Is This Why England Are So Crap In Football Tournaments ?

Found this interesting article in the Guardian last week, as Gareth Southgate, a man I personally loathe for walking out on the Palace in the early 90’s, announced the England squad for the 2018 World Cup.

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2018/may/18/jack-wilshere-joe-hart-hit-back-england-world-cup-southgate

Nobody has ever come up with a reasonable explanation for our consistent hopelessness in international tournaments. But this article maybe gives a slight partial explanation.

Joe Hart should never get near an England shirt again and should consider himself fortunate to have represented his country so many times with such inconsistency and at times dire performances. Jack Wilshere has no way played his way into the squad with, at times, mere mediocrity being the result of his efforts.

But they think otherwise according to the article……

Hart ‘I know what I bring to the team, but it is what it is’

Wilshere  ‘I’ve felt fit, sharp and strong all season and believe I should be in the squad!’

The sheer arrogance and sense of entitlement is awesome. Have all England players in recent decades had this attitude ? A decided lack of hunger, baffling deluded selfishness and humility are not the qualities needed to win and perform as a team. Review the dire performances through the years and yes, the England team has been made up of players largely consisted of massive egos, pay packets and an institutionalised pecking order. I have always argued, before I lost interest in the England team, that it should be made up of the cream of the Championship and top Premiership talent, the Championship players to keep the Premiership egos grounded, our traditional scrapping and back bone inherent in them augmented by some top flight skill would surely put us in with a shout?

So it is not only encouraging to see Southgate’s selection and I hope, although not a great manager by any margin, he has set a new mark for criteria which is based on player’s with a will to win rather than player’s who feel they deserve to be playing believing their on hype. It is now time we acknowledge that chucking the best 11 players out for the customary fail is a bust flush and we try a new way. So good on Southgate for maybe trying something new. Now all we need is a manager who has a trackj record of winning something !