Are England better without their ‘egotistical lummox’?

Editor F365
Ollie Watkins scores for England
Ollie Watkins scores for England

England won 3-0 but everybody wants to talk about Harry Kane. Are England better without him or is it the system?

Send your views to theeditor@football365.com

 

Harry Kane was never the problem
Congrats to Lewis Oldham for an excellent piece on the difference in tactics (rather than personnel) driving England’s performance against Greece.

Southgate’s enduring flaw was his failure to see that picking Foden (not a left winger, constantly came inside), Saka (a left footer playing on the right who wants to cut inside), Kane (the world’s best creative centre forward dropping deep) and Bellingham (actually selected in the number 10 position) led to four players all within a few yards of each other far too often.

As Lewis pointed out, Ollie Watkins wasn’t so much the solution as the beneficiary of picking players who maintained natural width and stretched the defence.

During the Euros I was deluged by friends (and commentators like Lee Dixon) saying that Kane was the problem because he doesn’t stretch the defence. Leaving aside his obvious lack of fitness (a different issue entirely), can someone tell me why they think only the CF can perform this role?

Morata certainly doesn’t for Spain, or Giroud for France (to pick the two most recent tournament winners). At international level, it’s the wide players that this role usually falls to, whether that’s Nico Williams and Yamal or the likes of Mbappe and Dembele. England have the perfect centre forward for this system, as Kane can hold the ball up as well as Morata and Giroud can but is streets ahead of both as a creator and goal scorer.

Even more obviously, Kane has been successful in this sort of system his whole club career, with people like Son, Gnabry and Musiala running behind him and getting loads of goals while he scores a shed full as well.

The good news is the only thing really worked for Tuchel at Bayern was his front 3, so hopefully he will persist with exactly that kind of set up. To be fair to Saka, he has shown the willingness to get to the byline and go past defenders on the outside so I think can be coached to do this, but the experiment of Foden off the left should be in the dustbin of history. Now we just need to sort out the defence and midfield….
Phil, London

 

Or was he?
I’ll again preface my England thoughts by admitting early-doors that I loathe ‘arry Kane. That if you tot up all the trite and boring and incorrect things that used to be said about Lampard and Gerrard, about individualism, Hollywood balls that only occasionally do anything meaningful, tactical ill discipline, actual ill discipline and two footed challenges, doesn’t track back, dives, requires effort and runners from other people, requires fixed formations to get anything out of them, only scores from set pieces, on and on, all those allegations can actually and accurately be directed at ‘arry.

Interesting to hear on the Athletic that there’s already German media commenting on his challenging people in the air – which was his hallmark whilst in England, and something that is illegal in rugby. That, and the German media commenting that he disappears in big games, but everyone already knew that.

So yeah. A coward, and idiot, a diver, and someone whose individualism has rightly meant he has won sod all in his career.

So with all that being said and my impartiality being established, wasn’t Watkins great last night; And that greatness was best exemplified by Jude Bellingham having space and someone to interact with. Not an egotistical lummox cluttering up where he wants to be, and importantly missing from where Jude needed him to be. Watkins was also great in the Euro’s, and was fed more in a few minutes than ‘arry managed in the tournament.

Here’s hoping Tuchel has the bravery to address the modern day [Scholes, Gerrard, Lampard, Beckham] debate and retain Watkins as England’s forward. Ollie did everything I’d want a forward to be doing. Kane makes Bellingham, Palmer and Saka worse, so regardless of how good he is, if they can’t play together we need to bin off one of them, and I want that to be the elder, hateful one.

The starting 11 should have Watkins, Gordon, Bellingham and Saka in it. That provides a threat, and balance. And Cole Palmer should rotate through the team, swapping with Bellingham and Saka to give those two some rest, as well as a pre-worked plan should any be injured or woefully out of form.

Kane should be reduced to the last 10 minutes, when all tactical plans have failed so you just throw him on to wander around the pitch as he tends to do from the start anyway. Yes if he only plays 10 minutes you lose the opportunity of him scuffing one in from the rebound of a clearance, like he managed in the Euros because none of his team-mates could ever actually find him, but you also mitigate him wandering to his own left back spot and insanely setting up the opposition in space to score as he also did in the Euro’s.

Cheers for your efforts Lee. You did what you needed to, and moved the squad forward. Onwards from here.
Tom G

READ: England player ratings: Bellingham back to his swaggering best in 3-0 win over Greece

 

Read the room, Harry Kane
I still enjoy reading the mailbox and I rarely write in anymore but these quotes from Harry Kane have really grinded my gears today. With the Club World Cup about to stretch the physical limits of professional footballers to new unseen levels when the calendar is already way too full, the timing of these comments is way off the mark.

Feel free to do your rah-rah ‘England comes first’ song and dance that you feel like you need to do as captain, but there’s no need for him to add “I don’t really like it” the way he did. It comes across as very tone-deaf at a time when players should actually be banding together against the various football associations and greed that has run rampant in the game.

Players are collateral damage in their pursuit of more and more money and they don’t care about the injuries that are clearly piling up as the fixtures pile up. The newly-crowned Ballon D’Or winner is out injured for this season after a taxing last 12 months. That’s no coincidence.

Harry doesn’t even have to come out in full defense of fellow players but to go the other way and chastise them for pulling out of international duty (oh no, not the Nations League!) is just silly. Silly from a guy who has been thoughtful on other issues throughout the years. I expected better.
Vishnu, New York

READ: GERMAN sparks ‘humiliating farce’ as England players withdraw…

 

A Croydon XI
In anticipation and celebration of Tino Livramento making his full England debut, here’s a Croydon XI. Surely no other town in the country would have the beating of these suburban boys?

1 Freddie WOODMAN
2 Tino LIVRAMENTO
3 Dean GORDON
4 Steve KEMBER
5 Aaron WAN BISSAKA
6 Leon McKENZIE
7 Victor MOSES
8 Jason PUNCHEON
9 Carlton COLE
10 Emile SMITH-ROWE
11 Wilfried ZAHA
Manager: Roy Hodgson
David Bailey

 

Mail from a biased referee
Lots of comment on the Coote business, but what I find most surprising is readers belief that most referees are not biased.

Admittedly, I’ve refereed at very different levels of the game but I will freely confess to bias creeping into my refereeing before I ultimately gave it all up. I used to officiate both youth and adult football and perhaps the pinnacle of my achievements was being selected as an assistant referee for England women’s u21 or as fourth official for County Cup finals.

I’ve previously written to the mailbox years ago about some of the more unpleasant experiences I had – being spat at by players, assaulted by a 16 year old (who received a 5 year ban), my daughter (who was 9/10 at the time) being subject to vile abuse by supporters and even made-up allegations to the FA by aggrieved teams trying to get me in trouble.

One of the more unpleasant teams was based in Norfolk and I officiated many of their matches over the years (largely because no-one else wanted to!). I never charged a match fee (I officiated for fitness and to ‘give back’), but increasingly I came to truly resent the neanderthal who managed one of their teams. A gobby little orc, all snarling aggression and spittle. That this man was guiding kids through their early years in football is a crying shame.

One particular match I heard him encouraging teenage lads to “get into his achilles early on” and vs a team with boys and girls “next chance, give that lass a smack in the head and see if she still wants it”. Truly awful.

What’s worse is that over the 3-4 seasons I officiated this team, I saw his players develop similar attitudes and were always a handful to referee. After a few years of this, I realised that I certainly had bias in my decisions.

Eventually the abuse either wears you down and you quit, or you reach a point where you are waiting for the opportunity to put them back in their box. I’m not proud of it, but will acknowledge that in my final match with this team I gave every 50:50 against them and applied ‘letter of the law’ when anyone so much as looked at me aggressively.

Confronted by the manager after the match, I recorded the exchange on my mobile and shared it with the league and the FA. He was subject to a welfare case and eventually resigned.

The reason I am sharing this – all referees are human. As someone said this morning, they are either impervious to the constant abuse (which frankly raises concerns about their mental state) or they build up grudges against certain clubs or individuals. Might be different at professional level…but most refs I knew at grassroots felt the same way I did.
Name withheld

 

Referees are just humans
Chris’s mail about the typical modern, high level referee, I sort of agree with. I do though have more sympathy for the referees. I don’t think it is necessarily that you have to have a load of major character flaws to be a ref. You also have to take into account the system moulding refs into the maligned characters we see on the screens today.

Want to be a ref? You will be a minor celebrity whether you like it or not and not one anyone will look up to. We all see in the media what celebrity can do to a person even when you are adored and hated in equal measure. So refs are forced to bunker in together as the increasing scrutiny around them reaches fever pitch, and you have to handle way more pressure than is really fair so of course you feel you deserve a good pay packet and all the vices that might be tempting to fall to when you have that kind of money.

It has clearly come to the point where being a high level ref is an impossible job and I think the whole system needs a rebuild from top to bottom where refs are actually educated fully in the challenges and pitfalls of the job. There needs to be transparency throughout and support for refs. (Perhaps Coote wouldn’t be on the white stuff if this was the case already.)

The world has changed and I don’t think the PGMOL has done anything like enough to be ready for it.

Some refereeing names from yesteryear were floated for contrast, but were they necessarily a better breed? They could have been up to all sorts, could have said all sorts and none would have been the wiser as there was no social media, no cameras in every pocket, no one ready to call you out if you didn’t have impeccable high moral standards.

If you ballsed it up one week, no one bar the disgruntled fans would complain and as there were no instantly accessible replays in your pocket to analyse to death, so they’d move on after a couple pints. No, it’s more a case of standards being just sky high now and the refs are breaking under the spotlight like the humans they are.
Nick

 

In defence of referees (but not Coote)
This has nothing to do with Coote but, rather, about the amount of sh*t referees get at almost every game in England. See, here’s the thing. At any football game, and at any level you care to name, from kids to the PL, there are three distinct levels of unacceptable culpability.

The lowest are the outfield players. Give away a needless free kick just outside the box? Get yourself sent off for no good reason? Miss an absolute sitter? Any of these and more that costs your team the game? No worries. “He should’ve/could’ve done better there.” “He’s lost his head.” “You wouldn’t expect that from him.” You know, those players that would deliberately get themselves sent off to have Christmas at home with their families, or those betting on games they play in. Or those that abuse drink or drugs during the week. Those guys.

Just above them are the Goalkeepers. Nothing to do for eighty minutes but then let in a goal? Tw*t. Should’ve come out and claimed it. Should’ve come out and punched it. Should’ve done both or neither. Nothing to do with how the outfield players allowed the attack in the first place. Of course not. Tw*t.

But the top place goes to the officials. Doesn’t matter how the rest of a game goes. Make a mistake and you are evil incarnate. CONSPIRACY! BIAS! CORRUPTION! INCOMPETENCE! Because, of course, they must never make a mistake, each and every time they go to work. Just like you, dear reader, because YOU never make a mistake each and every time you’ve been to work. Not once.

This is neatly exemplified by Paul McDevitt’s rant in one of the Wednesday mailboxes. He wrote:

“PGMOL acts like a secret cabal. A bit like the Wizard of Oz, once the curtain is pulled back we realize its all just a facade. Premier League referees should be miked up like those in Rugby Union. But I am sure PGMOL opposes it because they realize how inarticulate their members are: just listening to the released ref/VAR audio from the Spurs/Liverpool game is enough to understand this.

But ref audio has several advantages: it will ultimate force players to tone down their language and behaviour, it provide fans at games a greater understanding of what is happening in the field and, hopefully, force refs to make better decisions.

But will we get this? I doubt it. PGMOL seems to think protecting its own is more important than doing what is right.”

(The spelling errors are his).

Newsflash Paul. The PGMOL aren’t the ones opposing Microphones/body-worn cameras. In fact, they want to introduce it. The organisation you should be directing your ire at (but won’t like those that think like you do) is IFAB. I refer you to IFAB circular No. 28 dated 21st March 2024 and addressed to ‘All national football associations and confederations’. Item five states:

“5. Other matters

The members reinforced The IFAB’s position that the wearing of cameras and microphones by players remains strictly forbidden and that match officials may wear cameras only as part of a trial approved by The IFAB.”

But yeah. Secret cabal. FFS.

As an Old Fart (and I bet pretty much every other OF reading this would agree) life experience tells you that when any given situation can be explained by either a conspiracy or a cock-up it is, invariably, the latter.

I will repeat. I am no more excusing a sweary ref snorting white powder than I would Mason Greenwood or a player who thinks it’s funny to be filmed kicking a cat. You’ll note that the latter are still playing, mind.
Mark (Definitely not the one threatening the downfall of F365 btw. Wtf was that all about?) MCFC

 

Fanmail for Dave, Manchester
Dave, Manchester says ‘Coote didn’t like Klopp which given the shit he received following the Van Dijk/Pickford incident, fuelled by the Liverpool manager’s comments, isn’t an unreasonable opinion.’

It’s a fairly unreasonable opinion unless you believe that David Coote can see into the future. The video where he calls Jurgen a “German C*nt” appears to have been recorded on the night of 7th October 2020 (or more likely the early hours of 8th October 2020,) as it refers to a match that day/the previous day in which Liverpool were “shit” and in which David Coote was fourth official.

Given that they also refer to lockdown and social distancing, we can reasonably assume this was Liverpool’s 2:7 defeat at Aston Villa, which was the only Liverpool defeat during lockdown where David Coote was fourth official.

Jordan Pickford poleaxed Virgil Van Dijk on the 17th October 2020, ten days later.
Dara O’Reilly, London

 

…Look up protected characteristics as defined by the Equality Act 2010 and let me know when you find “Silly”, “bald”, “charming”. You won’t.

What you will find is nationality.

You’re not too old for this sh*t. Just too lazy.
TM – not woke. Just aware.

 

…It’s funny how everyone knew Dave was from Manchester before getting to the end of his mail.
Mark (so tired of rampant tribalism)

 

Replacing Gary Lineker
I just got off the phone with the BBC. They were asking me to take the Match of the Day gig, but I said no, I have other commitments. But because I’m a great bloke, I did give them a list of recommendations for the role:

1. James Richardson – the thinking-person’s and 90s-nostalgist’s crumpet.

2. Colin Murray – great anarchic outsider vibes when he was on MotD2.

3. Gabby Logan – exceptional at her job.

4. Marcus Speller – could MotD do with a bit of Rambley banter? I think so.

5. Vic & Bob – still the funniest people on TV. Imagine Danny Murphy cooing down the Dove from Above to deliver the league table. I’d watch just for that.

6. Harry Redknapp – would keep the ‘tactical analysis’ segments to an absolute minimum.

7. David Coote – man needs a job.

8. Phil Neville – we can all dream.

Unfortunately they mumbled something down the line about Mark Chapman and safe hands, so I think I was probably wasting my own time. As usual.

Cheers,
Scriv O’Scoob, Reading

 

Man angry about mansplaining
Well that was some reply from Lee. I feel like I’ve been simultaneously mansplained and gaslit. That’s a first for me.

It really is quite something to read everything I wrote to answer why City are struggling and interpret that as a request for answers. And then decide the best answer is for a Liverpool fan to tell me I’ve over thought it, as he knows better, and then use that as an excuse to rehash the ‘Klopp is better than Pep’ argument with the most weak and unconvincing point.

The idea that Pep only signs world class players is so laughable and far-fetched that I’d like some of what you’ve been drinking or smoking. That really is some Grade A retrospective bullshit. Please explain how KDB was World Class before Pep coached him? The Daily Mirror had a back page calling him “THE £60M REJECT” after City signed him.

Then while you’re at it, please explain in what world were Rodri, Bernardo Silva, Gundogan, Ederson, Dias, Sane, Akanji etc etc all considered World Class before City signed them and Pep coached them? They all had potential, had done well in lesser leagues and/or at lesser clubs, but none of them were considered World Class before Pep did his thing. The fact Pep made them World Class doesn’t mean they were World Class before Pep coached them. This is basic stuff.

Then also contemplate what Pep did with Delph in the Centurion season and also £1.5M signing Zinchenko in the Domestic Treble season, both from Left Back. Hardly the best players initially and certainly both not Left Backs. And you calling Henderson shit is a strange take to end with.

To conclude, the reasons why City are struggling are far more nuanced and complex than your overly simplistic take. Sort of why I wrote my original email.
Andy D. Manchester. MCFC