Morning, all. I’m just walking through Berlin. It’s 48 hours now to my next match, and that’s England against Slovenia on Tuesday night. I was just thinking back over the last two games and watching the England team sort of maybe get a goal in front and then sit back at the edge of their own box and go up and, you know, deeper, quite passive. And everybody’s commented on it and maybe questions have been asked like, you know, the players been asked to do that, you know, as Gareth instructed them to do that. About the players taking it upon themselves to do that and the answer to both questions is absolutely not. And the reason I know that is that I had a lot of experience of it, playing for England and coaching with England. And I’ll take you back to my first tournament.
Terry Venables, the best England coach that I ever played with by a mile. I played as a traditional right back in the first game in the back four. In the second game, I played against Scotland and I played as right of a back three, but I was able to move forward when we were on the ball into that right channel in the third game against Holland. If you look at my position when the goalkeepers got the ball, you’ll see me way out. A shot. I’m on the right wing, high up the pitch. Then in the fourth game against Spain in the court final, I didn’t play in the semi finalist, Germany. I was suspended. I’d got two bookings. I played as a right wing back in a back five. So in four games, I had four different positions when we were on the ball.
And Terry Venables, he had different ideas, solutions her, a collection of thoughts about how we played out from the back against different teams, whether they played with two upfront, whether they played with one upfront and one off. They obviously coached at Barcelona, coached at an incredibly high level internationally and was a brilliant, innovative coach that knew that the importance of controlling a football match was absolutely critical. And that you have to give his players a series of ideas about how to actually play out from the back.
And then after that, when I went into the other tournaments moving forward, I found myself in this team that would go in front, that would have a burst of energy maybe in parts of games, but predominantly would sag back towards the edge of their own box. You know, these were teams that had, you know, Soul Campbell in and John Terry, Rio Ferdinand, Ashley Cole, David Beckham, Steven Gerard, Lampard Cole, Joe Cole, Paul Scholes, Wayne Rooney, my Chloe, and great players. So there were players that played on the back foot. There were players that played for clubs that sort of didn’t go forward or control football matches.
And we send your polls back at the edge of our own box, we always end up defending deep and we always end up out of possession, probably 65,35 against. And I could never quite work it out how it happened. Our coach never told us to, whoever the coaches were never told us to sit back. The players in the dressing room never once said, come, lads, let’s get in front and sit back, or let’s go out there and play deep and try and counterattack. That’s not how we played, but it just happens. And it happens because of one thing, and that’s because the players haven’t got a series of drills that have been worked on repetitively that enable them to know how to get out against different types of presses. You may add to that slightly, player type and technical ability of players, but I believe we’ve always had that. And in this next 48 hours, that’s the one thing that has to change. And it’s the one thing that brings me to the conclusion that it doesn’t end well if we carry on like this. And the very best teams that I ever played in, whether before club and country, were able to go in front, keep the ball in the attacking half. It’s very difficult thing to do, but the best teams do it. You would like to see on Tuesday against Slovenia maybe a slight tactical tweak, maybe a couple of player changes so that we can build some sort of what would be performance ahead of the second round game, which then maybe can take us into the tournament and we can grow into this tournament because there’s no doubt we’re in a really good position from the games that we’ve had so far. We’re not in the hardest of groups, but there are some alarm bells there and some questions that need answering. And if you don’t get answered, it will cause a problem. I’ve seen it before. We’ve all seen it before. That’s my thought.
Said Tuesday. I’m wishing the lads all the very best. They built up a lot of favor and credibility in this last few years. There were a good bunch of ads. We’ve got a fantastic manager, who, he’s done a great job and surpassed all expectations that we have, would have imagined from him. But this is probably one of his toughest tests. You know, this would be a great fitting moment for them to go and sort of start slowly in the tournament, everyone groaning a little bit. But kick on and sort of just find those ideas and solutions that are needed to be able to get us to the point whereby we get confident again because those players are just naturally, by their nature, very confident young lads and have done well for England.