Part – 2 Special Feature: England’s shortcomings against Montenegro outlined and highlighted
If one views this matter from an objective point of view, a lot of blame has to be attributed to Fabio Capello. After the horrific World Cup that England had in South Africa, the Italian was under pressure to change things around, his job was under threat
and his legacy as a football manager was in question.
Three months on, England have once again showed that they are actually the same old team, who draws against the likes of U.S.A, Montenegro and Algeria. Clearly, there were several problems that added to England’s downfall at Wembley but all of them are a
manager’s job to address and rectify as quickly as possible during the match.
During the match against Montenegro, Capello apparently failed to do so. It was evident that Gerrard wasn’t getting forward as often as he should have been. It was evident that Johnson was being caught out of position time and again but Capello failed to
communicate these faults in a logical manner.
Two years after the Italian’s appointment as the Three Lion’s manager, his English speaking abilities still remain at below par.
How can one expect a manager to communicate effectively in a thorough manner with his players when he can’t even speak the language that most of his squad speaks? It is surprising to say the least that Capello has not made a harder effort to learn English,
after all doing so is a step forward as far as safeguarding his job is concerned. Not only that, Fabio once again exhibited tactical naivety as his team once again made use of the ancient 4-4-2 formation.
It is true that the formation itself is a defunct one, which has no place now in modern football but another factor to take into account over here is the fact that Capello has no sense of selection. There has been no consistency in his approach as far as
selection of players is concerned.
Let’s take a look at the facts at hand, in the last eleven matches of international football that England have played, Fabio has used ten different centre back partnerships.
Three months later after England’s forgetable World Cup, just three of the players that started for England against U.S.A in South Africa, also started for England against Montenegro. In comparison, Spain’s starting eleven that defeated Scotland by 3 goals
to 2 contained nine players that featured for the La Furia Roja in the World Cup final.
To put it simply, England don’t have a team because they are not used as a team whereas Spain are a well settled and established team because their manager treats them like a team.
Another thing that Capello should shoulder the blame for is that he has used his best players in a formation that has been alien to them at their clubs. For example, Barry and Adam Johnson never played in a 4-4-2 formation at Manchester City, Rooney and
Gerrard didn’t play in their preferred positions against Montenegro or at the World Cup even, as for Ashley Young, he also played in a role that he has not been used in by his club since May of 2010.
In retrospect, it looks as if F.A’s decision to not schedule a friendly match for their side on Friday, last week was a mistake as the match would have allowed Capello to test and experiment with his team.
Now England are supposed to play France on 17th of November, 2010 in a friendly match, which will practically be of no use, as the Three Lions play their next qualification encounter three months after November in 2011.
England should really gear up now for the rest of the EURO 2012 qualification campaign, it is evident that the qualification isn’t going to get any easier from now on in. Last time, England won their first two matches and drew the third one at home against
“minnows”, the Three Lions failed to qualify for the tournament in question. This fiasco took place back in 2007 after McLaren’s men failed to win against Russia and Croatia in their last two matches of the campaign, which was supposed to take them to Switzerland
and Austria, for the 2008 European Championships.
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