Steven Gerrard: England’s liability?
The more England try to evolve, the more they seem to revolve.
It’s really difficult to escape the feeling we’ve been here before. Consider the opening game, and the character of much of the aftermath.
For all the initial freshness of the team, and all of the manner the initially put it up to Italy, the game very quickly settled into a familiar pattern.
In fact, it was much swifter than usual.
By the fifth minute, Italy were already passing their way through England and pressing them back, revealing their sophisticated superiority.
By the 60th minute, Steven Gerrard was being twirled all over the place, Wayne Rooney was toiling in that largely impotent way that has become so typical.
The Manchester United forward has rightfully attracted some criticism for his display, but it is perhaps the 34-year-old Gerrard who most sums up England’s eternal issue. We all know the general pattern. In the 18 years since they last reached a semi-final, England have tended to be out-thought and consequently out-manoeuvred the first time they come up against a team of a similar level. The international team’s primary problem has been a shortfall of either technique or tactics, sometimes both.
Gerrard has plenty of the former when put in the right position, but greatly disrupts the latter when that is not the case.
A further problem is that, at this stage of his career, the Liverpool legend’s legs mean he can really only play in one role.
He needs to be properly protected in a three-man midfield. It is something a deeply technical coach in Brendan Rodgers long worked out, and thereby realised how to still get value out of Gerrard’s best qualities.
The Anfield captain remained utterly excellent.
If you don’t do that, he won’t be able to cover enough ground, and the side will be pulled around. By that point, a handful of long-range perceptive balls lose a lot of importance.
It then comes down to a rather simple choice. Either pick a three-man midfield, or drop Gerrard.
As outlandish as that would seem, and as much outrage as that would bring, it makes a certain amount cold sense.
What is the point of a totemic player if he moves, well... like a totem? The value of his experience is overruled by the loss of vigour.
Rooney’s situation is more complicated, not least for the complications he brings to the team.
He follows David Beckham and Michael Owen in suffering that curious English problem of no longer quite knowing what his best role is as he reaches his notional prime.
Rooney fancies himself as a playmaker, but he simply doesn’t have the poise to excel there. He does admittedly score a serious amount of goals at centre-forward, but the requirements make the team as a whole so much more predictable.
Finally, he did some of his finest work as a wide forward between 2006 and 2009, but no longer appears to offer the same level application there.
A bit like with Gerrard, it feels odd his obvious talent causes such a case of contrasting the checks and balances.
Rooney ultimately brings an odd level of tactical anarchy.
It is Hodgson’s job to bring order, of course, but that almost poses another problem. With the former Fulham manager, there is too much of the old order.
He seems unwilling to deviate from relatively flat formations, despite the liveliness of so many of his young players.
The Gerrard case almost sums that up. It is as if Hodgson has chosen to put Jordan Henderson alongside him in order to superficially replicate their effect for Liverpool, but without any of the deeper coaching and tactical set-up that made it work so well. England just don’t have anywhere near the same fluidity.
It is the same in attack. Under the right manager, Rooney could genuinely be part of a rotating forward line that fully maximises the movement of Daniel Sturridge and Raheem Sterling.
As it is, the fixed nature of the roles only allows their motion to go so far.
The problem, then, is really Hodgson rather than either Rooney or Gerrard.
It sums up the contradiction, the endless circle England find themselves in.
They have been blessed with one of their most attacking squads, but all that under one of their most conservative managers.
Speaking to the Costa Rican media at the atmospheric Urbano Caldeira Stadium in Santos – the place where Pele and Neymar made their names – it was clear who they feared in the England side.
“Wayne Rooney and Steven Gerrard,” said one when I asked him. “They are ‘craques’, the best.”
That opinion isn’t shared by the majority of the English public and media right now. Saturday’s game against Italy was fascinating, raising as many questions as answers.
Some reputations – those of Raheem Sterling and Daniel Sturridge, for example – were significantly enhanced.
Others, principally the two most experienced members of the English side, wilted in the heat of the Amazon rainforest.
Now, against Uruguay, they must step up to the mark and impose themselves on a tournament that seems wide open.
This is not a time forsecond chances. After just one game, it is already do-or-die.
It is also a time for experience and leadership, and they are the prime reasons why I am firmly of the opinion that Roy Hodgson should stick with both in Sao Paulo today.
The 14 players that featured against Italy had 451 caps between them. Gerrard and Rooney accounted for 203 of them. But Ross Barkley and Adam Lallana would be so much more exciting and invigorating against Uruguay, goes the argument. Well, yes, but are Premier League games – neither were in Europe last season, remember – sufficient preparation for a must-win game against a hugely experienced side that know every trick in the book?
The Uruguayan team that started against Costa Rica had an average of 69 caps per person, an astonishing number, and one that could prove crucial in the last 10 minutes of a tight World Cup match.
Ultimately, though, do Gerrard and Rooney deserve to be in the team? I would argue they do.
Gerrard may not have enjoyed his best night in Manaus, but he completed 61 of the 66 passes he attempted, more than any other member of the English side.
Rooney saw less of the ball but still completed 28 of his 32 passes, including that superb assist for Sturridge.
Perhaps it’s simply that their faces don’t fit anymore. This, we are told, is a bright young England team, one for the future.
It is a personal view that England could well be perfectly positioned for the next World Cup in four years but should view the quarter-finals here as a fine tournament.
Yet to reach that level they need their best players performing, and both Rooney and Gerrard will know the heat is on tonight.
It should also not be overlooked that big names can sometimes create opportunities for their team-mates simply by virtue of being on the pitch.
Defenders are attracted to Rooney, in particular, like moths to a flame and it is no coincidence that Sterling enjoyed attacking the space Rooney left for him by being moved out wide.
Ultimately, it comes down to gut instinct; and Roy Hodgson’s is telling him to stick with his big guns.
The leadership provided by Gerrard, in particular, is irreplaceable, as Rickie Lambert pointed out this week.
“He’s still one of our best players — still world-class, in my opinion,” said a man who is now Gerrard’s team-mate at club rather than international level.
“As a deep-lying midfielder he’s one of the best. And he’s good off the field too — not one to shout. He does his actions on the pitch and he speaks to the young lads and puts an arm around them when it’s needed.
“It was top drawer the way he walked off with Raheem Sterling when Raheem was sent off against Ecuador. The young lads aren’t intimidated and he’s one of the main reasons for that.”
Crucially, Gerrard has Jordan Henderson alongside him to cover the ground he used to. The two have dovetailed superbly at Liverpool this season and it seems ridiculous to jettison that partnership for either Barkley or Jack Wilshere based on one bad performance.
And when all is said and done, it was always about this game. England knew they were going to have to get something – in all likelihood a victory – here against Luis Suarez, Edinson Cavani and all.
What happened in Manaus hasn’t changed that; in fact it has given more confidence to a nation that seems finally to actually like the team that plays for it, after all those years.
But entering a match without the last remaining two members of that generation seems an incredible gamble to take. Hindsight will provide an answer but Hodgson is unlikely to do so, and nor should he – much to Costa Rican media ire.
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