Once again England disappoints at a major tournament; this is slowly becoming the norm for the Three Lions. England was eliminated from Euro 2016 after losing 2-1 to Iceland in the Round of 16 of the tournament on Monday. England was astonishingly poor throughout the tournament as they failed to produce any meaningful performance. Unsurprisingly England’s manager Roy Hodgson stepped down from his post after the shock defeat to Iceland. The wounds of England’s football goes way deeper than the manager. Even with that said, Roy Hodgson should have never been the manager in the first place. We saw in the Euros that his tactical vision was lacking from as early as the opening game when we saw Harry Kane taking ‘set piece’ to their last game when we saw he took 15 mins to insert Marcus Rashford who was arguably their best player in that game. Roy Hodgson showed us that he did not have the brilliance to change a game from the bench. I can tell you that after 4 matches and over 360mins of football Roy Hodgson still doesn’t know his best eleven.
Hodgson made a huge blunder in the selection process; the players that he selected for France 2016 were not all deserving of a spot. Jack Wilshere is a player that managed to play only 3 games for Arsenal the entire 2015/16 campaign due to his injury problems yet still, he was named a member of the team. Raheem Sterling was not impressive for Manchester City in what was an underwhelming season and he was also in the squad. Wayne Rooney is another player that was not particularly good at his club in the previous season yet he was in France in the thick of the action for England. The fact that these players were selected showed that Roy Hodgson picked the team on reputation instead of on current form.
The squad was not the best that it could have been, players such as Danny Drinkwater, Jermain Defoe, and Kevin Nolan could have all made the squad based on their performance for the clubs during the regular season. The English squad was also lacking experience at the tournament as we saw that the hope of the team rested with players that were playing at their first ever major tournament. Such players, Eric Deir, Dele Alli and Harry Kane all saw a lot of minutes at the tournament. They were given too much of a responsibility and they simply folded as the pressure mounted.
The inexperience of the team was evident in that last game against Iceland; We saw an English team that was not able to change the game in their favor. They were incredibly poor in that game and we saw a sight that was all too familiar a ‘failing English team’.
This brings me to my next point. There have always been huge expectations placed on England’s squads of the past and there was no difference this time around. The huge expectations come from the fact that these players are household names, we watch them week in, week out playing in the best league in the world. The English Premier League is certainly the most competitive league in Europe, hence why many believe it is the best league in the world. The best players in the English Premier League, however, are not English players. Over the last decade only twice has an English player been voted the player of the year in England. This shows that the best players in the league are usually foreign players. English players are overrated and overhyped, they are not particularly good. This is part of the reason they continually fail on the big stage.
England going forward does not need to be hyped up. The sooner the world forgets that they can play football the sooner they will actually surprise us at a major tournament by at lea.st getting to the finals.
Those were my thoughts on English football. What are yours? Share them in the comments below
48-NINETY SPORTS 