Another Url, Another Planet

Great Pixies soundtrack to go with a gentle Bush-bashing.

It's often the case that what in one sense is an undeniable strength can at the same time also be a real or potential weakness. English football's great history and tradition raises everyone's expectations, yet the English football team must compete on an increasingly commercialised and sophisticated international playing field. We have more fans, more money and more "foreigners" in our game than any other country, so it's no surprise that when things don't go to plan, everyone feels quite upset and let down. And the media does its best to blame anyone and everyone.

There's such a lot at stake, now. It was "only" sixty years or so ago that the Football Association, which is now grieving over the financial loss of failure to qualify for Euro 2008 and stating that qualification for Euro and World Cup Finals is a minimum requirement of the team manager/coach, actively prevented the national team from taking part. It's "only" forty years or so since we won it. As it happens, Sir Alf Ramsey, like "Second Choice" Steve McClaren also failed to qualify for his first Euro Finals in 1964.... We have a long history and fine tradition of coming up short against the rest of the world, so it's not as if it's anything new or that we should be surprised about.

The problem with English football has been documented in the press as being anything from too many foreign players, too much money, expectation of fans not matched with reality, players and coaches not good enough, not enough passion or care, too much passion and not enough technique, too much pressure and fear, too much drinking and not enough team spirit. The reality is probably that all of these factors are important to a lesser or greater degree.


As Sven-Goran Erikkson points out managers often buy overseas players because they are cheaper on average than their English or British counterparts. That's also why so few of our players play abroad - because there isn't the money to pay them, not necessarily that they aren't good enough. Beckham was and arguably still is good enough to play for Real Madrid.  That's why there are "too many" foreign players.

So part of the problem may be that the players get paid too much? But that is not the players' fault, just market forces, mainly to do with Sky TV money and, er, the FA, who contract with them for Premier League (the same FA which hijacked the Football League) and England rights. What this means is that the very best English players - who are on a par at least, with the very best players in the world - are paid significantly more. This is why Arsene Wenger has so few English players in his squad, not because they aren't good enough, but because they are too expensive.

Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems to me that we are repeating what happened in Scotland during the Graeme Souness era at Rangers - he bought lots of foreigners in, Celtic and others later followed suit and the Scottish national team suffered as a result. I'm not the only one who thinks that England are the new Scotland.


The recent Scottish revival has surely been due to Rangers and Celtic developing a core group of home-grown players to complement their foreign signings. And I'm sure that a lot of their England based players can't wait to get a game for Scotland after watching too many games from the stand or playing for less successful clubs!

At Club level, Arsenal are successful in part at least because they have a salary structure which prevents them buying "overpaid" English players, but keeps team spirit up - see how much better they are doing without the overpaid Henry! Same with United to a different extent. Fergie's discipline is what he buys by paying top wages and Ince, Kanchelskis, Beckham, Van Nistelrooy and Keane are all examples of players who  reached their sell-by dates, for the team's eventual benefit. Chelsea pay everyone top wages, of course, while my guess is that the likes of Liverpool, Newcastle, Spurs and any other under-achievers get the balance wrong between wages and value.



But there's more to it than that. Michael Owen says that the players can't cope with the pressure of playing for England now, not that they don't care. Although at some point we have to admit that other teams are sometimes better than us, that would certainly explain some lacklustre performances and results. Where does the pressure come from? The fans? The media?
My opinion is that the fans want England to win and if they can't win to play well trying. The media just want to sell stories and their marketing strategy is the time-honoured sensationalisation of even the most mundane non-news (Steve McClaren under an umbrella. OK, so he looked a bit daft, but, if he kept dry and we'd won...).

So, we lost to Croatia. What we should all have been saying, was congratulations to Croatia on a deserved victory and let's support McClaren in  rebuilding for real this time instead of picking on every little thing and waiting for him to fail. Things looked good against Russia and Israel, he stumbled across a "system" (Gerrard and Barry) that worked. He was unlucky with injuries, but should have been given longer.

This morning I was roused from my warm bed by the ring of the doorbell. Could it be the postman (should that be postperson?) delivering personally an oversized package having failed to stuff it through our tiny letterbox? Or was it one of our neighbours' visitors pressing the wrong intercom buzzer, again?

Hello?

Hello. I'm bringing Peace and Goodwill to the World, today. What do you think about that?

That's a very good idea!

Good! The World needs more Peace and Goodwill and I'm here to raise the neighbours' consciousness of all the wars in the world.

OK. There are too many wars in the world. Perhaps you would be better talking to the government and the people in power. Ordinary people don't want wars, but it is the rich and powerful who stand to gain by sending poor people to their deaths in other countries.

Yes, well, I don't know who I'm talking to.

Well, I can assure you that I'm not a member of the government. They live in big houses with big cars outside. Their friends are even richer. This is a poor area. There are no members of the government here.

OK. Would you like to read a magazine?

Is it called "The Watchtower"?

Yes.

No thanks.

Bye.

Bye.

Sir Alex has apparently claimed that our current Manchester United squad is his strongest ever. Just looking at the size of it, you'd have to agree. Jonathan Stevenson at BBC Sport compares it to two of his previous squads - the Double Winners in 1994 and the Treble Champions in 1999 - and picks his own best XI.

For my own amusement, here's mine, based on my opinion of each player's "Unitedness" and pure footballing talent for the years in question:

Schmeichel, G Neville, Irwin, Bruce, Ferdinand, Keane, Scholes, Beckham, Giggs, Cantona, Hughes

Subs: Van der Sar, Solskjaer, Robson, Rooney, Ronaldo

Surprisingly, perhaps, only four players from the current squad get into my best XI and Rooney and Ronaldo only get a place on the bench. But in terms of my criteria of commitment to the shirt, the team, the fans and the club and achievements on the pitch there's really no way in for the newer or younger players, not until they win trophies.

If they can achieve as much as some of their predecessors over the next few seasons, then the likes of Vidic, Hargreaves, Carrick, Nani, Anderson and Tevez can easily join Rooney and Ronaldo in ousting some of the oldies from my team.

Comments (from original post)

Yada

Wed, 23 Jan 2008 23:45:01

Vidic Should have been atleast on the bench
with Ronaldo in the best XI

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Groanin' Jock

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 05:11:17

I'd have gone for Paul Parker ahead of Neville, I always think Neville seems to teeter on the edge of calamity whenever he has the ball at his feet.

And RVN doesn't even make your bench?

So the Toffees got chewed over and thoughtfully played their number 3 and Scottish goalie to help us on our way to a vital three points and break Chelski hearts. Now, apparently, the Premier League will "probe Howard loan deal" to find out why United's ex-'keeper didn't play....