
English football’s wilful amnesia, its willingness to simply start the carousel again, with the same old press conference messages of regret and renewal, could almost be framed as a strength. If the players and the Football Association thought for too long about the awfulness of Brazil (2014) and France (2016) – not to mention Allardyce’s spectacular exit – they might be tempted to withdraw from international tournaments for a long lie down, like MPs claiming they want to spend more time with their families.
The big danger with the manager fixation is that it obscures the responsibility of the players not to capitulate in the manner of this England team in Nice four months ago. England internationals from an older generation diagnosed at Euro 2016 a rampant failure by almost every player on duty that night to fulfil his individual duty. To Hodgson’s dismay, they surrendered to events.
Allardyce had barely started down the path of diagnosis and cure when a loose tongue and a desire to top up his £3m salary with freelance “keynote” speaking got the better of him. So now it falls to Southgate – until November 15 at the very least – to work out what debilitates the English soul.
“The shirt hangs heavy,” Fabio Capello said, early in his own England managerial career. Nobody could dispute the evidence for that claim. But it has become tedious now: like a teenager’s excuse. It infuriates England players from a time when the team were at least competitive in tournaments (10 or more years ago). Against a side ranked 176 in the world, Southgate could afford to pick pretty much any team he wanted, but it was still a surprise to see Gary Cahill chosen ahead of Chris Smalling and Jesse Lingard preferred to Marcus Rashford, whose second-half introduction drew a big cheer from a bafflingly large crowd. The new manager’s first blow in senior action was landed by Daniel Sturridge, with a header. His second came via Dele Alli, who was tipped to shine at Euro 2016 but ended up merely getting by. We never had chance to find out whether Allardyce intended to return England to direct play and set-piece cunning, but we know Southgate will be a variation on sunset-phase Hodgson, who converted to youth and possession. There will be more patient passing under Southgate, if his under-21 teams are any guide, and “braveness” only when circumstances allow. He has spent too long preaching the virtues of ball retention to turn into a gambler overnight. All of which should stabilise the team, and allow the FA to get through a day or two without Valium. You could imagine a Southgate equivalent stepping up to take charge of most European nations, because most of those countries have a coach development system, while the FA has tended to throw money on a bonfire of big names, whether or not they knew anything about the culture they were walking into. One day, you hope, the colossal distraction of managers will be ripped away, and the players will be left with the reality that they, and only they, can form an England team who really care: who decide never to revisit the nadir of the Iceland game; who hold each other, and themselves, accountable for the plunge in England’s status from tournament quarterfinal team (a modest standing in itself) to group stage and second-round fodder, and aim higher. Otherwise they can just keep traipsing into press conferences to tell us how much it “hurt” to get knocked out, and why now is the time to deliver. Southgate is good with words, so he ought to spot the hollow ones.
The big danger of manager fixation is it masks responsibility of players not to capitulate again