Uruguay 2014. Gerrard plays a back header straight to Suarez to score yet all the media could come up with was ‘if he’d had Terry and Cole instead of Jagielka and Baines we might have won the world cup’
The England team has got better since Southgate started picking the actual good players rather than who the media told him to pick, but when it was Hodgson Sven and Cappelo it was laughable.
Remember Sven taking Theo Walcott just because the media thought it would get a few headlines, then he didn’t even play him. Carragher Upson and Warnock going to the 2010 World Cup over Jagielka Lescott Baines who were all brilliant at the time
A whole qualifying campaign in 2010 with Gerrard on the left wing, day before the USA game and the media is shrieking for Gerrard and Lampard to play in a 442 with Barry being dropped, sure enough Capello did it and we were rubbish.
Then there was Hodgson taking half his Liverpool team to euro 2012 because he wanted to get back in the media good books. Martin Kelly ffs. Then after Barkley had got him to euro 2016 he decided before rhe tournament he’d play Dier and Alli in midfield because they were doing well for Spurs despite barely playing for England previously.
It’s no surprise that Southgate has had success when he’s stopped listening to the kopite media and actually just picked the likes of Rice, Kalvin Phillips, Pickford Chilwell etc. players from different clubs. Despite this though the two most popular England stories are always ‘should Pickford still be number 1’ and ‘why isn’t Alexander Arnold first choice’….funny that isn’t it.
