Gray gearing up for kick-off
The Premier League is supposed to be to the World Cup what water is to fine wine but events in South Africa have left such a sour taste that fans are desperate for the return of England’s domestic game to slake their thirst for more entertaining fare. Their wait is nearly over.
Manchester United and Chelsea face off in the Community Shield on Sunday and the first round of league fixtures starts six days later with Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester City handed the honour of cutting the ribbon shortly after noon.
Less glamorous fixtures that same day include Wigan Athletic at home to Blackpool and Stoke City’s visit to Wolves but it will be harder to complain about such fare after the awfulness of games like France v Uruguay, Paraguay v Japan or any of England’s three group games.
“I hope the World Cup doesn’t reflect on how the league is played because that was hugely disappointing,” said Sky Sports’ Andy Gray yesterday.
“It was so negative and I have never seen a World Cup where there were so many midfielders played in every game.
“That’s why I thought the Germans were so refreshing and I hate to say that. They played with a back four, four in midfield and Ozil just off Klose and went out and played. They never thought much about holding players.
“I just hope the Premier League starts like that with coaches positive and keen to exploit things and to just entertain because I heard Paddy Crerand say that it was the worst World Cup of his lifetime and I would have to go along with that.”
International and domestic football may be different animals but they share the same gene pool and, rightly or wrongly, commentators across the Irish Sea have made some far-reaching assumptions about the English game on the basis of the World Cup.
With 107 players, the Premier League was the best represented of all the domestic competitions in Africa and yet only 19 of those flag bearers were still involved by the time the tournament had been reduced to its last eight sides.
That was in comparison to the Bundesliga’s 37, La Liga’s 33 and Serie A’s 28, leaving England bottom of the European A-league pile. Of all the English league’s billboard stars, Carlos Tevez was alone in lighting up a frightfully dull tournament.
Significant stat or useless fact?
Gray, who was in Ireland with Richard Keys to promote Sky’s rollout of residential 3D coverage for the new season, was never likely to go along with the idea that the World Cup had exposed a lack of world-class talent in the English game.
“What is pleasing for me is that I can’t think of too many (players) we have lost this summer. It was a blow last summer to lose Ronaldo and I feared that we would be sitting here now talking about Torres being gone and Fabregas being gone.
“They would have been two massive losses to the Premier League. There was a time when everyone thought that Spain was going to take all our good players and we wouldn’t be able to cope with that but we are holding our own.”
The 2010 World Cup may have been bad but there is at least a case to be made that it was an aberration. The same can hardly be said for an English team which yet again failed to live up to the hype that surrounds its players whether on duty for club or country.
Player fatigue has been repeatedly offered up as a reason for England’s failure to live up to 1966 and Gray is behind the suggestion that the Premier League should adopt the same winter breaks long in vogue across Europe.
“It’s doable because it is doable in every other country and I think we all have the same amount of teams now in Germany, Spain, Italy with 20. (The Bundesliga is actually an 18-team division). These countries can do it and I don’t understand why we can’t do it.”
Whatever the reasons, consistently high achievers at club level such as Wayne Rooney, Frank Lampard, Steven Gerrard and John Terry have been exposed time after time – individually and collectively — when wearing their country’s threads.
Gray’s initial instinct was to criticise Fabio Capello who he claimed “failed abysmally” for his inflexible approach and muddied handling of the goalkeeping question. His verdict on the players was less forensic if equally damning. “They are all great players. I am a huge admirer of the Premier League and the English players who play in it and I can’t think of many English players who came back from that World Cup and would have thought ‘I did all right’. That’s an incredible thing to say.”
Normal service resumes shortly.
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