My ideal England midfield
With the recent friendlies against Ireland and Brazil now gone, we as a footballing nation are far off the pace set by the other top nations, and I think one factor is our midfield, here’s my opinion on it.
Firstly, I realise our midfield is one of an entire catalogue of things wrong with England, but we’ve got to start somewhere right? Ideally, the formation England are being deployed under is ancient compared to other teams, such as our 4-4-2 against Ireland. Now they’re not a top international team by a long shot and they’re notorious for being defensive so having two midfielders seems redundant to me, they’re not going to be a possession based team so I understand the concept of having another body in the midfield to press high, but what’s the point? You lose a more attacking formation, thus making it harder to break teams down. As Roy boasted after the game about our passes made, 500 of them in fact, it left me with a bitter taste. I’m not sure if that’s everyone’s general consensus of the formation and the performance, but who cares about our ball retention when we can’t beat Ireland.
Thankfully, we emerged from the dark ages for a while, for 45 minutes in fact against Brazil and set up with three in midfield, and if we played like we did in the 2nd half consistently, we may be able to get our hopes up for next year! Is could be a lack of personnel which constricts us to a 4-4-2 formation being played at the moment, though. With the likes of Jack Wilshere injured, and a seeming lack of International quality central midfielders not emerging as hopes for the future, much like the England U21’s tournament exit this weekend, I think the nation has just become a team of losers. Also, with the aging midfield fizzling out, things could be gloomy for England’s midfield in the coming years with only Jack Wilshere and possibly Tom Cleverly of United being the more senior “prospects” in my eyes. A solid midfield needs 3 different key roles; you need a screener, who would be Michael Carrick in my eyes in the current squad. A shuttler to break up play and drive forward if needed, so to shuttle between defence and attack, Jack Wilshere when fit & lastly, a playmaker to play at the top of the triangle in the midfield 3 when in possession, so Lampard for me over Gerrard who tends to think he can do everything himself. The midfield could be good for the next World Cup but beyond that, I don’t think Lampard and co. will be playing at their peak and leave England lacking serious bodies and talent in midfield. Let’s see what happens, shall we?
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