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Time to End the Capello Era?
Published by Ian John on November 18, 2010
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Is it time for Fabio Capello and England to part ways?
Last night’s utterly unconvincing performance against a France team that were in disarray just five months ago convinced me that while Fabio Capello may have one of the most astute tactical minds in the world of football, he and England are an unhappy marriage.
This is not a knee-jerk reaction to last nights defeat, nor a hark back to the World Cup debacle, but a considered opinion based less on results and more on performances of Fabio Capello’s England team. Indeed, given the number of key players that were missing for England last night, the final result was less a shock to me than the draw with Montenegro a month earlier.
I do not doubt for one moment Capello’s credentials as a manager, certainly at club level and certainly with players who are suited to playing his preferred style of football. Unfortunately, that tends to be Spanish and Italian players, with the odd talented foreigner thrown in for good measure. As I see it, Capello’s style of play and tactical preparations seem particularly ill-suited to English players.
England’s players can make Capello’s tactics work, only it is not a natural thing for them to do. Whether this is because they are not as technically proficient as Spanish or Italian players, not as intelligent as them or have less grounding in the somewhat unusual system Capello prefers to employ, is a moot point really. We cannot change the England personnel in a way that a club manager can. We cannot sign in Xavi, Iniesta, Kaka or Messi to make Capello’s system work. Instead we are working with Jay Bothroyd, Carlton Cole, Shaun Wright Phillips and if you are brutally honest, the damning assessment of Capello’s reign so far is that, one or two games apart, the experiment has not worked.
The problem is, as I see it. Capello has his tactical jigsaw, but the England pieces do not fit it. You can try and crow bar Gerrard into a left midfield or second striker role, but he is not at his best there. Lampard is not a holding midfielder. You cannot change the dynamic of a player from his club position to something new at international level and expect a similar level of performance.
I am also baffled by the Capello decision making process. He gravely told England players a few months back that only those playing regularly for their club would be selected. Theo Walcott was left at home during the World Cup, so was Michael Owen. Emile Heskey, who played just as few games for Aston Villa last season, went. Now we have Arsenal reserve Kieran Gibbs starting, with Leighton Baines not in the squad and Stephen Warnock, both regular starters at club level, on the bench. We have Jay Bothroyd of the Championshuip coming on for Andy Carroll, yet Daniel Welbeck of Sunderland can’t get a look in. Micah Richards, who recently lost his place in the Man City side, made his international return despite that fact. Shaun Wright Phillips is consistently in the squad yet doesn’t play much for Man City at all. Yet Kevin Nolan of Newcastle does not even merit a mention?
It’s a puzzling state of affairs and the upshot of it has been an England side so devoid of invention, so tactically unaware and so unsure of what their roles are, that we end up with insipid, lifeless nonsense that we have bore witness far too often at times. All too often, when we play the ‘big teams’ England fall short, not through a lack of talent, but because we do not have a manager who knows how to use it properly.
The problem for England is, no manager has been able to do that effectively since Terry Venables. And that IS a worrying thought.
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