Roy Hodgson seems to be doing more damage to England than good at the moment, and it revolves around his selection policy.
When he was first handed the job he promised he would be looking at form rather than reputation when selecting who to call up to the squad. Reputation and who you play for seem to have been the biggest deciding factors if you are to earn a call up to the squad, with form being on the back burner in a complete u-turn on what he stated he was all about.
There is no doubting the England manager’s credentials as a football coach, his track record in domestic football leading up to his England duties spoke for itself.
A lot of articles have leaped to the defence of Hodgson after such a shambles of a World Cup saying that there is no one out there that could have done a better job than him given the players that were available to him for selection, that the poor offering of talented youth to step up to the big holes left behind by the older generation of stars who have hung up their boots for their country is a far wider spread problem that cannot be pinned on the manager.
Granted, from grass roots to senior level, England have got a very big problem on their hands at the moment with a big percentage of the star talent in the EPL currently being foreign and clubs choosing to look abroad to bring in their transfers rather than at a club’s own academy, there is a severe shortage of promising young English players who are being given the right type of opportunity to break into the senior squad of their own team let alone the England set up. If you take this into account then the future of English international football looks bleak at best, and will inevitably get worse before it gets better.
Nevertheless, Hodgson has a lot more talent at his disposal than the dross he has chosen to call up and he is not using the best that he currently has at his disposal, which begs the question why are people so quick to leap to his defence when it comes to player selection, or have the fans feeling a little bit more optimistic of the team’s chances of doing something other than looking second rate when competing against stronger opposition than that faced during qualifying rounds?
The England squad announcements always seem to have players from top reputation clubs, mainly Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United and Chelsea. There are certain clubs who play a greater majority of English than foreign players who seem to get overlooked a lot when it comes to selection. Despite the fact that Swansea’s Jonjo Shelvey has been selected, it still looks like there are a lot of players being called up that are second rate compared to the likes who are being left out. Shelvey, Andros Townsend, Jack Wilshire and Adam Lallana are all in the squad for the upcoming qualifiers against San Marino and Estonia yet, if you look at the present form and statistics of the likes of Stewart Downing, Mark Noble and Nathan Dyer, all look like better options who are in better form and can provide a cutting edge in the England midfield.
Not that these two games are anything to worry about, nor is the rest of the qualifying round. It is once we arrive at the competition proper in 2016 that the persistence to continually pick players based on reputation rather than form that will go a long way to further damage England’s chances of competing against sterner opposition, and making some sort of progress in the rankings and competitions.
The youth system and over use of foreign players at the domestic level will continue to cause issues at the international level if something is not done about it and fast, but when current selection revolves around the top clubs or players who have a reputation but are not playing to form compared to the wasted talent being left back at home then the manager is to blame for England’s continual slip down the FIFA rankings and poor performance on the world stage.
The tactics are also quite predictable and one dimensional, which makes it that little bit harder for different players to come in and make a difference when it is needed. Hodgson’s stubbornness with selection and tactics is making it hard to make the right changes to improve the situation. When he does make changes or bring somebody new in to the squad it seems that it is someone who isn’t really as deserving of an opportunity as somebody more capable.
The excuses are starting to wear thin now and Hodgson cannot keep hiding behind lack of players to select any longer. The job needs to go to someone who will truly push reputation and stature to one side and pick a team more deserving and capable of competing at the top level.
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