Why did we sack Sven?

[Mellotron]

Well is three quarter finals appearances in 3 tournaments as bad as we make out? Surely that roughly translates to being one of the top 8 footballing nations in the world for 6 years.

I think we'd quite like to be in the top 8 now.

 

[Mellotron]

Sven was a master of qualifying, just didn't have the tactical nous for the MASSIVE games. We'll see how he does in crunch games for Mexico when he needs to make big decisions. Will be interesting.

 

[Giraffe]

I thought Sven did an excellent job. Achieve qualification and did better than people recognised in the finals.

 

[Behind Enemy Lines]

Ahhh, ok. After failing to qualify for 2008, the old rose-tinted specs are out in force I see. Look, just because England were complete and utter GASH under McLaren (big surprise there folks), and not much better (yet) under Capello, lets not start painting Sven as some kind of genius manager who we should never have discarded. There are some fundamental FACTS about Svens reign that seem to have been conveniently forgotten under the "well at least we always qualified" banner. Lets not forget:

1. Players constantly, CONSTANTLY picked purely on name and reputation, regardless of form and sometimes even fitness
2. Ludicrous scattergun caps dished out to literally dozens of players with multiple substitutions (reaching a new nadir v Australia when 22 players were used)
3. Complete inability to make tactical changes or effective substitutions to affect a game when things were going wrong
4. Utter insistance on playing Lampard/Gerrard together for 5 years when it became blatantly obvious to everyone that it simply did. not. work.
5. Taking a kid along on "work experience" to the WC, when two of our other main strikers were crocked, and the other one was Peter Crouch.

Thats off the top of my head. Sure we muddled through a couple of qualifying groups under Sven, most of the time beating teams you'd really expect us to beat. But the minute we met anyone half decent, we'd fold faster than Superman on laundrey day. Has everyone forgotten the abject, RANCID performances from England at the last World Cup ? The pitiful surrender in the 2002 WC ? We were sporadically decent in 2004 till Rooney got crocked, but had hardly progressed or evolved as a team.

I know I'll get slaughtered by the "at least we were there" brigade, but its worth remembering that even under McLaren we were within about 30 seconds of qualifying before disaster struck again. Yes we got there under Sven, but failed time and again at the Finals for the same old reasons. England STAGNATED under Sven, went backwards under McLaren, and that damage will take time to repair.

I was not alone in regularly tearing my hair out with England under Sven, and the revisionist opinions that he was great are quite laughable. He wasted the best crop of players we'd had in years, and we grossly underachieved under him because in five years in charge, he never built or galvanised a TEAM from the resources he had available.

Agree with much of this. I do think though one of the positive things he did was to bring on young players putting to bed that old nonsense about not being ready etc. People forget that but it's been a cultural shift which has been beneficial. But you're right to say that when it really mattered ( Brazil 2002 being the best example) we were clueless under Sven. That's what was so disappointing and again in Germany when the lessons should have been learnt. McLaren was a totally witless and a bungled appointment which predictably ended in tears. So far I've seen little from Cappello to suggest that England will play the game we should: high tempo, attacking football. Personally I would have preferred Hiddink who's philosophy would have suited us very well. But maybe, just maybe, the players will respond to Cappello.

 

[Simon Morgan]

I am far from convinced by Capello so far. His pedigree is fantastic at club level and this alone means he should be given time and respected. In my opinion, he also deserves a HUGE amount of respect for taking up such a hard job. He's obviously getting a pretty penny for his services, but no amount of money makes up for the amount of shit you get as England manager.

The decision to sack Sven and also the baffling decision to announce it before the '06 tournament was over marked the end of our chances of winning the thing. How easy is it to play for a dead man walking? This of course does not excuse the really poor showing that we all had to endure in '06. '04, however, was a different matter for me. I think we really did ourselves proud that year, coming so close against an awesome France team, battering Croatia and once again showing great character and coming close against Portugal. There was, of course, a very abject performance against Switzerland, but we still won 3-0. The emerging talents af Lampard and Rooney provided promise, and the presence of Scholes was also a massive help. I truly believe we were unlucky not to go all the way that year.

Going back even further, the Germany and Argentina results were also fantastic achievements. Especially Argentina, Danny Mills and Trevor Sinclair, anyone?

There is no doubt that Sven's reign was far from perfect. The ludicrous awarding of caps as if they were bus tickets, the refusal to realise Lampard and Gerrard didn't work (although, if they are such good players, they should be able to play together IMO) and some very bad results (Northern Ireland). However, as others have mentioned, we did qualify for tournaments. What is becoming more and more apparent to me is that maybe the players aren't up to it. Scholes leaving the fold was a big blow and the ageing of certain players and loss of form has made them far less energetic and effective eg Lampard, Robinson, Neville, even Gerrard and Rooney IMO. So many of the team play brilliantly well for their clubs, but don't show enough for England. Gerrard doesn't play well enough for England (although, I believe the captaincy would make a difference to his performances), Lampard hasn't played well for England for years, Rooney charges around up front and achieves nothing. Whether it be lack of confidence or not, its simply not good enough. The fact I almost expect us to lose tonight is depressing enough, but what's even worse is the fact I hardly even care anymore.

 

[maffew]

Svens last chance saloon for me was taking Walcott to the World Cup when not prepared to play him, his time was up

 

[Marshy]

Sven - Useless

I cant bring myself to post the reasons why as i a have done it time and time again

Capello is possibly going to be worse...i will reserve judgement just a bit longer.
Tonight will tell us a heck of a lot.

Still say O'Neill, Mourinho, Wenger or Redknapp should have been begged to do it all 4 would have been a much better apointment.

 

[Easy 10]

Still say O'Neill, Mourinho, Wenger or Redknapp should have been begged to do it all 4 would have been a much better apointment.

I really don't think having 4 England managers is the answer.

 

[Marshy]

I really don't think having 4 England managers is the answer.

Perhaps this where we are going wrong...

You could get both O'Neill and Redknapp in for half the money they are paying Capello also.

 

[Mellotron]

Do wish it was Capello.

But even after tonight, give Capello some flipping time.

So far: 1 game, 1 win.

 

[Behind Enemy Lines]

There's no way even the hapless FA would have given / will give Redknapp the job. We all know the rumours and the news journalists, not just the sports guys, would have been all over him from day one. It will never happen. Interesting question though, if the next manager HAD to be British, who would it be? I can only think of one suitable candidate, Martin O'Neill. Other than that who is there?

 

[Mellotron]

Do wish it was Capello.

But even after tonight, give Capello some flipping time.

So far: 1 game, 1 win.

Oops. Should read: I do wish it was O'Neill.