WHY SAY ANYTHING?

(England supporters strike a pose which has become all-too familiar over the last 50-odd years)

Now that the dust has settled on England’s World Cup success/failure, do we really have a team capable of winning a future tournament?

On the evidence of this one the answer has to be a pretty emphatic NO.

Even the “experts” are finally starting to come round to our way of thinking which, all along, has been that this was an average England team and they put in some very poor performances on their way to fourth place.

Does anyone think, for example, that this England team would have beaten Brazil, Uruguay or even a below par Argentina, never mind France? Would they have beaten Spain or Portugal, both of whom had a torrid time in Russia losing games they were expected to win?

In truth, this England side struggled to beat Tunisia, struggled to beat Colombia and then lost to Croatia.

The euphoria at reaching the semi-final was finally drained from the nation and certain TV pundits with that loss to Croatia.

England were expected to come on strong in the second half, taking advantage of the Croatian’s tiredness following their exertions in beating Russia on penalties. In fact the reverse happened and it was the England players who looked tired and in need of a rest.

So normal service was resumed, England were out of the World Cup and reality returned with admissions being made that maybe this England team isn’t really that good.

It never was! The “experts” are now trying to console themselves by pointing out, after another defeat to a Belgium side which didn’t need a higher gear than second, that England is five or six years behind the Belgians in development.

That’s good to know. So that means that by the 2024 European Championships England will have fully firing versions of Eden Hazard and Kevin De Bruyne then? We somehow doubt it.

What England will have in 2024 is a poor team with some different players but the excuses will still be the same. They will be the same as they have been for 52 years; bad luck, bad referees, can’t take penalties and occasionally the real reason is voiced when someone says, “we’re just not good enough”.

One argument is that the national team won’t be good enough unless the FA places a limit on the amount of foreign players who can play in the Premier League.

The problem is that the foreign players coming to the Premier League is what makes it the best league in the world and, if there was a limit in place, then that may not be the case in future.

It would, however, be the only way that many young English players are going to get games at the top clubs.

The FA needs to decide whether it wants a strong England team or a strong Premier League. It doesn’t appear that it can have both.

The counter argument, of course, is that prior to the inception of the Premier League and during it’s formative years, there was nothing like the amount of foreign players now at our clubs. This didn’t make England any good back then, so why would it help them now?

In fact, as everybody is fed-up of remembering, it has been 52 years since England won the World Cup but only around 15 when the Premier League has contained so many foreign players.

So the evidence doesn’t really support the argument.

When a country the size of Croatia, with a population of 4.5 million can, not only beat England, but get to a World Cup final, then something is wrong. Not in Croatia, but in England. Maybe it is finally time to look at the youth set-ups, the coaches, the way that youngsters are brought into professional football and overhaul everything.

Appointing a young manager who looks as though he has stepped straight out of a “Man at C & A” advert, yet cannot produce results against teams, supposedly, worse than his own, is not the answer. No manager can make silk purses out of the sow’s ears which are the majority of this England team at present.

And finally…..

The “Dastardly and Despicable Dealings” award this week is shared between Chelsea FC and Napoli for the way they contrived to deprive a player of the transfer he wanted and had agreed with Manchester City, in order to satisfy their own greedy and selfish needs.

The £50 million transfer fee for Jorginho will rise to £57 million when Chelsea include the “hidden” pay-out for Maurizio Sarri’s release and the player was, reportedly, told that he would sit on the bench for the remaining two years of his contract if he didn’t sign for Chelsea.

In any other profession these kind of dealings would he deemed corrupt and would he subject to investigation. Fortunately for Chelsea, the Premier League seems to quite enjoy the odd bit of corruption so will let this one slide by, as usual.

By the way, it was immediately apparent that the player was lying when he said that he “would rather live in London than Manchester”.