Another England Post Mortem

After every England tournament defeat the same list of excuses and reasons for failure are brought out, but are they all still relevant?

Talent Pool

Sturridge, Barkley, Shaw should be around for years to come

Having more English players in  the PL would certainly help the national team but no-one can deny that the first team posses quality. With Daniel Sturridge, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Raheem Sterling, Ross Barkley and Luke Shaw, England possess a myriad of young talent.

Stagnation

 It is also to the detriment of the national talent pool that players like Scott Sinclair, Jack Rodwell, Wilfred Zaha and Jack Butland have all chosen to sit on the bench of a big club rather than continuing their development by playing regular football.

Recall the old guard

 After the 2010 and 2012 tournaments there were many calls for the 'golden generation' of Rio Ferdinand, John Terry, Frank Lampard and Ashley Cole to be dropped so a new team could be built. Yet after defeat this time there were many claiming Terry and Cole would have been better choices. You can't have it both ways, Cole was dropped by his club and Terry's off the field issues would have been an unwelcome presence in the squad. Losing can be a vital experience for improvement and we don't need to crucify players for the sake of it.

Coaching/The grassroots game/Not enough English players

All three of these are situations that could be vastly improved and discussion and developments in these areas will no doubt help English football in the future. However these problems are vastly overstated and probably don't affect the national team as much as is made out.

For example the English system is almost certainly better than those in Algeria, Costa Rica, Greece, Chile, Nigeria and the USA, all teams who have just qualified for the last 16 of the World Cup. And surely those teams would at least pick 7 or 8 of the England XI over their own if they could.

The Premier League is king

 The argument that fans and players care more about club allegiances certainly has weight. There is an apathy towards none-tournament games from many fans and we've seen players like Daniel Sturridge and Steven Gerrard pull out of friendlies before citing 'niggles' but most likely as an excuse to stay fresh for their clubs. With the excitement of the PL and it global appeal England games don't seem as important as domestic action. Fans from smaller countries see their national team's games as their chance to shine on the big stage and watch a high level of football whereas the opposite could be seen in England.

Negativity

Travelling fans stay positive

I don't know when it became cool to criticise England but sadly many fans only want to be negative. And our journalists and newspapers seem relish failure so the can write scathing attacks. It's a sad state of affairs that we can't unanimously back our country before a tournament and the fear of humiliation in the national press after a defeat definitely puts pressure on the players.

At the World Cup the power of good-will and support from fans of Chile, Argentina, USA is quite evident and the positivity is certainly felt by the players as shown in their celebrations and post-match quotes.

  

Technical Ability

This criticism that English players lack technical ability is brought out after every England defeat, mostly by people who don't understand football. Every single one of these players has played football since a very young age, and they all play in the most skilful league in the world. If the England players were technically deficient they wouldn't be playing for Man Utd, Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool.

Club Form

 Which brings me onto the point which I believe is the million dollar question. Why are England players so capable of brilliance for their clubs but not for England?

If you look at England's starting line-up against Italy only Welbeck and Hart had come of the back of poor seasons for their clubs. Lambert, Cahill, Sturridge, Gerrard and Sterling in particular had excellent campaigns for their clubs but were unable to bring that form into the tournament.

There is no obvious answer to this, most agreed with Hodgson's tactics and team selection and the spirit of the group and preparations seemed to be good.

Finding an answer to this question may be the key to unlocking England's potential.