Steven Gerrard was a victim of England’s cycle of failure - Tony Barrett Steven Gerrard’s assessment of his own England career has become definitive. “I rate myself as a six or a seven out of ten,” was his answer when asked to give himself a rating. Characteristically candid it may have been but without context, of the kind that he cannot provide, it is also fairly meaningless. The greater truth lies in what he did not say and unless others within the England set-up are prepared to admit it on his behalf, the cycle of great club player having to damn himself as good for his country but not quite good enough will continue. In mitigation of his own performances, Gerrard could have highlighted how rarely he was blessed to play in an England side that was greater than the sum of their parts. He could have pointed to the failure of highly paid managers to create a team structure that would have allowed players like himself to achieve their full potential on the international stage. He could have cast an envious glance at countries without England’s talent out-performing them and asked how any individual could have delivered when the team was predisposed to fail. That he did none of those things reflects well on Gerrard who is always willing to take responsibility, sometimes too much. It does not, though, reflect well on England or those charged with making them a competitive football team. Gerrard’s shortcomings, the ones that make him a six or seven out of ten rather than an eight or nine out of ten, are the same as those of Paul Scholes and Frank Lampard. But they do not belong to them; they are passed on like a disease that infects all who pull on an England shirt and yet there seems no rush to find a cure, no desire to address tactical weaknesses that undermine even the finest talents. In this culture of ambivalence to structural failure, it has become easy to write off the individual, to talk of the weaknesses that prevented them from hitting the heights and place another one on the growing list of the not quite good enough. The real issue, though, is why does this keep on happening? Why do so few England players perform at their highest level? How can it be that Gerrard, Scholes and Lampard were able to dazzle in the Champions League, a standard that is higher than international football, and to such an extent that their talents became universally admired and yet fall short for England? In this respect, Gerrard’s deployment on the international stage is instructive. Consider the two most impressive seasons of the Liverpool captain’s club career. In both 2008-09 and 2013-14 Gerrard’s individual form was pivotal to Liverpool coming within a few points of winning the Premier League title. The connection? Tactical innovation. Six years ago, Rafael Benitez defied the consensus that Gerrard should only ever play in central midfield and was rewarded with his development into one of European football’s most dynamic and effective split forwards. Last season, Brendan Rodgers sent Gerrard in the other direction, recognising that utilising the 34-year-old in a midfield two was no longer wise and deploying him in a deep lying role that allowed his technical ability to shine. At no stage during his 114 cap England career has Gerrard benefitted from similar thinking. More often than not he has just been plonked in a midfield two and left to get on with it. At times, he has been shunted out to the left (as were Scholes and Lampard) but other than that there has been barely any flexibility or imagination and certainly not of the kind that has allowed him to flourish for Liverpool. For England, he started off in a midfield two and he finished off in a midfield two and the results have been as predictable as the tactics. Assessing the current problems of the England cricket team, the Sky commentary team have taking it in turns to repeat the same mantra – repeating the same things over again when they clearly aren’t working is a sign of madness. The England football team have been guilty of that for as long as anyone can remember which suggests they are in some sort of psychotic state, one in which they become incapable of recognising their own failings when they are there for the rest of the world to see and rather than get better over time the condition appears to be getting worse. At the recent World Cup, England brought the best out of just two players – Luis Suarez and Andrea Pirlo. Those wearing the three lions failed as a group and they also failed as individuals. Given the team structure it was difficult to envisage that they could possibly do anything more. The midfield two which has undermined them for years undermined them once again; Wayne Rooney was shunted to the left and then Raheem Sterling was shunted to the right; Leighton Baines was afforded neither adequate protection nor a player in front who he could work with as he does so impressively at Everton. In the middle of all this was mess was Gerrard at a stage in his own career when overcoming the shortcomings of managers and team mates is beyond him. It would be wrong in the extreme to absolve Gerrard of all responsibility for his own performances for England and he would not want anyone to do that on his behalf. The reality is that he has fallen below the standards that he has set for himself at club level and that is why the six or seven out of ten rating he gave to himself is just about right. He has also captained his country on 38 occasions and so has had the kind of influence that could have prompted a change of direction or at least a rethink about the way England play football. But when it comes down to it, Gerrard has turned up to international duty with the same fierce will to win, the same talent and the same strengths and weaknesses. What we have not seen, though, is the same player that we have seen for Liverpool and the biggest cause of that is structural rather than individual. The same as it was for John Barnes, Scholes, Lampard and others and the same as it will be for Ross Barkley, Sterling and Rooney unless someone in the England hierarchy is prepared to make the same kind of unsparing self-assessment that has come to define Gerrard’s international career.
Posted on: Tue, 22 Jul 2014 12:29:02 +0000
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