NO PRESSURE NOW, GARETH! Hart sweating on his place in squad
Don’t expect the old hype or hoopla when England name their 23, but it isn’t hopeless — ask Klopp
PAUL GASCOIGNE’S exclusion made the evening bulletins of the BBC television news and the revelation led the front page of the best- selling paper in the country in 1998. Four years l ater, t he nation watched, waited and winced as David Beckham worked his way through a metatarsal injury. We did the same for Wayne Rooney in 2006. Those sagas dominated newspapers, front and back, for weeks. The inclusion of a 17-year-old Theo Walcott in 2006 had resonance well beyond sports media.
Even as recently as 2012, for the European Championship squad, Roy Hodgson had to pick between John Terry and Rio Ferdinand, who were at loggerheads after comments Terry had made to Rio’s brother, Anton, which were eventually deemed by the FA to refer to the colour of his opponent.
Hodgson opted for Terry, as the charges were unproven at the time, but a furore ensued.
It does not quite feel like that for Gareth Southgate, who on Wednesday will announce his England squad for Russia. While not without England will go to Russia without a single survivor from Fabio Capello’s ill-fated 2010 World Cup squad if goalkeeper Joe Hart is left out of Wednesday’s 23 named by Gareth Southgate, writes Joe Bernstein.
The huge churn in personnel underlines the radical changes undertaken by Southgate and his predecessor Roy Hodgson after the disastrous tournament in South Africa. Hart, 31, is now sweating that he doesn’t become the final casualty after a torrid season in which he has lost his place in the West Ham lineup on loan from Manchester City. tension, the magnitude is not quite on the same scale. And the names involved are not quite as compelling or familiar to mainstream Britain.
Jack Wilshere will be sweating. He is on the fringe, in danger of missing out after withdrawing from the last squad with injury having last played for England at Euro 2016. The renaissance of Fabian Delph, as yet unpicked by Southgate, as a reformed left-back and back- up midfielder may cost Wilshere his place. Lewis Cook is admired but looks like missing out.
Danny Welbeck’s versatility as wide player and centre-forward may get him over the line. Just.
And Joe Hart, for so long the established No1, will scrape in after a poor season, but find himself relegated to No 3 goalkeeper. Injury-wise, Kieran Trippier seems fine but Southgate will want to see a start from Danny Rose for Tottenham against Leicester at Wembley Stadium today so he can include his favoured left- back. That, and the rejuvenation of Ashley Young would see Ryan Bertrand disappointed.
Jurgen Klopp is trying to get Adam Lallana game time today while ensuring Liverpool obtain the point they require for Champions League football. Lallana last played 90 minutes on March 6. He last stepped on a pitch — for five minutes before departing with an injured hamstring — on March 31.
Yet he remains a favourite, the star of the qualifying campaign, and should squeeze in.
Likewise John Stones looks to have proved himself fit from his abductor injury. Pep Guardiola shoved him over the line by playing him last weekend in front of watching Southgate, who would have wanted to be convinced anyway.
There may even be some teenage kicks to spice up the announcement, such as Liverpool’ s fastemerging right-back Trent Alexander-Arnold, 19, and Borussia Dortmund’s 18- year- old Jadon Sancho being invited as a standby player for the squad. FA technical director Dan Ashworth has been travelling regularly to Dortmund to monitor Sancho’s progress.
But none of the above will make the Ten O’Clock News, nor the front pages. It should be a fairly routine announcement. Truth be told, the pool of players from which Southgate can pick is small. That may change with the emergence of a new generation, the Under-17 and Under-20 World Cup winners.
But right now, English football is still recovering from the dual influx of foreign players and billions of pounds of cash in the Nineties and Noughties, which blinded the FA and Premier League.They stood by idly, adopting the political and economic mantra of the times in assuming that the market and a non-interventionist approach would continue to garner decent footballers. They realised their error too late, though it is being corrected.
Rooney was the last of the big hitters of the old school shuffling off the stage last year, Southgate having inherited his last days. Even four years ago, Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard were supplementing Rooney in the squad, a tangible connection to the so-called golden generation who were, in truth, wor
thy of some, if not all, of the hype. Still, it is all gone now.
Maybe that is the point. Southgate will attempt to extrapolate a positive vibe from those inescapable conclusions. This is a new England, much less puffed up and full of itself than in the past, which suits Southgate’s personality, though the same could be said of Hodgson.
There is much less of the circus that surrounded previous campaigns. Quite deliberately, Southgate has killed t he poisonous personality cult around the captaincy in those heady days. He has rotated the role between Jordan Henderson, Harry Kane and Eric Dier and will only name one for the World Cup in June, not this week.
It is likely to be Henderson, on the basis of his growing authority and maturity in helping Liverpool reach the Champions League final. Dier and Kane will still be expected to shoulder responsibilities on the pitch.
This is a group of players entirely unburdened by excessive expectation, unless you think the hope of getting out of the group stages is an unreasonable load to carry. And if you do, professional football probably is not the game for you.
The last time anyone expected anything of an England team was 2010, which was foolish given the evidence, but a hangover from the old order.
Since Euro 2012, almost every pundit has been appropriately modest about England’s chances. The problem at recent tournaments was not that anyone expected them to win. It was that they could not even meet the demand of progressing beyond the ( admittedly tricky) group in Brazil in 2014 and were out after two games. And that at Euro 2016 they could not even get past Iceland in the last 16. So if you thought expectations were low then, the bar has been lowered a notch or two more for this generation. There is no hype, no hoopla.
Kane is wonderful player with a burgeoning international reputation. But he still attracts nowhere near the level of hysteria that was attached to the likes of Gascoigne, Beckham and Rooney. Or even Terry and Ferdinand.
Klopp penned a lovely tribute for the Football Writers’ Association dinner last week, which touched on his affection for his adopted country and its national team.
‘You are blessed in this country with wonderfully talented, skilful,
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honest, committed and tactically astute players,’ he wrote. ‘You are blessed with a coach who is brave and innovative. England has the tools because the manager and the players have the mentality, attitude, character. It is all there for you.’
Then he addressed the writers directly. ‘Maybe just reduce the pressure a notch or two. Maybe take the numbers 1966 off your computer keyboards for the summer and let this team write their own history and memories.’
Perhaps he misjudged the amount of pressure on these players. It really is not huge. But he was entirely correct to i dentify a moment in time where the page is blank and the story unwritten.
England have ceased to be major nation in anything other than name for 10 years. They lack the personalities who once dominated Europe with their clubs, the likes of Paul Scholes, Michael Owen, Lampard, Gerrard, Beckham, Ferdinand, Terry and Rooney. But they could enter Russia with the captain of the Champions League winners.
And, even if somewhat tired, one of the most- admired strikers in Europe. Add a couple of players i nt egral to t r ul y outstanding Premier League champions. And defenders who can play their way out of trouble.
It is not hopeless. These players may find that come 2020, and a European Championship which will largely be played in England, they have to deal with hysterical levels of expectation.
For now, it is all rather understated for the chosen 23. But the future remains in their hands.