A reflection on England..

Lizo Johnson gives The Football Front his thoughts on England's recent form

A lot of people have jumped on the bandwagon that England have started poorly in their World Cup
qualifying campaign. I think its been alright. Not, in my opinion, anywhere near as bad as the British
media have been making out, but at the same time it’s hardly been an explosive start. The win at
Moldova was an early peak. It promised too much. Raised the expectation of fans, which was
already through the roof, to heights England could never have reached. An early goal set England
up for a demolition that was put into perspective by Ukraine’s 1-1 draw there a couple of weeks
back. This coupled with the friendly win over Italy set England up for the fall. Inconsistency has
been our Achilles heel for a while now, and it came back to haunt us at Wembley with Ukraine the
visitors. Ukraine aren’t a bad side, but especially at home England should be chewing up sides like
them and spitting them out. Instead we witnessed a very average performance and England were
eventually held to a 1-1 draw at home by a side ranked 42nd in the world. Whilst I don’t particularly
agree with many of the rankings (Portugal are currently ranked 3rd) I do feel that it is close to being
representative of the gap in quality between England and Ukraine. It was three points we should’ve
taken but didn’t, yet that point could be vital when it comes to the final reckoning.

Next up were San Marino. Lets be honest, they’re a bit of a joke. I’m genuinely surprised the
players can motivate themselves to go out and play a game of football when they haven’t scored an
international goal since 2008. Since then they’ve lost 10-0 (Poland) 7-0 (Slovakia and Czech Republic)
8-0 (Hungary and Finland) and the standout thrashing, 11-0 (Holland). Had England not beaten
San Marino it would have been an embarrassment of the biggest proportions imaginable but they
still had to go out and get a result, which they did. But then came worst performance of England’s
qualifying so far: a 1-1 draw away to Poland. However, let’s not get it confused, it was a poor almost
chanceless display from Hodgson’s men. But we must take heart from the fact that England got
a point when they didn’t really deserve one. A win for Poland would not have flattered them, yet
England ended up with a point towards their total.

We’re actually a lot better at getting results than we like to think, regardless of the performance.
We’ve won nine out of our last 13 matches, but every post match report seems to be filled with
pessimism. Do journalists not realise what is going on? Its a vicious circle, as Gary Neville eluded to
not so long ago: England players are lacking confidence because they’re scared of how they’ll look
in the public eye if they make a mistake. Players without confidence struggle to play well, its not
rocket science. Yet they are then continually slaughtered in newspapers after average matches. But
then everyone loves to brand England as ‘boring’ and ‘disappointing’, for some reason its infectious.
Everyone puts on a tone of mock surprise when England bring out a top performance. We love to
set the bar a bit higher than England are likely to be able to reach. It’s not that the media don’t want
England to do well, journalists just seem to encourage negative opinions of them too often, and
we wallow in it. Almost enjoy it. It’s almost as if so many journalists have taken the same approach
when writing on England that for the next it’s just easiest to take the same. Our attitude to England
is to always look for and exaggerate the negatives, something that’s only going to put more pressure
on players to succeed, its counterproductive. Players begin to feel like if they’re not on an eight out
of ten they’re going to be slaughtered in the press. This is proven every two years at international
competition; where England never seem to quite reach the expectation of fans. We’ve been there or
there abouts for at least ten years (Euro 2008 aside), but whenever it comes down to the business
end of the competition we fall and end up not seriously competing for the trophy.

This isn’t to say I think people shouldn’t discuss England’s performance if it is genuinely poor, I’m not
saying that they should be invincible from any criticism. But it seems that fans perception of what
constitutes a poor performance is altered once the international break comes around. If Manchester
United play a match against a team like Stoke, play poorly yet still manage to claim a point then they
are heralded champions because of their ability to produce points from unlikely situations. Yet when
you put England in the same position, the same fans have a completely different opinion.

The reality is England are top of their group, which is where they should be, and that’s where they
should finish. They have too much quality in their ranks to not finish there. But at the moment
they’re where they always are, apparently doing just a bit less than what is expected of them.

This article was written by Lizo Johnson. You can follow on Twitter: @LizoJohnson

Everton emerge from the Red Shadow

In his debut article for The Football Front, Lizo Johnson explains why Everton could finish higher than Liverpool for the second season in a row.  

As I write this Everton sit 3^rd in the premier league, and their great Merseyside rivals Liverpool currently lie in 18^th. Historically Liverpool has always been the number one club on Merseyside. The most successful club in English history. Everton have always lived in the shadow of their close neighbours and rivals. They have always seen as the underdogs in the derbies and never really given a chance. But this year it could be different. I’ve seen Everton’s last two games and both times I have been thoroughly impressed. Players playing under David Moyes have always had high work rates and high levels of self belief, but Everton’s team this year has something else. 

Goals.

During his 10 year tenor as Everton boss his team have been famed for their 1-0 wins, built on strong defences. Set pieces whipped in towards the aerial assassin Tim Cahill were the order of the day. That’s not to say Everton don’t still have that strong defence, with Hibbert Jagielka Distin and Baines remaining constant for several years now, but these days Everton step out onto the field every week without any thought of a draw in mind.

We saw the beginnings of it last season with the excellent signing of Nikica Jelavic. At £5.5m he has turned out to be an absolute steal, smashing in 9 goals in 10 games towards the back end of last season. They drew 4-4 at Old Trafford, a truly spectacular and deserved score line. In previous years Everton had gone to teams above them in the league in the hope of a draw, sitting back and relying on counter attacks and set pieces. Not in 2012, they went for it and played some fabulous football, and came back from 4-2 down with 7 minutes to go to claim a point. 

Just last week we saw evidence of Everton’s new found attacking prowess. In their last 2 games Everton have smashed in 5 goals from a variety of sources. Against Newcastle the combination play was exceptional, especially down the left between Pienaar and Baines, two players that know each other’s games inside out. They cut through Newcastle at will and were extremely unlucky to only collect a point having dominated the game and had two goals unfairly ruled out. The early kickoff against Swansea was seen to be a real test for Everton. Last season very few teams went to the Liberty and took the points. Everton pressed high got the early goal and took it from there. Swansea’s usually dominant passing was nowhere to be seen with Everton even taking the lion’s share of the possession statistics with 56%. When Mikel Arteta left Everton it was a devastating blow. Many thought that Everton’s midfield would struggle to recover. But like many teams once the main man had left Everton just grew tighter as a group, and their midfield were imperious on Saturday.
 

One thing Arteta definitely never had in front of him was a clinical finisher. This season Everton have that player. The aforementioned Nikica Jelavic is there to tuck away the chances created by the likes of Pienaar and Baines. Now, Leighton Baines. As much as he’s highly rated across the country, I still feel that people do not fully understand the ability of the man. For me, he is among the best left backs in the world. The only reason he is not internationally respected is that he is not at a club that gets enough coverage across the world. That is not to say I think he needs to move, because he is so settled at Everton, but he could walk into any team in the premier league bar Chelsea. Its’ up to him. To illustrate prove my point, so far this season he has been the most creative player in the premier league, creating 24 chances this season and averaging a chance created every 18.75 minutes. He has created more chances for his side from left back than players like Santi Cazorla (20) and David Silva (14) have from much further up the field. This is why I feel that his importance to Everton cannot be overstated.

To give a recent example of the attacking capabilities of Pienaar and Baines, against Newcastle they had the highest number of penalty area entries of anyone in both sides (5 and 6 respectively). The two even combined for the first goal, with Pienaar playing through Baines who fired home. In the second half Everton had two goals wrongly disallowed, with one player I have yet to mention instrumental in them both. Marouane Fellaini. When Everton paid £16m him, many a head was turned. Not only because he was a young, unproven player, but also because up until that point Everton had always been very shrewd with their transfer business. They only paid what they believed players to be were worth. And there were very few people at the time who believed he would be worth £16m. Four years later, and what then seemed a strange signing has proved a master stroke. The big Belgian has impressed everyone since the moment he stepped into Goodison. He arrived. It’s another classic David Moyes player really. Hard working and fully committed on the pitch, but off the pitch you never hear a sniff of late nights on the town or training ground bust ups. No. He keeps his head down and keeps working. Or at least he did until last week. Fellaini apparently told a Belgian newspaper that he was ready to leave Everton at the next opportunity. This broke the code. David Moyes and Fellaini himself have been quick to quash the exit rumours, but we will see how it develops. One thing’s for sure though, if he continues this season in the same vein that he’s started it in, this will be his best season yet. 

Fellaini embodies David Moyes’ Everton machine. Hard working, relatively unknown player signed for what proved to be brilliant business. That is a sentence that could be attributed to the vast majority of Everton’s signings in the last 6 years. So I was surprised when I heard that Everton had signed Kevin Mirallas, a player who has earned the nickname ‘the Belgian Ronaldo’. It didn’t fit, he appeared to be a flashy goal-scoring player who, with the nickname he has, I presumed would rarely return from the oppositions half. I presumed wrong. Whilst his goal-record is undoubtedly impressive, another thing I’ve noticed about Mirallas is that he doesn’t forget his defensive duties. It’s true that very occasionally you see him attempting a few moves for the next YouTube compilation but that won’t concern David Moyes. What is most important for Everton is that he seems right at home in his new surroundings. Three games, three excellent performances and the future look bright for him at Everton. 

Everton’s next three premier league games are at home to Southampton and away to Wigan and QPR, and on current form you cannot see them dropping many points in those. And after that it’s the big one, Liverpool. Everton are no longer a side to be overlooked. They can and it looks like they probably will beat their neighbours in that fixture. And I think they will beat them again in the overall table come next May. Yet despite all this, I still see two major hurdles for Everton. Firstly, injuries. They have an outstanding first eleven but when you look past that it gets less impressive. If Everton’s main men get injured it could spell disaster. The likes of Baines Fellaini and Jelavic simply must stay fit if Everton are to have a successful season. The only other hurdle I can see for Everton is consistency, something they’ve always had a problem with. But get some momentum going, and ride some luck with injuries, then Everton can be as good as they want to be. It’s a long season and a good start means nothing if you cannot sustain it (I’m sure Wolves fans will testify to this), but we will see. 

This article was written by Lizo Johnson. You can follow on Twitter: @LizoJohnson