Odds and Sods

And thank the good lord!

England came our roaring in the 2nd half of today’s match.  Motivated by a subpar 1st half, the brave boys led by Capt. John came out of the lockerroom with a chip on their shoulders.  Lt. Steven G MBE poured in 2 second half strikes.  Young David Nugent capped it off at the end with a third.  England came out of hostile territory 3-0 victors and earning a vital 3 pts to aid their faltering EURO 2008 qualification campaign.

One problem, THEY WERE PLAYING ANDORRA!!!

Ah, mighty Andorra!  The ski resort with a population of 71,000 is ranked 163rd in the FIFA rankings, tied with the Solomon Islands.  Though those ratings are surely inaccurate (the USA was ranked 5th going into the last World Cup and Italy was ranked 13th), surely there is enough of a difference between 6th (England) and 163rd that this match should have been a laugher.

Andorra fielded a side that featured one full-time professional, who plays for a Spanish 2nd division club.  It also featured a couple shopkeepers, a ski instructor, and an insurance salesman.  The nation did not even have a suitable football stadium to accomodate the English fans, and the match had to be moved to Barcelona.

Yes, that is right.  The England national team, with highly priced stars playing for such great clubs as Chelsea, Manchester Utd., Liverpool, and Bayern Munich struggled to defeat a club that would struggle to defeat a non-league club.  The putrid performance was lambasted by the fans who serenaded the squads with chants of “You’re not fit to wear the shirt” and “There’s only one David Beckham.”

We here at Odds and Sods railed against those too quick to fire off sweet rounds of vitriolic critiques at McClaren.  We fought mightily to hold back our rage, hoping that it would dissipate as time passed.  It only got worse.

He is, quite simply, incompetent.  As the international manager he is charged with 4 basic tasks.  He needs to (1) choose the right tactics and starting XI (2) adjust as needed during the match and (3) not piss anyone off.  He merely has to do these three things.  He doesn’t have to sign players.  He doesn’t have to train them.  He has an average of about 1-2 months between meaningful matches to prepare.  Compared to most managers, he doesn’t really have that tough of a job.

In his brief tenure, he has made it plainly clear that he is completely incompetent at doing any of these.

A ten year old with a solid 20 min of Championship Manager experience would realize that one should play players in their natural positions.  He/she would probably consider playing consider playing at least one natural left-sided player in the squad, and might realize that after 3+ years of not working well together Lampard and Gerrard just can’t play with each other.

Said ten year old would also be able to handle substitutions as well.  Is it really that hard to, when things aren’t going well, take off the players who play badly and replace them, rather than the two players who were causing the opposing defense any semblance of havoc?  Or is it so radical of a concept to put players on at the 60 minute mark with enough time to actually make a difference?

Would the ten year old berate his players for lack of effort, when his own managerial performance has done nothing to aid them?  Would the ten year old spout meaningless maxims and treat the media and fans with such dishonesty and condescension by trying to fool them through the Bush method of stating something stupid and clearly wrong with conviction?

What exactly is McClaren offering more than John Q. Ten Year Old? Absolutely nothing!

The struggle with Andorra preceded by an abysmal stretch where England managed just one goal in 5 matches, has shattered the fans faith, the players faith, and possibly even Second-Choice Steve’s faith.  While England supporters once dreamed of winning Euro 2008, it will now be an arduous task for them merely to qualify.  To adequately portray how bad things have become, our editorial staff came across an article pushing for Cynical Sam Allardyce to take over for McClaren.  It didn’t sound half bad…