The end of England’s dreaming

My friend Chris Brown and I were wandering through the Wetherspoons pub last night (on the way to the loo, since you ask: men always go to the loo together) when he made the point that yesterday was the day that England football fans had been predicting or 20 years.

In Chris’s own words “scratching around Premier League reserves just to field a team, a captain who is as far removed from Bobby Moore as you can imagine and an apathetic crowd witnessing a mediocre game. Well done the FA, Sky and the Premier League, you have been found guilty of murdering the English national team.”

Who can seriously argue with that?

I didn’t watch the game, even though it was on in the pub. I was in good company, in all senses of the term, and how England were getting on did not cross my mind, except on that visit to the loo.

To all intents and purposes, this was a pre season friendly for England, played out before a record low Wembley attendance. Just over 40,000 was the given figure but that would have included the corporate brigade in Club Wembley who are counted in the number whether they turn up or not.

I wouldn’t have crossed the road to see Villa’s Delph come on as a substitute, or Sterling played on the left wing (can someone tell Hodgson that his predecessors played Scholes and Gerrard on the left and it didn’t fucking work?), or a stodgy 4-4-2 formation when all the age groups below the first team line up in a fluid 4-3-3.

You can probably tell I am pretty well fed up with the state of the England team, the flagship of our national game.

Hodgson is not solely to blame for the mess we are in, if he is to blame at all. I read today that some players could barely control the ball, never mind keep it and pass it. And this team represents the cream of English football. Not just the cream: this squad is all there is. The cupboard is bare.

As Browner said, we’ve seen this coming for years. The top clubs, sadly now including Manchester United, buy in the best foreign talent rather than develop their own. Chelsea routinely play with one player who is eligible for England, as do Manchester City. Manchester United’s English tally is declining and oddly it is Arsenal who as recently as last week started with not a single Englishman who potentially carry the English flag. But even the mid table plodders like Newcastle United are almost devoid of English talent. It’s a terrible state of affairs.

I read Gary Lineker on twitter today and he is very optimistic about the young talent coming through. But is it coming through? Will it be allowed to? Van Gaal has a lot of young English forwards in reserve but there’s no way they will get a game ahead of Falcao or Di Maria. (I was about to say they might get a run out in the League Cup, but…)

We should qualify for the European Championships with some ease, although San Marino will be a bigger test than it once was. And then we will exit after the group stages and Sports Direct will again be bulging with racks of unsold England tat, as it has done since this year’s World Cup humiliation.

Richard Scudamore, CEO of the Premier League, doesn’t give a toss about how many English players play in his league, and why should he? The Premier League has hived off most of the money, it’s essentially autonomous from the FA (hence it’s now known as the Barclays rather than FA Premier League) and it’s sold all over the world. And wherever in the world you live, there’s a fair chance one of your lads will be in the Premier League so you might want to watch that keenly awaited clash between Stoke City v Burnley.

If you think things are bad now, wait until the next TV deal comes along. BT Sport will make an enormous bid to take even more Premier League games and the money rolling into Mr Scudamore’s company will be bigger than some countries’ economies! And you can bet your bottom dollar, or whatever currency you care to name, that the money will flow out in transfer fees and wages.

The genie is out of the bottle now and the enfeebled FA cannot do a thing about it. In between losing control of top level football, they have squandered £750m on the pointless Wembley redevelopment. Imagine what you could do with that money at the grassroots and in player development? Better coaching, better pitches – my god, some youngsters might even get to use changing rooms!

The golden generation has come and gone, having won nothing, and there is barely a gemstone left for Roy Hodgson to choose.

I don’t think Hodgson is the greatest manager on earth but he isn’t the worst either and I can see no point in replacing him with anyone, especially by the Sun’s choice Harry Redknapp. At least Hodgson is overseeing change at all levels below the national side and I’ll bet he’s good at that. If we need Redknapp to motivate the players – how the hell do you need to motivate anyone to play for England? – then we might as well give up now.

By the way, I do think the players care. I think they try hard and do their best. The main problem is that they aren’t very good and there is nothing to suggest things are going to get better. Rather the opposite.