2005 IS BEST YET
Shape up to the truth, Sven and play three centre backs
SVEN GORAN Eriksson has been agonising lately over a decision he doesn’t need to make. He’ll go on deliberating unnecessarily for the next seven months. His dilemma — Sol or Rio alongside John Terry in the England defence? The longterm answer — play both.
Play all three. Or if Rio Ferdinand’s mind is still spinning like a dance record next summer, delete him and insert Ledley King, Jamie Carragher or Jonathan Woodgate.
Mention the 3-5-2 formation to the England coach and he starts reaching for his crucifix and cloves of garlic, even though it is the only system that solves all England’s problems in tactics and personnel.
The word on the Geneva street last night was that Ferdinand will be reinstated to the heart of England’s back four after his brief spell in purdah.
Whatever the merits of Eriksson’s loyalty to the game’s most expensive defender, he is wasting his energy trying to pick two from three talented centre halves.
Ferdinand hardly had time to scratch his name on the wall of the doghouse before he was back running around the yard. Campbell, meanwhile, will read much into the fact that one adequate performance for Manchester United against Chelsea has restored Ferdinand’s untouchability in the manager’s eyes.
There are plenty of sages in English football who think 3-5-2 is England’s best hope of winning the 2006 World Cup, 40 years after they last reached the final of a major tournament. Some go further and argue that it is the only way to harness the talent at Eriksson’s disposal.
The list of Eureka ( not Ulrika) moments is not hard to compile.
The Gerrard-Lampard problem of who should attack and who should defend — solved.
The absence of a left- footed midfielder — solved.
Surfeit of top centre halves — problem solved, by using three.
Fundamental question of how to get the best 11 players in England into the team — Bob’s your uncle.
Ratio of defensive players to attack-minded goal-getters — five and five, with at least two of the 10 outfield players able to help in both departments.
With this simple alteration, Eriksson would have two adventurous full backs who can both defend and supply width and energy in attack. Gary Neville and Ashley Cole, when fit, complementing Beckham, Gerrard and Lampard in midfield is a formula most international managers would sell their grannies for.
Finally, both King and Ferdinand are sufficiently comfortable in possession of the ball to step out of a three-man defence and play the midfield holding role when three centre halves becomes one too many.
In one sense we’re wasting paper here, because there is more chance of Tony Blair admitting that the Weapons of Mass Destruction excuse for invading Iraq was a charade than there is of Eriksson abandoning 4- 4- 2 and midfield diamonds.
One day before a recent international, I asked him why Glenn Hoddle’s favourite system had not been given an airing during his four- and- a- half years in charge. ‘ Because there isn’t time to practice it properly,’ he replied, conveniently forgetting that he has been in the job for almost five years.
He has never fully articulated his antipathy to the system that was used so successfully by Bobby Robson at the 1990 World Cup and revived at France 98, where even Hoddle’s most trenchant critics acknowledged that England had proper balance and shape.
Eriksson’s best excuse is that 35-2 has become yesterday’s fashion in the Premiership. Not so ‘yesterday’, though, that Manchester United could cope with it when Middlesbrough switched to three at the back the other day and demolished United 4-1.
The tactical genius that afternoon was Steve McClaren, the Boro manager, who also happens to be Eriksson’s No 2. Either England have a squad of players intelligent and gifted enough to make 3-5-2 work successfully or they are too inflexible and limited to cope with a new set of instructions — in which case they’re hardly likely to win a World Cup anyway.
In reality, there are numerous senior England players who have already spotted the logic of abandoning 4-4-2 and making the system fit the resources, rather than shoe- horning the players into a structure that leaves gaping holes on the left side of midfield and in the defensive ‘ holding’ role.
The panic this week over Ledley King’s injury scare tells us all we need to know about the diamond shape Eriksson wants to use to nullify the ghosting presence of an Argentine playmaker — the classic No 10.
The formation has its uses, as King demonstrated in the Poland game, but England are now threatening to arrive in Germany with a converted centre half in the Roy Keane position and no proven understudy if anything happens to King.
Nicky Butt’s career has imploded and Eriksson is known to lack confidence in Scott Parker and Michael Carrick at this exalted level. Owen Hargreaves is a useful odd- job man but no Claude Makelele.
The forgotten soldier here is Phil Neville, a model pro who now brings specialist knowledge to the ‘ shielding’ job. But on balance, Eriksson would still be better off abolishing the job altogether and assigning the defensive responsibilities to his three high class centre halves, plus Gary Neville and Cole when the heat is really on.
Dream on. Exponents of 3- 5- 2 might as well join a cult and take their grumblings to the pub. To Eriksson, the third way is like the elephant in the room, so big he can’t see it. p.hayward@dailymail.co.uk