our misery.
After Italy’s lacklustre defeat to Costa Rica, England’s miserable World Cup is over before the postcards have been bought never mind sent home.
I said before it all kicked off that the highlight of England’s World Cup would be the goalless draw with Costa Rica in the final game, I now admit that was wildly optimistic of me.
Just eight days after the tournament kicked off, just five days 19 hours and 49 minutes after England kicked off, that game against the group D leaders became a meaningless dead rubber for the squad Roy took to Brazil.
Costa Rica have now beaten the two teams that beat England, if England did manage that nil niler it would be the highlight of Roy’s two year stint at the helm of the national side. Costa Rica aren’t great, not blessed with an outstanding world class player, as Uruguay and Italy are, but they play as a team, play with verve and vigour and can run rings around this static England side.
That’s of course if Roy sticks with the failures.
What would be the point of Gerrard, Rooney, Johnson, Lampard or indeed any of the players who would be over 30 come the next World Cup being involved in this final game before the flight home?
Well it would help Roy to pick those above because if they lose so what, if they draw or win he’ll claim they were unlucky in the first two games – which they weren’t.
If he goes with those that should start this game because they are the future and England need to build for the future they don’t need to hand a glorified send off to past failures – those listed above – then what happens if they do perform well? I mean really perform well not the fake positives they keep talking about from the previous two games. Then where does that put Roy? If his first choice are rubbish and his standbys that were just last ditch subs shine, can you really justify Roy keeping his job?
If fit all of Barkley, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Lallana and Shaw should start. You’d have to go with Jones and Smalling as well because Roy didn’t take anyone else.
And there’s a thing about Roy keeping his job. Should someone who takes Glen Johnson as the only out-and-out right-back to the World Cup keep his job as the second best paid international manager at this World Cup? £3.5m per year, Spain’s Vicente Del Bosque is seventh, at £2.02m, and with having won the last World Cup and Euro Championship as manager – to go with his 2 Champions League and Spanish league titles – he offered his resignation after the current holders group humiliation.
The Uruguay manager earns £2.75 less than Roy, Costa Rica manager earns nearly £3m less.
But you can’t blame Roy because he doesn’t have a great player, well as said above do Costa Rica? But Roy though thinks he does in Rooney but as mentioned in the Uruguay game post Roy only thinks that because Wayne ran around a lot. While a real top class player scored two goals.
Rooney 10 games, 1 goal at World Cups. 94 games 40 goals in total.
Suarez 7 games, 5 goals at World Cups. 78 games 41 goals in total.
Roy said Suarez wasn’t world class yet.
Yet this was meant to be Rooney’s tournament as he was finally fit, yet he’s outplayed by a bloke coming back from a knee operation just four weeks earlier. Maybe Roy would think Suarez would be world class if he hadn’t needed that op and could have run around a bit more.
In the other game Pirlo was the world class opponent. And again England lamented not having such a player. Yet they do, they have had over the last decade. Michael Carrick, no don’t laugh. He’s not world class but play him like the Italians play Pirlo and he can pass a side off the park, it’s just England expect him to be the marauding defensive midfielder because he doesn’t charge forward, the fact ManUre bought him as a direct replacement for Roy Keane hasn’t helped Carrick. That’s not his game, his is to sit there and quarterback it like Pirlo, you don’t see the bearded one charging round like a headless chicken tackling everything that moves, yet in England that’s what they expect from Carrick.
Added: Forgot to say there’s another player out there that can, could have, done the job, Leon Britton of Swansea where he’s been doing it for over a decade – with a bit of a break – and has never even been considered for England by either managers or the media.
While he could have done the passing job for Roy the manager went with Gerrard who is that type of headless chicken player that is so beloved of England. No guile or craft just thumped glory balls. And Roy wants to keep 34 year old Gerrard as the captain, while others call for Rooney to get the armband, which Roy could quite easily do. Still worth keeping the manager?