Curse of England Manageritis

13 April 2012

Well, like John Denver, my bags are packed and I'm ready to go - although unlike John Denver I am hoping also, at some point, to land - but before I actually set the compass east and head for the Heathrow Express, I feel I must draw the

Evening Standard's

Nine months ago, for perhaps the first time in my adult life, England appeared to be fielding precisely the 11 players who you - you, that is, me, you, that bloke over there, the football fan - would want them to. Because normally, of course, the England team has to have at least three or four players out with injuries and at least three or four more players out because the manager has gone mental.

The manager, in other words has caught England Manageritis, defined in the Oxford Medical Dictionary as "a need to prove yourself a strong figure of authority by blatantly ignoring the best players because that's who the public, of all people, want in the side; ergo an uncontrollable desire to go against the wishes of the ordinary fan."

All England managers have had at least a touch of England Manageritis throughout my lifetime (it may well have been the case from the beginning - for all I know the Right Hon RW Hanbury may have been an appalling centrehalf and his 16 caps for England between 1888-93 should, by rights, have gone to his Preston North End team-mate Dr Mills Roberts).

It really took off in the 1970s when Sir Alf Ramsey comprehensively ignored any player with a feather-cut and a drink problem, hence missing out on Stan Bowles, Alan Hudson, Rodney Marsh, Duncan McKenzie and anyone else who could actually do clever things with a football. This selection process - essentially the "if they're a bit fancy, don't trust 'em" mentality - persisted into the modern era, reaching its apotheosis with Graham Taylor - a man riddled with England Manageritis - who, when other international managers were building teams around players like Roberto Baggio or Romario, chose to build his around Carlton Palmer. Even good England managers get a touch of it. Terry Venables, although he picked a side that did well at Euro '96, comprehensively ignored the best player in England, Matthew Le Tissier, for almost his entire reign.

But Sven-Goran Eriksson, perhaps because he's not English, seemed at first to be immune from it - right up to the initial squad selection for this World Cup, he picked Joe Cole. In the face of the most predictable, dour, "usseasoned-professionals-we-know the-reality-of-the-game-at-the-top-level" punditry from Alan Hansen and Mark Lawrenson following the Italy friendly - both of whom said you can't take him, he's too young, he's a luxury, a player for the future, etc, etc (there's a very similar condition called Match-of-the-Dayosis) - there he was in the 23, Joe Cole, the nearest thing we have in the modern game to a fancy dan, with Sven describing him as his "fantasy player". The picking of Joe Cole seemed to be a statement of Sven's freedom from England Manageritis.

But just recently, I've started to worry that Eriksson may, in fact, be showing some of the symptoms.

One of the main sub-symptoms, for example, along with ignoring classy, clever players, is a tendency to stick with, game after game, and despite all the evidence, a donkey.

Now I'm not saying that Emile Heskey is 100 per cent donkey, but there's certainly enough hee and haw in his game to make any England Manageritis specialist pause. Another, more worrying, sub-symptom is not picking players because of their temperament.

Temperament is a strange word in football, covering everything from Graeme Le Saux's temper to Steve McManaman's diffidence. But more often than not, it's just the word the manager employs when he's decided to shut out a player for fairly baffling reasons and can't now go back on it because it would be interpreted as a sign of weakness.

Don't get me wrong. I'm aware McManaman has done bugger all for England in 99 per cent of the games he's played in. I don't think most fans would have included him in their first 23.

But once Steven Gerrard and Kieron Dyer got injured, he had to be at least in the frame.

Injury, by the way, is often the best insurance against England Manageritis. Remember 1990, Neil Webb was set to play before, thank the Lord, he got crocked and Gazza was drafted in. Sometimes I think the best England teams have been picked by other sides' hard men.

You have to ask yourself this - with England a goal down, with 20 minutes to go, would you rather send on McManaman, who'll probably do sod-all, but might, just might, be brilliant and turn the game, or Danny Murphy, who, at his very best, is going to be solid? And no doubt at his very worst too.

That's what Danny Murphy is: reliably solid. And solid just isn't good enough at the World Cup.

Once Murphy went and Sven still wasn't mentioning McManaman - he was prepared to bring back Trevor Sinclair even though he was probably about to go down with Deep Vein Thrombosis - and once he was at press conferences saying "you tell me where the quality midfield players are and I will pick them" and I'm screaming at the television, "have you thought about glancing at the Real Madrid squad?" - I knew he'd contracted it.

Me screaming at the TV is a definite sign that England Manageritis has become full-blown. Soon afterwards I was informed, by a reliable source, that the reason Sven's turned his back on Macca is that him and Robbie Fowler once turned up late for a squad meeting, after which he decided that McManaman was a bad influence on Fowler. If that's the case, it's worse than I thought. Basing any kind of selection decision on etiquette - on punctuality, on who wears a bloody tie at formal functions, on who says "sir" to Sepp Blatter or whatever else it is - puts the manager so far from the sensibility of the ordinary football fan that there may be no way back for him.

This applies across the board to off-pitch behaviour. John Terry, for example, should have gone, whoever he may or may not have glassed at a nightclub, and when Gerrard's groin imploded, Lee Bowyer should have been called up, despite that fact that he may well be one of the worst people on God's earth. Doesn't matter.

England are in need of a class young stopper in defence and a terrier-like holding midfielder, and that absolves all, in my opinion, in your opinion, in all fans' opinions, but not of course in the opinion of the Football Association or the manager. Nothing demonstrates the distance of football officials from football fans more.

As a footnote to that last paragraph, I would like to say that perhaps calling the manager a "f***ing c**t", a "f***ing w****r", a "crap manager" and a "crap person" in front of all the other players is maybe pushing it. Although if Roy Keane suddenly became available for England tomorrow - could happen - I know I'd be only hoping that Eriksson's English hadn't extended that far.

Most recently, and most depressingly, following the South Korea game, Sven started talking about how we had to play our natural long-ball game and how we couldn't hold the ball like some countries and, really, it could have been Graham Taylor talking. Frankly, I think he's a lost cause. We can only hope, as before, that a lot of injuries force the team to fall into . . . wait a minute . . .

Despite everything I've said, I'm incredibly excited about Japan/Korea 2002, and a big part of me is, as ever, blindly optimistic about England's chances.

And if nothing else I'm going to very much enjoy watching how the fans get on in a country where the three activities most frowned upon in public are drinking, shouting and taking your top off. Sayonara.

David Baddiel will be writing for the Evening Standard at the World Cup.

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