It’s a long asked question but a poignant one for right now especially considering how close we are to this summer’s World Cup, but with many people decrying certain players lack of form going into the tournament in an England shirt, I’d argue its hardly a common phenomenon.
Ashley Cole for all his horrific character traits is the best left back in our ranks and has been for some time, and he always delivers a performance worthy of praise in the good old red and white. Rio Ferdinand is another player who’s capable of making the step seamlessly, as is Wayne Rooney.
Some players can be said to have even exceeded their performances for their clubs whilst donning the national team shirt, Emile Heskey looks like a strong wind would knock him over for Villa, but once he’s got the three lions on his chest, he looks like a hulk of a player and provides the perfect foil for the mercurial Rooney. But it’s safe to say that over performance or even what we’ve come to expect from the nations finest often gives way to insipid, uninspired, flat performances from our best players.
Take John Terry, club captain at Chelsea and until the scandal broke, he was by all accounts having an excellent season. Even whilst Captain of his country, he was cruelly exposed for a lack of pace time and time again on the international stage for England and he doesn’t dominate in the air or command the back four with anywhere near enough presence. If it wasn’t for Ashley Cole’s outstretched right boot, England could have quite easily gone one nil down to Ecuador in the 2006 World Cup due to a horribly misjudged header by the Chelsea man, something extremely rare when on club duties.
Steven Gerrard remains the one most fans target for lacklustre performances for his country though. It’s hardly surprising though considering the amount of positions he has played in and he’s been severely shoved from pillar to post by successive managers unsure as to how to get the best out of him. Capello seems to have stumbled onto a short term option by giving the Liverpool captain a free role coming in from the left hand side. It’s worked pretty well and he’s been a joy to watch when interlinking with fellow scouser Rooney at times to devastating effect.
But Gerrard is not alone in failing to deliver for his country when he has done so well for his club. John Barnes, as my Everton supporting brother never tires of telling me, won 82 England caps and only had one good goal in a friendly against Brazil to show for it. Glenn Hoddle was messed around too much and had a largely forgettable 53 caps.
Even goal machine Alan Shearer had a two year spell without a goal going into Euro 96 despite his amazing record in the league at the time, not to mention the constant press haranguing of one of our country’s finest products in recent years, Paul Scholes, had to contend with. He hated the attention so much and the fact that he was being heavily criticised despite being played out of position, he quite rightly decided to jack it in because it simply wasn’t worth the hassle. David Beckham has always looked a shadow of the player at club level for England too. Quality is not always a successful barometer when it comes to international football it would appear.
The frequency of games at international level is a lot more than it used to be, but this often doesn’t breed continuity in team selection, but tinkering and switches in personnel and tactics. This is fine at club level as you have all week to work on something before match day and you know each other’s strengths a lot better, but trying to transfer it to the international stage whilst playing with players you are only familiar with, will only produce spurts of good play, lots of inconsistency, and indifferent form from even the best players, something which England have largely shown in abundance for well over 20 years now.
Are we asking too much from our star players? Or have they simply not put the effort in?
Written By James McManus