World Cup: The English midfield – A missing person since 1966

And so the search continues for the English midfield. A missing person since 1966. As England’s participation in this year’s World Cup in Russia draws ever nearer and Southgate’s squad now announced, the predictable debates in the press and media about the Nation’s chances, or lack thereof, have begun to ramp up.

I often wonder if the term ‘Ground Hog Day,’ was invented for English football, because this World Cup build up feels an awful lot like the one before and the one before that ad nauseam.

The only thing that will surpass it is when the hand wringing, the finger-pointing and the millions of ‘told you so’s’, begin when the team arrive back home after failing to get out of their group, before the hunt commences once more for a new manager who the so-called ‘experts’ will demand is non-English and not a foreigner, and who must be a female or even a chimpanzee?

I won’t bore you with the predictable conversations, all right then, but just the one. But I’m sure this will all sound depressingly familiar. Now that our 23 heroes have been selected the heart sinks when you see the midfield because my friends the English midfield has been a desert of creative match winners since… well since any of us can remember.

Of course the English midfield, or should I say, the lack thereof is, in my view, the main reason we never do well in major competitions. Since 1966 we’ve usually had decent goalkeepers, decent defenders, and more than a few tasty forwards, but when it comes to the area where the game is more often than not won the amount of truly world-class midfielders can be counted on less than one hand?

Glenn Hoddle remains, for my money, the most skilful, midfield footballer the nation has ever produced.

It is our tragedy that we haven’t since produced anybody with Hoddle’s two footed sublime skill or vision. It remains his tragedy that his talent was, as far as England was concerned, left in the hands of Bobby Robson who, like so many England managers since, don’t trust skill. Anyway, it might have been much worse for Hoddle.

Graham Taylor once instructed his players, and this is no joke, to kick the ball out of play immediately from the kick off! Granted, Hoddle wasn’t the quickest and he wouldn’t be the best tackler you’d ever see, but you could easily aim the same accusations at the generation of maestro’s that is Andrea Pirlo, Javi, Modric and Iniesta et al. I’m sure there are more, but you get my drift.

Those who know little about the game will always name-check Lampard and Gerrard in this particular debate. However, while both men operated in midfield, neither could ever be described as genuine midfield players. They rarely linked the play from defence to the front men, concentrating instead on getting on the end of things which is why they were prolific goal scores.

Others sing the praises of Michael Carrick which to my mind only reinforces how dire a situation we were in. He is, sorry was, a decent player, but not someone who could go past anybody, pile up a freight of assists or get the opposition turning to face their own goal, and had his first pass was more often than not sideways.

The genuine midfielders like the aforementioned are not known for scoring goals, but for linking the play from back to front, they ghost past people and in so many cases open up stubborn defences with skilful aplomb.

But what also defines these players is that, apart from their link up play, they all, without exception, are always moving into the correct position to receive the ball. In fact, such is their awareness in this regard that their teammate rarely has little option but to pass it to them.

When I watch these genuine midfielders in operation they are more often than not moving towards the man on the ball, not away from him. This was the typical modus operandi of Lampard and Gerrard who, once they received the ball, would play it out wide and then head into the box like Greyhounds who had just caught sight of a hare.

If you don’t believe me then when you watch Real Madrid in the up and coming Champions League final take a look at little Luka. Watch how he always moves into space to receive the ball and moves towards his team-mate in possession. Now watch Jordan Henderson.

The difference between world-class midfielders and others

Every world-class midfielder does this, taking the ball and pushing it five to ten yard passes around as they continue to move their own team and the opposing defence around. It looks easy when teams like Barcelona, Madrid, Germany and Brazil have possession for eighty-nine minutes because their players are always moving into space to receive the next pass. They are the epitome of a well-coached team. English players do not have this spatial awareness.

England will head to Russia this summer with no chance whatsoever of victory because to win a World Cup or a European Championship there is a pre-requisite for a world-class midfield, more often than not consisting of at least two and preferably three world-class footballers who can retain possession and supply the ammunition to the forward players.

The midfield of the three previous World Cup winners bare testament to this fact. England will be heading to Russia without any such thing.  Jordan Henderson will run around, Fabian Delph will run around, Deli Ali will do lots of tricks and flicks and Jesse Lingard will cover a lot of ground.

Ironically, the one player who has a genuine midfield look about him has ankles made of Weetabix, and has been left out of the squad altogether. In the wake of the pending disaster Southgate will probably be sacked and another no-chance manager will be appointed.

Nothing will change. And that’s the saddest thing in all of this, because the sixty year old elephant in the room of never having a world-class midfield with the skill levels or the positional sense to match their foreign counterparts, has now tragically become part of the furniture.