Steve McClaren has had a mighty good week, outflanking his critics, humbling
Guus Hiddink, putting England back on track for Euro 2008 qualification
and giving the nation something to feel proud about for the first time
since the equally emphatic back-to-back wins in the middle of the last
European Championship, in Portugal.
The head coach was wrong about one thing, though. England have not evolved
into a good team, and they never will. Football teams are not subject
to the laws of natural selection, though it might be argued that taking
Theo Walcott to the last World Cup was a case of unnatural selection.
It could be that McClaren wishes evolutionary forces would take over and
spare him some difficult and potentially unpopular decisions, but it will
not happen. While England might have found confidence and purpose through
a combination of happy accident and straitened circumstance - it is hard
to believe Gareth Barry, Emile Heskey and Shaun Wright-Phillips would
have featured so prominently in the past two games had injuries not removed
Frank Lampard, Owen Hargreaves, Wayne Rooney and David Beckham from the
equation - the bad news for McClaren is that necessity ceases to be the
mother of invention once everyone is fit again. Football sides are not
complex organisms, they are hierarchical structures in which the bloke
who picks the team is God. Teams will only evolve if the man in charge
is astute enough to allow it. And strictly speaking that would not be
called evolution, but intelligent design, so perhaps it is time to scrap
the Creationist theorising and stick to football.
England did not evolve into a team of wingless wonders in 1966. Alf Ramsey
was so keen to play with an orthodox winger he tried three different ones
- John Connelly, Terry Paine and Ian Callaghan - in the group games before
deciding it wasn't working and he would rather have the attributes Martin
Peters and Alan Ball brought to the team. Ball ended up working the right
wing in the final anyway, but at any point in England's progression to
World Cup winners Ramsey could have called up an orthodox winger and stopped
evolution in its tracks, just as he could have selected Jimmy Greaves
ahead of Geoff Hurst or Roger Hunt had he so wished.
He did not so wish and was ultimately vindicated. It was a big call, easily
as big as leaving out Rooney in favour of the less talented Heskey or
preferring Barry to a fit again Lampard, and in the latter stages of a
World Cup played at home the consequences of miscalculation would have
been dire indeed. But Ramsey made the decision. It wasn't serendipity
or natural selection. Circumstances played a part, in that Greaves picked
up an injury in the final group game that gave Hurst his chance for the
quarter-final, but more important was the manager's boldness and clarity
of vision once circumstances returned to normal.
Without wishing to go overboard on the strength of a couple of wins against
middling international opponents, McClaren has already shown himself to
be capable of independent thinking and less conservative than his immediate
predecessor. He made the right decision in dropping Beckham, even if events
conspired extraordinarily to force a rethink, and he was not too proud
to backtrack when he realised his alternatives were not up to the task.
He has just made similarly brave judgments in resisting pressure to punish
Paul Robinson and carry on ignoring Heskey, and deserves credit for promoting
Barry ahead of Michael Carrick and Phil Neville. Only the fact that Barry
plays for Aston Villa, and not Bayern Munich or Manchester United, is
preventing McClaren receiving the praise he deserves for finding the answer
to England's long-vexed midfield problem. 'Gareth has been a massive plus
for us,' McClaren said. 'We've had a nice little balance in midfield in
the last two games.'
Compared to the staid Sven-Goran Eriksson, who was so inflexibly committed
to what he considered his best team that his preference was to bring back
a Beckham or a Rooney even when they were clearly half-fit, McClaren has
not only demonstrated an ability to think on his feet, but chased away
some of the gloom that was beginning to surround England's perceived lack
of options. At a stroke, there is healthy competition all over the pitch
(even if that may be diminished by injuries, such as the one Heskey sustained
yesterday). So much so, that for the next month everyone will be asking
whether McClaren will really have the bottle to ask Beckham, Hargreaves,
Lampard, Gary Neville and Rooney to force their way back into the team.
There are two reasons why he should do exactly that. First, none of the
above has been playing irresistibly for England for some time. Neville
can be partly excused on account of his long-term injury, but Lampard
and Beckham have been members of a midfield that has spent most of the
past three years misfiring. Rooney, too, is not quite the shoo-in his
reputation and undoubted ability would appear to suggest - not when judged
on recent England performances. Heskey might be much more limited, but
he is an honest competitor, a hard worker and, if fit, a much more effective
foil for Michael Owen. If Rooney wants the shirt back he needs to do better
than slouch through games, as he did in Israel in March, and he could
tidy up his disciplinary act, too. Quite apart from individuals, what
was refreshing about England in their past two games was their briskness,
their appetite for work and their willingness to chase back and help each
other out. It is now up to Beckham, Lampard and Rooney to show they can
do the same.
The other reason McClaren should stick with the players who have just
done him proud is that England are not playing a World Cup final at Wembley
on 13 October. They are playing Estonia. With all respect to the team
ranked 125th in the world, were McClaren to recall his big names for such
a fixture it would send out the wrong signal and undo much of the past
fortnight's good work. He can afford not to. He can stick to his principles
and keep his powder dry for Russia the following Wednesday. That's known
as a win-win situation. Creationists, as opposed to evolutionists, might
prefer to call it a heaven-sent opportunity.
Camsell was a real striker
Michael Owen is now one of four players to score 40 or more
goals for England, and if he stays fit and sharp he seems certain to pass
Bobby Charlton's record of 49 and become the first to hit 50.
'He's still young at 27, and if we keep creating chances for him, why
not?' Steve McClaren said. 'He's a great finisher. He's answered everybody
who wrote him off, and if there was a doubt in his own mind after his
injury there won't be any longer.'
Owen might end up on top of the England pile, though he has taken 85 games
to reach 40, so his strike rate is inferior to that of Gary Lineker, who
managed his 48 goals in 80 games, and nowhere near Jimmy Greaves's 44
goals in 57 games.
Among strikers who passed the 25-goal mark, Steve Bloomer's 28 in 23 games
in the Victorian era still stands out, though more recently Nat Lofthouse
posted the not-too-dusty 30 in 33. Owen can only be encouraged, however,
by the knowledge that England's most unstoppable marksman also operated
from an unfashionable club in the North-East. In nine internationals between
1929 and 1936, Middlesbrough's George Camsell hit an astonishing 18 goals,
including three in one match against Belgium and four in another against
Wales. He averaged two a game and scored in every match he played. He
also holds the Boro scoring record with 345 goals, scored 59 in his first
full season in 1925-26 and was unlucky to be pipped by Dixie Dean's 60
for Everton a year later, collected 24 hat-tricks in his club career and
was top scorer 10 years running.
After scoring 11 goals in his first four games for England, Camsell was
dropped. For five years. Even though Boro were now in the First Division
and Camsell was at his peak. He was up against Dean and Cliff Bastin,
though as that pair won 16 and 21 caps respectively they were hardly monopolising
the forward positions. In 1934 Camsell was recalled, scored seven goals
in four more games, then disappeared back to Middlesbrough for good. There
was no injury, he was only 32 and still banging them in for Boro.
For a Durham boy who was sent down the pit at 13 and consequently joined
Boro at the relatively late age of 23, it was still a magnificent career.
Especially, and this is the best bit, as Camsell was first spotted when
taking part in a pithead kickabout during a miners' strike. No matter
how many goals he scores, Owen will do well to top that for a tale.
,
September 16, 2007
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