I entered this week of international football determined to give Steve McClaren the benefit of the doubt. Let him have these two games, I thought to myself, and then we can really judge him as England manager.
Well, I’m nothing if not stubborn so I will reserve my final judgement until after tonight’s match with Andorra but, I have to say, unless England win it easily, quickly and comprehensively I think my mind is already made up.
Essentially the match against Israel proved one important thing – what we have in McClaren is little more than a cheap version of Eriksson: same bland tactics, same clueless approach to entertaining, same passionless performances from his team. The only differences between the former manager and the current one are the salary and the CV.
Heck, the two even look similar. Stick a pair of rimless glasses on Steve and give him a silly accent and even old Mrs Eriksson would have difficulty telling them apart.
But enough about aesthetics. The real problem comes in the substance. Sven’s biggest failing over the years – apart from tactical naivety – was that he singularly failed to get the best out of a decent bunch of players.
And McClaren, as much as he may feel like he is the man to make a difference, appears too tainted by his previous association with the Swede. Instead of inspiring the players to new heights he has done little more than got them maintaining the same lowly cruising altitude.
Unlike many other commentators, I don’t see England’s performance in Israel as having been a total disaster. It was workmanlike and solid but the problem came in the lack of a spark, the lack of inspiration.
Israel were always going to put plenty of bodies behind the ball and hope for something on the counter. I am sure that was their plan from the day they were drawn in the same group as England.
The thing is England should have enough to be able to break that down. But they lacked the inspiration, they lacked that magic moment, they lacked that little something that turns an average team into a great one.
If that sort of inspiration is not available from anybody on the pitch then it needs to come from the manager. And unfortunately it appears McClaren, like his predecessor, is just not up to the job.
With 20 minutes to go, in a game you need to win, and with the opposition’s defence looking increasingly wobbly, shouldn’t you shake up the front line? Maybe bring an extra striker on or at lease swap your wingers around?
The best McClaren could muster was a change of right backs. Admittedly Richards is more attack minded than Neville, but it was hardly the sort of move that would have got the Israeli bench quaking in its shoes.
As I said earlier, I will hold back final judgement on McClaren until after tonight’s game. As it stands now I tend to agree with those – and there are plenty – who suggest Steve is a nice guy but totally out of his depth. A man who found himself in the right place at the right time but for the wrong job.
A good, comprehensive win tonight (and I mean comprehensive, six goals or more) and he may have just bought himself enough time to work out where the spark is going to come from.
Anything less and I think it might be time for another change. The question then will be has the FA got enough common sense to offer it to the man who should have replaced Sven originally – Sam Allardyce?
Sadly, I very much doubt it.
Game of cricket
For many cricket is a boring game.
Although I completely disagree with this assessment, it’s not hard to see where the impression comes from with most matches taking at least a day and some up to five. Not exactly high-speed, exhilarating stuff.
However, if things on the pitch are a little slow, you can’t say the same about the stuff that goes on off it.
At the moment the cricket World Cup is in full swing in the West Indies but the contest itself has been overshadowed by the murder of Pakistan coach Bob Woolmer.
Among the reasons he might have been wanted dead include the possibility that he was about to blow the whistle on match fixing or that he may have been about to expose other wrongdoings in his new autobiography. Alternatively he may just have been strangled by over-zealous supporters of Pakistan.
Over the years cricket has had plenty of controversial moments like, for example, the death of former South African captain Hanse Kronje, whose plane happened to crash into a mountain a short while after he was found guilty of taking money from betting syndicates.
But I don’t think, at least to my knowledge, the sport has ever had any incidents quite as controversial as this one – the blatant murder of a coach of one of the best teams in the world mere hours after they were eliminated from a competition.
Investigations are underway and it will be very interesting to see who was actually behind this horrific crime. Was there a fan or a player deranged enough to believe anything to do with cricket is worth a human life? Or was it something even more sinister at work here?
Even those who couldn’t care less what is happening on the field of play over there should keep an eye on this one…
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