Bring in Pardew to help Southgate run the Under 21s
DON’T LEAVE REPORTING TO CLUBS
By THE looks of it, the Football Association think Gareth Southgate needs help. He has been relieved of his duties overseeing development teams beyond the Under 21s, after a dismal European Championship.
In one way Southgate is fortunate the FA do not appear to take tournament failure seriously, in another he can argue that his job is about development, not results.
If John Stones, Harry Kane and Jack Butland make it to France with the senior squad next summer, that is also a form of success. yet the rise of youth is often irresistible.
The momentum behind Kane’s form for Tottenham last year would have carried him into Roy Hodgson’s squad no matter who was Under 21 coach. Wayne Rooney never even played at that level. He moved from England Under 17s to the seniors, with a single Under 19 game in between.
So, assessing Southgate’s potential for the senior role, results do matter. And, beyond the qualifiers, they haven’t been good. The change in his status suggests even the FA feel he needs to regroup with a reduced workload.
yet why stop there? Why did the FA abandon the idea of a young coach and mentor? How did Southgate, with just three full seasons in club management, the last one ending in relegation, get to shoulder this burden alone? Why not give Alan Pardew a call? Now –— in time for the start of the next Under 21 qualifying campaign. Not to elbow Southgate aside, but to provide the experienced ear and eye a young coach may need.
The first competitive match of the new season is on September 7, with a friendly against the United States five days earlier. It is not too late. And, you never know, England might get their next management team out of it.
That was how the FA worked in the old days. When Terry Venables was regarded as one of the brightest young minds in the country, he was teamed with Dave Sexton and the pair took charge of what was then an Under 23 team at the 1984 European Championship. It was the last time England won a tournament at that level.
The FA knew about coaching progression back then. Venables and Bobby Robson were involved with younger teams long before they became England managers. They learned from Sexton or Don Howe. yet who has been guiding Southgate since he was appointed? Roy Hodgson? He has to focus on his own issues. When Southgate plays, so does he, often on the other side of Europe. The night that England’s Under 21s face Norway, Hodgson will be at a hotel near Watford, helping England prepare for a match against Switzerland at Wembley. England managers have no time to mentor efficiently.
The FA already have one eye on the future. New chief executive Martin Glenn has said Hodgson’s contract will not be renewed if England disappoint at the European Championship next summer.
Understandable, but who comes in? Gary Neville’s name is mentioned but if his only coaching experience is as part of Hodgson’s failed regime there will be no appetite for his promotion. As for Southgate (below), his tournament form as Under 21 boss is hardly a recommendation. So the FA will be forced to look outside.
Pardew is as good as any English manager right now. He did a highly creditable job in difficult circumstances with Newcastle, and has started well at Crystal Palace. Given that he was an old team-mate of Southgate’s and the pair share a close mutual friend in Andy Woodman, now goalkeeping coach at Palace, he would make a fine part-time addition to the Under 21 management team.
It is hard to imagine the philosophies would be very far apart, but the older man has been around long enough to have the naivety knocked out of him. He would be an excellent sounding board, as Sexton, and later Howe, were for Venables. What’s in it for Pardew? An early look at international football, if he is to then be considered for the top job. He has never been shy in stating managing England is his ambition and it is not as if he is stepping on Hodgson’s toes.
If it goes well in France next summer, Hodgson stays, and Pardew continues working with Southgate and the Under 21s until the time is right. He will be better for the experience.
Queens Park Rangers did not stand in Venables’s way 30 years ago and, while football has changed, most managers now use the international break as an excuse for a holiday.
Even Crystal Palace are now stocked with internationals. Pardew no doubt needs the radio for company at the training ground in the weeks when England and the rest of Europe play. Southgate cannot be another Under 21 boss left to sink. What should be a learning experience for coaches as well as players has been allowed to drift towards redundancy. David Platt, Peter Taylor, Stuart Pearce, now Southgate — what did it mean for any of them?
The system, not Southgate’s workload, is the problem. No England Under 21 manager has been considered worthy of running the senior team, permanently. That amounts to 30 years of failure. Isn’t it time for
plan B?
MIKE ASHLEY, and therefore Newcastle United, have a problem with independent media.
Ashley has in the past tried to charge for access and interviews and, this season, succeeded in setting up an exclusivity deal with Mirror Group. Its papers get preferential treatment, the club have an outlet willing to massage their positive messages into news.
The remaining media receive only what the club are required to supply by the Premier League. Some journalists are banned. Questions at press conferences have to be submitted in advance.
Newcastle had a fitting response when a Channel 4 reporter said he wanted to ask about this practice. They banned him.
And when a club and the media go to war, no great sympathy is ever forthcoming from the fans. The press are just freeloaders writing rubbish about their team. They can get their news elsewhere. And official outlets do proliferate. Yet be careful what you wish for.
This week Chelsea offered a glimpse of football reporting without independence. Even Jose Mourinho might find the official website version of the 3-0 defeat at Manchester City a little, well, partisan.
Tinfoil hats at the ready, people, here are the highlights: ‘A Ramires goal incorrectly ruled out for offside changed the complexion of this earlyseason Premier League fixture . . . an errant offside flag denied us a deserved leveller . . . we dominated after the interval . . . two late City goals added some gloss to a final scoreline which did not accurately reflect the bigger picture . . . we had a good claim for a penalty with eight minutes played . . . it had been an even first quarter-of-anhour . . . we immediately got back on the front foot, Fabregas worrying Hart with a 20-yarder . . . Kurt Zouma replaced Terry for the second period, which we started excellently . . . a game of very fine margins . . . ’
Leaving aside Chelsea would not have deserved to be level had the Ramires goal stood, that Chelsea did not dominate, that 3-0 flattered them, that it wasn’t a penalty after eight minutes, that Joe Hart is unlikely to be too worried by shots going wide, that the ‘excellent second- half start’ did not produce a shot on target until the 70th minute (and it was Chelsea’s first of the match) and that the margin between the teams was actually enormous, that’s some assessment.
Nice, too, the way John Terry’s withdrawal at half-time is mentioned in passing, rather than identified as a potentially defining moment in the Premier League era. Even Chelsea fans don’t want this rubbish, surely? Or maybe they do.
We live in an age when it is an offence not to support the home team in the main stand, and opposing fans cannot sit side by side without rioting, so maybe only sappy good news is permissible. Newcastle and Chelsea have clearly got a lot in common here: that, and one point from two games.