England Shambles

To prevent my possible finger dislocation as I type my rant I will break my thoughts on England's 2-2 draw with the Czech Republic into nice bite-size chunks of vitriol and bile.

First up: England managers and THE BIG NAME.

Both Sven and McClaren would constantly include players who were either patently unfit or dreadfully out of form whether there were obvious replacements or not.

How many times have we seen Gerrard wasted on the left to accomodate Lampard and a holding midfielder in the middle with Beckham on the right?

But in comes Fabio and his iron will and pragmatic ruthlessness would have none of that BIG NAME bias.

Tonight he started with an England midfield of Gerrard on the left, Lampard and Barry in the middle and Beckham on the right.

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose, which translates as "Oh Christ, here we go again."

Just to drag the dying coals over this issue let me go over why that midfield not only doesn't work but has never worked at any time that it has been tried.

1) Steven Gerrard I am biased as I'm a Liverpool fan and have watched this man carry my beloved side on his shoulders even in the biggest games. However I have never seen him play a good game when played as a left-winger, mainly as he isn't a left-winger, right-winger (to some extent the exception), defensive midfielder, right back or secondary striker (and yes he has played all of those positions for England).

He is an attacking central midfielder, in my opinion the best in the country due to his range of through-balls and his striking.

Tonight he was not at his best by a long shot, make no bones about it, but he certainly tried, made some decent runs and hit a couple of solid if unspectacular shots. However particularly in the second half his passing went awry mainly as he was trying to use his right foot on the run when his left foot was the natural option.

The argument that Gerrard is so good he can play anywhere is moot. No matter how good Gerrard is in central midfield, he is nowhere near as good as players like Ashley Young, Joe Cole or even Stewart Downing when it comes to the left wing. But Young and Downing are not BIG NAMES, why Cole wasn't emplyed is explained by Capello's continuation of the great English managerial folly:

trying to play Gerrard, Lampard and Beckham at the same time.

In my next post: Frank Lampard, the modern day David Platt, in a bad way.