West Ham manager the perfect gaffer for the Three Lions

There has already been lots of analysis of why the England team performed so pitifully at this World Cup. Many opinions revolve around the tactics and players, in the face of yet another disappointing tournament for the English national team.

In my opinion, blame does not lie with manager Roy Hodgson, too much. Ultimately, the pool of talent at his disposal does not contain enough quality within its ranks to compete, as we would like England to at major tournaments. We have plenty of decent players, yes, but no top quality match winners, who so often make the difference at this level. And no, Wayne Rooney does not fit into that category anymore.

This World Cup in Brazil has been a particularly poor one for England, but it is hardly an isolated incident. Over European Championships and World Cups over the last 15-20 years, England generally get defeated at some stage by sides that show better technical and tactical ability, and often more desire. It is an endemic problem and not one that I see changing any time soon. There are promising youngsters of course such as Ross Barkley and Raheem Sterling, but whether even they can turn into world-beaters is pretty doubtful.

It would appear to me, then, that a change in approach is highly necessary to entail any chance of England getting anywhere near to winning a major tournament. There usually appears to be an emphasis (often lead by the media) for England to try to emulate the most successful teams in their style of play rather than finding a method of playing that is suited to the type of players that are actually available to us. In other words, there should be an ‘English’ style developed rather than a Spanish or German or whoever the best team in the world is at that moment of time.

So in this tournament, when Hodgson effectively pandered to the media in playing an attacking side filled with youth – where did that get us exactly? On an early flight home after more astute opponents punished our adventure. Like it or not, there were simply not enough goals in the team to justify playing with three forwards and attacking wing backs. And not at any stage using a target man who looks to feed off crosses from wingers when we are unable to break sides down with intricate passes and movement. That would be far too negative of course!

I look at Greece, and the style that they have developed in international football. They recognise their limitations in terms of the quality in their ranks, and that they are unable to outscore many other teams, so therefore adopt defensive tactics, keeping games tight and making sure they do not concede many goals, while looking to score themselves on the break and from set pieces.

In the last 10 years of major international tournaments the Greeks record stands at: winners in Euro 2004, quarter-finalists in Euro 2012, and have now just progressed out of the group stages of the current World Cup 2014, having beaten an Ivory Coast side packed with attacking talent. Bit better than what England have done eh?

The way Chelsea won the Champions League in 2012 was also reminiscent of these sorts of tactics, recognising that the likes of Barcelona and Bayern Munich would otherwise defeat them in an open attacking contest. In addition, a feature of the current World Cup has been the way smaller teams have made themselves difficult to break down when playing better opposition, and have been successful at it – just look at how close Iran came to defeating Argentina, for example, or Chile defeating Spain.

Surely it is about time as a nation we all accept England are no longer a huge force in the international game, and that there are too many teams better than us playing in an expansive way – at least until a new ‘golden generation’ of players comes along. Such an admission may hurt the pride of England supporters, but ultimately, it comes down to what you prefer – being the plucky losers every time, or giving yourselves a genuine chance of beating technically better opponents. If England could win a major tournament playing the way the Greeks did in 2004, it would not bother me in the slightest.

And which better English manager is out there than the man once considered for the job in Sam Allardyce to produce this type of football? He has shown over many years whilst managing Bolton Wanderers, Blackburn Rovers and West Ham that he is peerless in producing strong, physical teams, that are well drilled and organised, and are capable of punching above their weight. He is also capable of getting his sides playing more attacking football when necessary, and this sort of approach could be just what England require at this moment of time, utilising the (relatively) limited pool of talent currently available to its strengths.

His appointment wouldn’t be popular by any means, but I’m pretty sure he’d at least make the bigger sides in international football start fearing to play England once again.