England have not had the best start to the World Cup. Two good performances that ultimately ended in defeat to Italy and Uruguay coupled with good performances and results from Costa Rica have left England eliminated. In previous years after a tournament with results such as these there would be calls from the press and public for the Football Association to change the manager. Roy Hodgson has already announced that he will not be resigning and the FA need to keep the faith and back their manager.
Roy Hodgson’s England are still developing, a host of young players have been taken to this World Cup with players like Raheem Sterling and Ross Barkley gaining valuable experience, in addition to players that Hodgson has incorporated into his squad recently. John Stones, Jon Flanagan, Wilfred Zaha and Andros Townsend have all been capped in the last year and are all 22 or under. Hodgson is ushering the next generation of England players as the last of the so-called golden generation fade out of the squad.
Change is good for this England team, in recent years they have not lived up to their billing as one of the best in the world, and the truth is England have not been. The expectations of the England team have long outweighed the ability of the squad. While during the 2000’s England were a solid quarter-final team the expectation of bringing home the World Cup from the press and public was optimistic at best.
With more teams qualifying for Euro 2016, England and Roy Hodgson have the opportunity to continue the youth movement that has shown signs of promise at this World Cup even if the results have not backed that promise up as yet. A strong European Championships qualifying campaign and decent showing in the finals would give the young England players the experience and confidence to be contenders at Russia 2018 when a lot of these players will be entering the prime of their careers.
The FA need to think carefully before making any hasty decisions when it comes to Roy Hodgson’s future whatever the result against Costa Rica on Tuesday. If the FA do make the decision to part ways with Hodgson, who do you replace him with? Despite the relative successes of Sven Goran Eriksson (3 quarter-finals at 3 major tournaments) and Fabio Capello (highest win percentage of any England manager) due to the intense criticism of their times in charge I believe it will be a while before the FA appoint another foreign manager. This leaves us with the current crop of England managers. 3 English managers completed the Premier League Season this year Alan Pardew at Newcastle who finished 10th Sam Allardyce of West Ham, who finished 13th and Steve Bruce of Hull who finished 16th. Not seasons that inspire the masses to cry out for their appointment as national team boss. None of these managers has ever won a major trophy although all have reached a final. Bruce reached the FA Cup final this year with Hull, likewise Pardew took West Ham to the FA Cup final in 2006 and Allardyce took Bolton to the 2005 League Cup Final. In fact the only two current English managers with major trophies to their name were this year competing in the Championship playoff final. Steve McClaren & Harry Redknapp of Derby and QPR respectively. McClaren won the League Cup with Middlesbrough and the Dutch Eredivisie with FC Twente, and Redknapp won the FA Cup with Portsmouth.
So the FA need to think before they make a rash decision. Roy Hodgson is the best man for the job at the moment and is doing the job well despite elimination. The FA need to give him the time to finish the job, or be stuck with a repeat of the Steve McClaren era where a man not up to the job is put in charge for lack of another option.
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Main Photo by Michael Regan – The FA/The FA via Getty Images
