Rely on Youth
James Milner leads way
Now I’m not saying that James Milner will single-handedly save English football but... Record U21 cap-holder Milner did spring to mind during October’s squad announcements.
Papa Hodgson’s blue-eyed boy divides opinion among Anglo-Saxon males: a spoof twitter account here (@BoringMilner), an offradar pass there.
As Rafa Benitez would say though, the facts are that Milner has made 28 of 33 Hodgson England squads and doffed a 50th senior cap in September’s Euro Qualifying opener in Basel. But young Jimmy had to cut his teeth patiently at international level, hoarding those record 46 U21 caps during five years with the cub side before finally being welcomed into the senior pride. Importantly though once a fully-fledged Lion, Simba never returned to the nursery.
Like all cutesy newly-weds, Roy and Gareth (U21 boss Southgate) are already finishing each other’s sentences. In Hodgson’s words, the pair are, ‘singing off the same hymn sheet’, while Southgate has proclaimed a joyous union of ‘joined-up thinking’ between the junior and senior sides.
Surely a collective shudder shot down the back of England fans’ £90 replica shirts, however, as a gurning Hodgson proffered his rationale for ‘loaning’ two of his newest senior stars – Calum Chambers (subsequently recalled to replace John Stones) and Luke Shaw – back to the U21’s for their Euro 2015 play-off win over Croatia (this despite Southgate’s Young Lions breezing through qualifying unbeaten prior to Hodgson’s intervention).
In his ‘Future of the England Team’ speech back in September, Greg Dyke tried to reassure skint Three Lions fans that the glory days are back on the dusty horizon – even targeting triumph at Qatar 2022. Dyke’s Qatar dream, like the tournament itself, may prove a mirage in the sands of time but the sentiment seemed genuine, ‘You won’t get there if you don’t know where you’re going’.
Shame then that the detail of how the FA chairman plans to develop those future world beaters came as something of an afterthought. Exact quote: “Oh and by the way, to show we are making progress along the way I’d like to see us do well in the U20’s World Cup in 2017 with the objective of that squad then moving on to the U21 Championships.”
Scythe your way through Dyke’s delivery and the FA may have actually struck on a refreshingly forward-thinking chord. At its heart, future success is now seemingly viewed
as a happy by-product of progressing young English talent through the age groups rather than endorsing the usual pressure cooker four-yearly squad scramble.
You can perhaps understand if Hodgson had misheard Dyke’s careless whisper. However the England boss’ rogue agenda of ‘loaning’ out senior players to gain tournament experience flies in the face of the FA’s (garbled) message of structured progression. Six of Hodgson’s squad which won in Estonia are still eligible for next summer’s Euro party in Prague, and one suspects it won’t take too much arm-twisting to get Raheem Sterling and Jack Wilshere on board.
But what then happens to the likes of Leicester City’s Liam Moore and Derby County’s Will Hughes, scorers of those crucial play-off goals in Zagreb?
“Just because you have been with us for a while that doesn't make you a 100% bona fide senior. It just makes you an England player and we are going to use you where we think best.” That was Hodgson’s frank message for Sterling and Wilshere – despite both gaining World Cup caps in Brazil.
Chief of yoof Southgate backed his leader Roy: “Being part of the seniors in future is showing you can muck in with the U21’s.”
When Hodgson speaks of the ‘royal we’, he includes Dan Ashworth, who is two years into his ambiguous post as the FA’s Elite Development Director. Cream of Ashdown’s crop is the current European Championship-winning U17’s side (they triumphed on penalties in May’s final, no less). Ashdown and Southgate’s responsibility must be to nurture this winning group and prevent Hodgson from cultivating this crop of talent until after Russia 2018 at the earliest – when Euro tournament top-scorer, Dominic Solanke, and his team mates will be in their 21st years.
This isn’t to say that England should be a closed shop for those not ‘in the system’ from the age of 5 ¾, like our now not-so-young friend, Milner.
What of the Jonjo Shelvey’s of this world, who Hodgson admitted recently, had kindly declined his invitation to drop back into
Southgate’s kindergarten? “It may well be that, having already played for the senior team, he felt that playing for the U21’s was stepping back down,” pondered Hodgson. No shit Sherlock.
In sport, to be the best, you unashamedly copy the best. Historically we have proven reluctant to follow the Germans, but in Brazil it was certainly their moment. As Hodgson observed: “We’ve seen with this German team that for many of the players it was their third or fourth major tournament, if you count U21 tournaments.”
Stuart Pearce’s U21’s famously lost 4-0 to Horst Hrubesch’s kinder in 2009’s Euro final; and six of Die Junge made Joachim Löw’s winning squad this summer – including 2009’s ‘Golden Player’ Mario Götze. Hodgson named just two of Pearce’s pups: 2002’s ‘Golden Player’, Wayne Rooney and, you guessed it, James Milner.
While sie Germanz are the current benchmark, perhaps more realistic comparisons can be drawn with FIFA-ranked 12th Switzerland; this the same Swiss that (20th placed) England blitzed in Basel. Switzerland reached the last-16 in Brazil under former gaffer, German Ottmar Hitzfeld, who copied Löw’s Mannschaft mantra by flying five of the Swiss 2011 U21 Euro runners-up side down Sao Paulo way.
Two, five, six... what’s the difference? Answer = continuity breeds success.
As some (extremely rudimentary) extrapolation reveals, to match Deutschland’s 2014 tally of six U21 tournament veterans, Greg Dyke will have to triple the current promotion rate for his 2022 ‘winning’ squad.
Dyke could cook the books by allowing Hodgson to simply yo-yo youngsters between squads to level up those numbers but to truly go toe-to-toe with Germany, Switzerland, et al, the FA must impound Roy’s child catcher wagon and enforce their vision of guiding the younger groups through to the senior side together – in essence more Milners.
Once the bridesmaid, Milner is now the bride of Hodgson’s something old, something new England as they sashay through Michel Platini’s 24-team-UEFA precession to France 2016. Sacré bleu!
Milner may just prove the prototype for England’s next (don’t call them golden) generation.