S4P wrote: bluenine wrote:I can imaqine that the second most successful england manager of all time would get no credit coz he is not english and does not have the "spirit".
What made Sven more successful than Bobby Robson (or Venables for that matter)?
Actually, if truth be told, Sven has taken England backwards rather than forwards. Since England failed to qualify in 1994:
1996 Venables, 1998 Hoddle - both were more progressive managers than Sven in making England play with more than one game plan - Venables utilising the Xmas tree formation aswell as 4-4-2, playing with wingers, an attacking midefielder (Gazza) and a holding midfielder (Ince). Hoddle with his 3-5-2 alternative to the 4-4-2, which almost won him a thrilling game against argentina in 1998, and a side who really could play and bringing Scholes through.
Then Keegan came in and made a mess of things, having very little tactical or revolutionary ideas,
and then Sven was brought in.
What he brought was immense tactical discipline to the table, allowing England to beat the lesser teams-or on the odd occassion the big teams having an offday- through a very simple method of playing direct, scoring early then sitting back, aoking up the pressure and valuing on what you've got. This became predictable after 4 or 5 years, and was never truly successful once the big sides came into play.
Mclaren, as his understudy, has clearly taken this model- but without Sven's tactical ability- and left England a team who have only one game plan, and when they have the opportunity to really go at teams, take the cautious Sven approach but with unnerving ineptitude.
So whilst on paper Sven has brought results to the table, the progression of the England team has faultered big time during his reign.
The England side of 2006 was actually inferior to the one that he led out to Japan and Korea in 2002, and the one which was actually quite successful in 2004.
A coach should be judged on where they take a team.
In my opinion, Venables was a bit lucky with the side he had in 1996, but at least there was progression from 1994-1996 under him.
Same with Hoddle, who in my opinion has been the best manager England have had since Bobby Robson in 1990 - his reign was cut short over non footballing matters when it looked like England were maturing into a very decent side. Italy away 0-0 followed by a good showing in the 1998 World Cup proof of that.
England need a coach to come in and attempt to do the same. The cautious Sven approach will never really work with English players, because they lack the discipline that, say, the Italians do. But also, English players can never play like the Brazilians, or Portuguese either, because technically not good enough.
A merge of the English talents with Continental approaches is whats needed.
only a foreign manager can bring that in.
the next manager MUST be foreign.
I'd love it to be Alex Ferguson, but it'll never happen. Mourinho would be brilliant. If not, then a Dutchman such as van Gaal, Hiddink or even Martin Jol would present new ideas.
Luckily for these guys, there looks to be good potential there to mould and use: the young English players coming through at U21 stage lack the big name status of their counterparts, yet judging by the success of the U17 and U21 sides over the last couple of years, they might well be the type of low key names who can be knitted into a team, without the overhyping and individidualistic nature of the current England senior side
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Its been awhile!
. Not our kids though, they seem to be doing quite well - drew with your lot the otherday. No, just the older ones, whose egos begin to outsize their talent.
wrote:EMP, welcome back - it's TS...