Nick Miller weighs up whether beleaguered England coach Fabio Capello should stay or go.
We take a look at all the evidence and come up with five reasons Fabio Capello should stay and five reasons why he should get the boot. Is he too stubborn and outdated for international football?
In the aftermath of a World Cup campaign best forgot, Nick Miller weighs up whether Fabio Capello should stay or go. Is it up to the players to take responsibility for badly underperforming in South Africa or is the Italian tactician too stubborn and outdated for international football?
Five Reasons Capello Should Stay...
* This has been said a number of times before, but if a man with as glittering a managerial career as Capello's cannot get England winning, probably nobody can. Capello can only work with the talent that he has available, and if that talent suffers the sort of collective freeze and bottle deficiency that we saw from England in South Africa, he can hardly be blamed. It is not Capello's fault that we as a nation have bred generation after generation of players that can't retain possession. In short, this was the fault of underperforming players, not the manager.
* Qualifying. Capello took a side in a state - shot confidence, no cohesion, reeling from the failure to make Euro 2008 - and dragged them to top of their qualifying group, and top scorers in Europe. Qualification may be the bare minimum expected of an England side, but it was achieved so emphatically this time that some faith must be retained in the Italian.
* While some have found Capello's stubbornness in refusing to do the bidding of the press/supporters/players frustrating, that sort of single-mindedness is essential for an England manager. With a nation of people all holding their own opinion, and many in that nation under the impression that they could do a better job than whoever is in situ, to listen to advice from outside would turn the coach into a raving schizophrenic. Capello will not be persuaded that the voice of the people should be followed - something we should all be grateful for.
* Support from the players has been unanimous and unstinting. This support wasn't in evidence during the Steve McClaren reign or in the latter days of the Sven-Goran Eriksson era, suggesting that the players at least believe the Italian is the right man for the job. Even those players left behind have been conspicuous by their silence. The only exception - Sol Campbell - has never worked with Capello.
* Anyone care to suggest a replacement? The 'rip it up and start again' approach has been the default position of the knee-jerkers after every England failure in recent years, and look where it has got the England side. Why should we think that someone else will do a better job? There's no point in sacking someone just for the sake of it, is there?
And Five Reasons Capello Should Go...
* Is he a tactical dinosaur? Capello has stuck to the 4-4-2 (or slight variant of) that has served him well for his entire career, more often than not with the big man/little man combo up front. However, it's a system that is rarely used at the top level anymore. Manchester United occasionally use it, Spurs qualified for the Champions League with it, Bayern Munich play a variant of it, but other than that, it's becoming out-moded.
This is not to say England should simply go with the prevailing tactical fashion because everyone else is doing it, but the most successful teams at the World Cup deploy formations that are designed to dominate midfield and retain possession. Even allowing for deficient players, England were too often overrun in South Africa, and this has to change.
* He's had the team for two-and-a-half years. Sure, it's different to a club when a coach has his players on a daily basis, and can mould them and shape them into his own image, but this is the same for any international coach. Has he not had enough time to turn England into at least an efficient outfit that can at least frustrate teams, and then break them down.
* A handy riposte to the 'He's won wherever else he's managed' is to suggest that Capello is simply not suited to international management. For example, his disciplinarian ways are all well and good, but they are only useful if a coach successfully creates a strict culture, where his ways become second nature to the players. With international football, he can be as strict as he likes, but the players know that in a few days they will be back with their clubs, and quite possibly to a more lax regime.
Therefore, the Capello-approved behaviour is forgotten and he has to start all over again in a few weeks'/months' time. Not a recipe for his type of success. Also, the turnover of international players is much greater than with a club - he can choose from a much greater pool of talent for each game than a club manager, and will therefore have to shape new players into his own image with every squad named.
* The minimum requirement from any manager is to get the best out of the players at your disposal. Although you could argue that only Wayne Rooney can be blamed for Wayne Rooney being so bad, and only John Terry knows why he suffered from brainfade against Germany, Capello has failed in this very basic requirement. Quite simply, too many players performed below their potential. Whether you blame tactics or poor man-management, the buck stops with the manager. That's how it works at club level, after all.
* He promised to pick on form, not on reputation, and he hasn't done that. A simple promise broken.
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