Evolution will happen only when tactical revolution is embraced

October 19, 2007

Martin Samuel: The England verdict

We live, yet we do not learn. In defeat, the same failings return to haunt English football time and again. Panicking under pressure, limited in thought and imagination, we are a football nation that has never grown up, that has not aged a day in more than 40 years. We won a World Cup in 1966 and our evolution ceased that afternoon. Other countries have progressed, developed, embraced ideas and innovations. England have one foot in the past and, since Wednesday, another in the grave.

If November is to be Steve McClaren’s last month in charge of England, as seems likely, his successor must be bolder in sweeping away the intellectual dead wood, starting with the biggest lie of all. It concerns a set of figures that are so ingrained on the national psyche that one England manager even had them as part of his telephone number.

If the new man is to banish the three greatest myths in English football, the revolution starts here.

You want the truth? You can’t handle the truth. England should have played 3-5-2 in Moscow on Wednesday, or at least should have been able to. Any country worth its salt would have done, the moment Guus Hiddink’s team became known, because then the match was made for it. If the new head coach is to take our game forward, England’s players, world-class allegedly, should next time be able to switch seamlessly to a way of operating that would counter Hiddink’s tactics. Instead they stuck solidly to the game plan that Hiddink’s team was designed to outwit and because we are a feeble football nation intellectually and terrified of change, that played into his hands.

As the inquest continues much is made in certain quarters of the impact of the 2-0 defeat in Croatia in October, when McClaren played three at the back. Ignore this. The stance is self-serving and, long term, it will strand English football in the position it is now: limited players, with limited imagination, enjoying limited success and the occasional calamity. Small minds will continue to insist that English players can operate only one way, 4-4-2, because it is cosy and safe and we are comfortable with it, but as it has won nothing for us in four decades, might it not also be the problem?

The result that killed England’s campaign and left McClaren playing catchup for a year was the 0-0 draw at home to the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia that immediately preceded the game in Zagreb. Had England won that afternoon, even with defeats by Croatia and Russia, it would require only another home victory next month to qualify. And the lineup against Macedonia was 4-4-2, with a big man up front. The way, we are incessantly reminded, English players prefer. Nothing against it, but it is one way of playing; not the only way of playing.

Meanwhile, figure this. Hiddink arrives in Russia and in 12 months reinvents the team so it is equally content with three, four or five at the back, three, four or five in midfield and two or three up front. Does Russia have better footballers than England? No. Does Russian football have greater imagination? Clearly. Going back to basics is not the answer: going back to basics is what we always do, and it seldom works.

We disregard the fact that England’s two best tournament performances since 1966 – both in terms of the stage of the competition reached and the quality of the football played – came on the only occasions the man in charge has moved away from our safe old style of play. Bobby Robson, in 1990, switched between four and three at the back, and Terry Venables, in 1996, mirrored the Dutch when it suited him. Even the much maligned Glenn Hoddle accepted a world existed beyond our own. McClaren was announced as a man with a plan, but after the battering England received in Zagreb – when in reality a goalkeeping error, not the formation, cost England the game – he became resistant to change. His best result, the 3-0 win at home against Russia, was played using a 4-3-3 system with Shaun Wright-Phillips on the right and Emile Heskey shuttling to the left. By the time England hit Moscow, however, it was back to familiar patterns and Hiddink loved it. The Dutch developed front-loaded systems as a way of countering the traditional shapes of the English-influenced game and the more attack-oriented Russia became, the more vulnerable England looked.

The next head coach cannot have just one way to skin a cat. International coaches have a lot of thinking time and come up with clever things. If all England have to offer is a blueprint that was patented in black and white, we are going to be spending a great many summers in front of the television.

The old familiar places

Following directly on from England’s systematic abuse is a fear of the unknown, even if that foreign land is a patch of turf 20 metres away. This country does not produce footballers. It produces right backs, central midfield players, centre halves. It has got to the stage where England’s players are not just married to one position, they are married to one way of operating in that position, and to specific teammates around them. Even more incredibly, we indulge this.

So Steven Gerrard cannot play with Frank Lampard, Michael Owen can be used only with a servant masquerading as his partner, and heaven forbid that we should ask a left back to do what he does each week, just a little farther up the field. For future reference, all English footballers should be made to study the progress of Arsenal to the Champions League final in 2006; specifically the performances of Mathieu Flamini.

Away to Real Madrid, against a team that had David Beckham on the right flank and sometimes Robinho, too, Arsenal were missing Ashley Cole and Gaël Clichy. Flamini had to play left back. He had a stormer and Arsenal won 1-0. And after the game, Flamini was asked when he had last played that role.

Never, he said. What about for the youth team or reserves? No, he replied. Not even at school. And yet he did it. And again in the home match. And over two legs against Juventus; and then twice more versus Villarreal in the semi-final. And Arsenal did not concede a goal in any of those games. And that is because Flamini is a footballer, and footballers have the ability to adapt to change. Unless one is English, of course, when it is about sticking to your allotted space, with a game plan tailored to precisely your needs, for it is unthinkable that you should even peer beyond your comfort zone.

It is a joke that we meekly accept Gerrard and Lampard as incompatible or that Owen only thrives as a striker with a humble water carrier in support. Standards of technical attainment are set depressingly low and still in this campaign the team have failed to meet them. The new head coach must refuse to accept one-dimensional Englishmen. There is nothing wrong in playing to strength; unless that strength has become a weakness.

You can’t change a winning team

Oh yes you can. The best managers do it all the time. They never stand still. And it is not changing, it is improving. Winning does not mean that everything is right, no more than losing makes everything wrong. Yet on each occasion when McClaren has won a game or enjoyed a good run, he acted as if had found the secret of success and clung to it until an awkward truth was revealed. So Peter Crouch, having scored against Andorra and Macedonia, retained his place in the team for two matches too many, Macedonia at home and Croatia away, when England never looked like scoring.

Paul Robinson has been an accident waiting to happen for more than a year now. A bolder manager would have selected Scott Carson before now. Gerrard became a fixture in central midfield on the back of a good second half against Andorra and, after enjoying back-to-back wins at Wembley, McClaren was also in thrall to the makeshift midfield that featured Wright-Phillips and Gareth Barry. He paid the price in Moscow because England were overrun and also missed a sitter. We will never know whether a midfield five to match Hiddink’s formation would have made the difference, but no prizes for guessing who José Mourinho would have had in the team. Here’s a clue: boo.