Last Updated: Tuesday 08 June 1999 14:05
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| Features > The Patrick Barclay Column |
'Did Hoddle Get It Right After All?'
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AS ENGLAND prepared to revive their European Championship qualifying quest, the feeling grew that Kevin Keegan would play three at the back against Bulgaria tonight. In other words, revert to the basic formation used by the reviled Glenn Hoddle.
To those of us who admired Hoddle's methods, however we might have despaired of his public relations, this would be a case of better now than never. But it would also raise the question of why England needed to change horses in what has turned out to be a perilous midstream.
The switch from 3-5-2 to 4-4-2 took place as soon as Hoddle had gone. Howard Wilkinson, in his sole match in charge, went back to the traditional English system and, though France won by a street at Wembley, it was maintained by Keegan for the Paul Scholes-inspired victory over Poland and the rather less heartening draws with Hungary and Sweden.
Now, no-one would suggest that the dismantling of Hoddle's system was wholly responsible for Saturday's nadir. But the manifest lack of service from the flanks did emphasise that England are currently short of the appropriate players to operate 4-4-2 effectively. In a nutshell, the poverty of left-sided midfielders made Hoddle's reliance on wing-backs the sensible option.
With due deference to the experience of Wilkinson, our national director of coaching, I feel that he blundered in trying to mend a system that wasn't broken - and that Keegan ought to have recognised this. The irony is that, when Hoddle was ousted, Wilko and the FA talked a great deal about "continuity". It has become an empty buzzword.
There is an irony, too, in the success of the Under-21s supervised by Peter Taylor, the last serious vestige of the Hoddle regime. He is being cast into exile just as Keegan nods towards the error of England's ways. Yet out goes the baby with the bath water. When will we ever learn? |
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