Fabio Capello looking for the Philosopher’s stone to transform England?
There is no one in this England team save Wayne Rooney who’ll make a World XI. And he relies on service. The best European teams have a midfield that have all five bars of connectivity when on the pitch while England stumble around looking for a signal. Sometimes they get it, most times they don’t.
Fabio Capello may or may not be the right coach for the job – the continued inclusion of Frank Lampard and Gareth Barry says a lot for lessons learned from the World Cup. But this is really down to the quality of players in the English side. Capello is looking for a philosopher’s stone but weeding out perceived “weak minded” players will accomplish very little. The French were “weak minded” in their World Cup but they did not lack for technical ability. Laurent Blanc made the necessary changes and now they are back on track.
The solution is more basic. England has to take a bottom up approach and develop technically gifted players. It requires patience and a long term vision to build a system where talents like Glenn Hoddle or Paul Gascoigne are unearthed as rather more than outliers. The U21 team has some notables who should be fast tracked into the national squad. Expediency and a weak qualifying group will get England to the Euro but they might be setting themselves once again for a WTF happened moment. The Wales performance has the manager already dialing down expectations.