That’s just nonsense, Gerrard tells Rio

STEVEN GERRARD has hit back at Rio Ferdinand’s claim that England suffer from a lack of identity.

Ferdinand slammed the national set-up on Monday, saying there is no link between the youth team and the senior squad, and he would rather the side not qualify for the next couple of tournaments to forge an identity.

But England skipper Gerrard, speaking ahead of the friendly clash with Scotland at Wembley, dismissed his club rival’s allegations.

“I’m not interested in what Rio has got to say about this group of players.

“When you play for England, there are always a lot of opinons outside the group, especially in a World Cup year.

“There will be more people voicing opinons, but when we’re inside, we don’t take much notice of what is being said on the outside.

“This team does have an identity. We have a good team, some top players and I’m confident we can prove it this year.”

Ferdinand claimed that the last England manager to forge a national identity was Glenn Hoddle, who brought him through as a young West Ham defender in the World Cup 1998 set-up.

“It’s going to take someone with big balls to come and grab England by the scruff of the neck and say, ‘This is what we are going to do and it might take 10 years to do it’.

“We might not qualify for the World Cup or European Championship, but I would rather not qualify for one or two tournaments knowing, in 10 years’ time, we will have an identity we can be proud of. I don’t see the connection between the senior team and the Under 21s or the Under 17s or the Under 20s – and that doesn’t bode well for the England team.

“We started to see something when Glenn Hoddle was in charge, a bit of an identity with free-flowing football.

‘Since then I don’t think we have had a real identity. If all the names were taken off the back of the shirts and the colours were changed, you couldn’t tell an England team.

“An Italian team, a Dutch team, a Spanish team, a German team or a Brazilian team, without seeing the names on the shirts you would identify them, because they’re working from a script.” – Daily Mail