The national team keeps reminding me more and more of Arsenal everytime I watch them play;
- Trying to play a system without the required personnel for each specific role,
- Having great spells of possession but doing absolutely nothing with it,
- Trying to 'walk' the ball into the net, by playing 'beautiful football',
- Opposition teams easily working us out tactically,
- Opposition teams carving up our defense time and time again,
- Reluctance from the manager and coaching staff to have at least a couple of gameplans/tactics/formations,
- Persisting with the same line-ups/squad, without really looking to do something different or unexpected,
- Young players through the academy/s not showing enough potential as a whole, and the ones who do have the required potential don't get chances to show their capabilities,
- Severe problems from the board/governing body,
- Perpetually leaving fans scratching their heads at what is going on.
Now, by no means am I saying this is all doom and gloom, because I believe 100% in the lads to do it the hard way and make the World Cup; but things need to change. We've regressed as a nation in the last 12 months or so, for a number of reasons. I don't think the player quality is the main reason, this group won an Asian Cup and performed exceptionally at the last World Cup, and most of the squad are playing well at club level. It says to me (and we all know it) there is an issue with the tactical side of things.
I'm a fan of Ange, I still think he is a good coach, but surely he can see that this isn't working at the moment. Forcing any sporting team to be something they aren't will very rarely end well.
Okay he gave something a try, but it hasn't worked; so we have to go back to what we know does work and start again from there.
We're still growing as a footballing nation, I understand that full-well; but this current funk we are in needs to be remedied or more of our local rivals will pass us by