My latest article for SetantaSports, reproduced below for my website.

It’s rarely been the case that the reaction of an England manager after what should have been seen as a decent result is treated with such derision. Roy Hodgson unwittingly piled on the pressure on himself by insisting that Tuesday night’s performance against the Ukraine was a good one by England.

It wasn’t, it was mediocre. Whenever a new England manager is appointed there is hope that they will attempt to change things around for the better, be bold, take a chance, do something to lift the national team out of the doldrums in which it has laid for far too long. I admit when Roy Hodgson took over I had my reservations, I felt he would simply be a ‘yes man’ for the FA and he would quickly get suckered into the rationale that results matter more than performance.

I know the problems lie deeper. Less than a third of players in the Premier League are English. I’ve seen this statistic wheeled out a few times over the last couple of weeks yet people don’t seem to comprehend just how massive it is. To simplify, that means that on average, you can expect to find 3 1/2 Englishmen per team on the pitch in the league. Out of the 220 players that play, 70 will be English, and even that number is optimistic. Out of that 70, 23 will be selected for the national team. That means if you’re an Englishman playing in the Premier League, you’ve got a 1 in 3 chance of being called up to the national squad!

That’s of course simplifying it, but it illustrates the problem. The problem exists, it’s not the elephant in the corner of the room, yet until the international break comes back around it will be treated as such.

Instead of attempting to tackle this problem head on, Hodgson has sunk into the position and become the ‘yes man’ I was afraid of. It’s a results business, I understand that, but there’s a substantial and significant difference between a result and a performance. Saying you’re happy with one does not have to mean you’re happy with both, but saying you’re happy with both after what we saw the other night means that you are accepting mediocrity from your team and that is a very, very dangerous message to be sending to a team that despite that poor show on Tuesday are set to qualify for the World Cup.

If those players are allowed to think that such a performance is acceptable, or good, even, then will they be inspired to perform any better? Well, why should they? What kind of message does that send to the players trying to break into the side? For the last ten years, the ‘genuine’ stars of that England team have been Wayne Rooney, Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard, Ashley Cole, and the two central defenders. All but one of those players will be north of 33 by the time Brazil rolls around and if that does not ring alarm bells when we are still relying on them to produce the goods then what will?

Where are the players coming from? Joe Hart – to me, he’s England’s best keeper, but that says more about the standard coming through. He doesn’t hold a candle to Ray Clemence. Kyle Walker, Jack Wilshere – you’re looking at two players who are rough diamonds and are not ready for international football, but, this is the exact situation you find yourself in when you intentionally restrict the number of players you can select from. I don’t want to pick on Jack, but he symbolises the point – everyone is expecting him to do great things, this is a player who has scored two league goals and set up ten others. That is not from last season, that is in his entire career. These are players not quite ready to do it on the biggest level but selected because there’s simply no-one else. Rough diamonds and veterans – hardly the ideal marriage.

I have sympathy for Roy in that he has to go with what he has, but as England manager, he should be the number one person trying to make the change in the game. Does the red tape that is involved in working with the FA cover his mouth? Did he look at the situation and think that he will simply go with the players that he has and grind out results like the other night? Surely much of his responsibility is to ensure that the England national team is healthy and that he does as much as he can to ensure the future of English football is as healthy as it can be – do you think Roy is doing that?

Move away from the state of our side… What kind of message does it send to the fans, who travel to watch their country, that they should be satisfied with such a timid performance? Again, on paper, a draw against strongest opponents away from home should be seen as a good thing but seeing how poor they were and how poorly we exerted any pressure on them was not good – you can accept a poor performance, but don’t dress it up as something it wasn’t.

What kind of message does accepting that performance send to our opponents? Do you think Spain or Italy will be quaking in their boots at how often we gave the ball away and that the manager thought that was a positive display? Do you think Brazil will be intimidated by the fact our best player at both ends was a central defender?

This is not an article to ridicule the performance from the other night or the players. Whoever is selected for the squad needs our support regardless of the state the game is in, but we need to be realistic, they are grown men who will not benefit from being told that was acceptable when it was not. Attitudes are what have been holding the national team back for over a decade, and when the manager himself openly declares that mediocrity is acceptable, then his judgement must be questioned before he takes the team any further.