Staying on? Sven has to get a grip on reality...
TORD Grip comes over as an honourable football man who is happy to play his accordion while his boss is out playing the field.
Bobby Robson had Don Howe, Glenn Hoddle leant on John Gorman and Kevin Keegan’s eyes and ears were the brooding Arthur Cox. These men are the candle in the void of loneliness that comes with the England job. Grip is Eriksson minus the high life, his satellite, his MiniMe in the shires. When the last post sounds for Sven, Grip will play it on his accordion and carefully pack the bags for the next stop on their tour.
When he speaks, we all think Tord is His Master’s Voice, hence the BBC’s excitability yesterday when Grip suggested on Radio Five Live that Eriksson will keep the radioactive tracksuit on beyond next summer’s World Cup. ‘I can see him staying,’ he said. ‘I think so, because he likes his job, that’s for sure.’
Only a real sadist could want to put the boot into him for that remark, especially as most of us still expect Eriksson to flee soon after the last ball has been kicked on German soil. But Grip’s statement needs challenging just in case. The decision isn’t Eriksson’s to take — or shouldn’t be — unless David Beckham’s fingers are wrapped round the Cup in Berlin on July 9. The England job isn’t a sinecure; Eriksson should not be given the right to surrender it when he’s bored.
As this column never tires of pointing out, hiring Eriksson will have cost the Football Association around £20million by the time England touch down in Germany. That’s £10m each for the two quarter-final showings at the 2002 World Cup and Euro 2004. The minimum Eriksson would need to do to stay on until 2008 is lose in the Final to a superpower — and even then there would be a good case for applying the three- strikes rule.
Almost 40 years on from England’s last appearance in the final of a major tournament, all the talk of ours being the best league in the world is risible until the Premiership can come up with an England side capable of conquering the elite in big knock- out games.
As the players head for training in Manchester today ahead of Saturday’s ‘ beautiful friendly’ against Argentina (Eriksson’s phrase), the most honest among them will experience an uncomfortable tightening in the stomach. Why? Because the Argentina game in Sapporo on June 7, 2002, was the last time England beat a top- flight rival. When the FA bravely consented to a post- qualifying friendly against Maradona- land, they also shone a light on England’s record since that epic night in the Sapporo Dome.
In 42 internationals since, England have lost to Brazil, France and Portugal in tournament football, and if anyone tries to balance those results against the fact that Eriksson’s men have just won their World Cup qualifying group, then a scream will emanate from this page. No gongs can be handed out for topping a group that contained Wales, Northern Ireland, Poland and Azerbaijan. With the players he has, it would have been scandalous for Eriksson not to have negotiated a safe passage to the great German testing ground.
You may think there are eight months until the curtain rises, but the true figure is 360 minutes. England have four games in which to find out whether Ledley King can play the defensive role in a midfield diamond against elite opposition, Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard can get the hang of the piston system in a flat midfield four, Rio Ferdinand is terminally off with the fairies and the country has two full backs capable of deputising for Ashley Cole and Gary Neville.
Not much has been made of this, but the butterflies would swarm the stomach if Luke Young, Wayne Bridge and/or Paul Konchesky were standing in for Neville or Cole in Germany. These are the main problem areas, together with the suspect temperaments of Wayne Rooney and David Beckham, a potential timebomb Eriksson shows no sign of being able to defuse.
Another unfortunate echo this weekend is the memory of Eriksson dragging off Michael Owen 10 minutes before the end in Sapporo and sending on Bridge to play in a 4-5-1 formation, with Teddy Sheringham alone up front. In desperation, England’s defenders lumped their clearances into channels the otherwise admirable Sheringham was too slow to penetrate.
Michael Caine and company were under less pressure at Rorke’s Drift than Argentina subjected England to in those gruelling final moments.
So Sapporo provided the first clear evidence of Eriksson’s reflex habit of circling the wagons when his team are in front in the biggest games, and he was true to that instinct in Portugal, against France and then the hosts.
There is no Gordon Brown in the background salivating for his job, so no wonder he and Grip think the moment of their leaving is theirs to choose. It’s not. Grip’s hand is on the accordion, but not the lever.