Let's be honest...England were rubbish

Article by e-Football's Terry Carroll

Click here to follow e-Football on Twitter!

Every time the World Cup comes around, English media hype goes into overdrive. This time was no exception, but perhaps the fans were more muted.

Our chances were, frankly, wildly exaggerated; and even the so-called 'experts' and on-screen pundits were guilty.

We're still surfing on a win from 48 years ago and there was a widespread belief that we could make the Quarter-Finals at least. This despite our having the 7th (Uruguay), 9th (Italy) and 28th (Costa Rica) FIFA ranked teams in our Group.

So OK, England were ranked 10th and won their Group in qualifying, but talking about going to Brazil to win the World Cup was highly unrealistic.

Why? Well, apart from having a team in 'transition' by virtue of the proportion of younger players in the squad, neither our style, tactics nor especially technical ability are anywhere near good enough to support such over-optimistic hopes.

Poor performances

To hear such vaunted experts as Glenn Hoddle say that England played well, especially against Uruguay and Costa Rica, was too much to take.

Let's be clear, apart from our general inability to make and take clean 'one-touch' passes, the England team frankly made far too many errors, some of which were serious. Three of the four goals conceded should have been avoided and the fourth, by Marchisio, could have been closed down.

With few exceptions England struggle to score goals in major tournaments. They do not create enough clear-cut chances and finishing is inadequate. So conceding avoidable goals increases the inevitability of failure.

England played quite well, with pace and some degree of freedom against Italy and were arguably the better team for much of the match, but against the other two teams they were awful.

It did not help playing people out of position. Raheem Sterling may be a star in the making, but why swap him and Wayne Rooney? The latter is most effective as a striker.

Rooney himself came in for unreasonable criticism. He delivered an exquisite cross for Sturridge's goal against Italy, from his supposed 'weaker' foot. Against Uruguay he was clearly one of the better players and with more luck could have won the game on his own. People talk about him scoring goals but they hardly notice the work-rate and defensive shifts he puts in.

Sturridge, on the other hand, having been sharp against Italy was poor in the remaining two matches.

But the biggest disappointment must surely have been Steven Gerrard? Once again he failed to turn up in a major tournament and, apart from the schoolboy error that led to Suarez's winning goal, seemed woefully out of form. Frank Lampard and even Michael Carrick surely could not have been worse than that?

His biggest failure, however, was as captain. Where in the first match England had played with pace and purpose, in the Uruguay and Costa Rica matches they were ponderous and predictable. Gerrard seemed unable to shake out the lethargy.

In the final match, manager Roy Hodgson kept his promise that virtually everybody would get a chance. Of course it is difficult to motivate yourself when you already know you are out of the competition, but England had nothing to lose as well as nothing to win. So it was the perfect opportunity for the 'stars of the future' to show their potential.

But again expectations were largely unmet. While Phil Jones looked far more secure than Glen Johnson, Sturridge once again failed to understand the difference between the selfishness of the striker and the needs of the team.

Jack Wilshere still needs games, for Arsenal as well as England, but sadly Ross Barkley showed little of his potential throughout the tournament. Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain could well have made the difference. It was left to stalwarts Lampard and the evergreen James Milner to show what was reasonably expected when you put on a white shirt.

So what have we learned?

When you look at the style, energy, flair and excitement in many of the other matches this year they showed up that if anything we are still going backwards. We and FIFA are kidding ourselves in believing that England are anywhere near being the 10th best team in the world.

OK so we are usually more reliable in defence, but in creativity and exhilarating attack we lag behind Iran and South Korea, let alone Ghana, Nigeria, Colombia and Costa Rica.

Apart from the standards of coaching and the swamping of English talent by imported players in the Premier League, we are light years behind Germany, Argentina, Brazil, Holland, France and especially Italy and Spain despite them also going home.

Greg Dyke's recipe for winning the 2022 World Cup may not have been universally popular but this year's competition has shown up the gulf between us and the teams still in with a chance of winning the Jules Rimet trophy.

Hodgson is one of the most highly regarded coaches in the world, but England really do need a 'root and branch' revolution throughout football.

The harsh truth is that the World Cup and even the Euros have become a sideshow to most English supporters, who were frankly unfazed by the inevitable early elimination and are far more interested in club football.

The Premier League may indeed be the best in the world, but the country that invented football is sadly in danger of becoming a third-rate nation in the world football arena without fundamental change. Indeed not even the younger members of the squad that flew home can count on being in.

© e-Football 2014 All rights reserved no part of this document or this website may be reproduced without consent of e-Football