England vs. USA

Goalkeeping howlers should not obscure us from depressingly familiar mediocrity

These probably won’t be too coherent a set of thoughts, but to be honest the whole England performance from where I sit was depressingly familiar. I’m also sitting here writing this after listening to a number of paper reviews on Sky Sports News over the weekend and unsurprisingly I find myself disagreeing wholeheartedly with the raft of pundits.

The big story is the horrific error made by Robert Green in goal, but in a way, that’s masking the wider story, that England barely ever kept the ball, and in the second half, bar one fantastic chance for Emile Heskey the team created no opportunities to win the game. This morning all the talk is about Green, with many of the papers hanging him out to dry. It’s unsurprising, this is the highest level of his sport, and when it comes to it he was found wanting, badly. But then should we be massively shocked? I mean you would expect all ‘keepers at a professional level to save such a speculative shot but Green is nothing more than a competent Premiership Goalkeeper coming off a season when he’s been very poor. He’s got previous so to speak.

Sadly, it’s the life of the man between the posts, one error and it costs a goal, a set of circumstances no other player on the pitch usually has to contemplate. But again, talking about Green’s error is obscuring the wider inadequacies of England’s overall performance. After the game on ITV, both Gareth Southgate and Kevin Keegan were adamant that aside from ‘Greengate’ England had been ‘terrific’. Erm, what game were they watching – are they that deluded that they thought that was a good team showing? Maybe that’s what they think we all want to hear, that we want them to ‘get behind the boys’, most football fans with a brain out there will not be fooled and indeed do not want to hear jingoistic, deluded rubbish, glossing over the facts that have occurred right out there on the pitch in front of their eyes.

I don’t want to be criticising England for the sake of it, believe me, but to me, and the mates I watched the game with, the team’s display had more negatives than positives. There was little invention and little creativity, and a bright opening, with a well crafted and taken goal from Steven Gerrard was never built on. The performance of the captain was a highlight, as the Liverpool man threw off the poor form and uncertainty that has surrounded him at Anfield this season to give a dynamic showing from central midfield.

Sadly, his dynamism didn’t seem to rub off on those around him, with the second half in particular filled with largely uninspiring and one dimensional play. The performance of Heskey did nothing to stop debates over his continued inclusion. Yes, his build up play was good, yes, he led the line well, but, and this is perhaps the biggest but in football, when he was presented with a chance, one on one with the US keeper Tim Howard he found the Everton man’s midriff rather than the back of the net. At World Cup level, opportunities like that need to be taken, it was the only real chance England had to win the game, and when it comes down to it Heskey was again found wanting when that could’ve been the decisive goal.

When all is said and done, the result was far, far from a disaster, with England still in a great position to qualify for the knock out stages. A draw with a functional, yet creatively limited USA squad is not a bad score line, even if the overall display the team put in wasn’t exactly one to get the pulses racing. Green will get the headlines, but as I’ve said, that obscures the fact that for example Jamie Carragher looked as mobile as a beached whale when he came on and Shaun Wright-Phillips was dismal. England can go on from here, and the lack of quality opposition in the group will still ensure progress to the last 16, however, the often sterile nature of the build up play was giving me worrying flashbacks to Germany in 2006, and improving on that, more than choosing who should be in goal are the really big decisions that Capello needs to make in the next week.