Tom Ross Column: John Terry has done England no good
THE World Cup hopes and dreams of this great nation have come down to 90 minutes against Slovenia today.
Despite being expected to cruise through the group stage England have struggled with two relatively poor performances and, more importantly, they are a troubled camp.
One of the surest things in football is that a great team spirit will not necessarily win anything but a poor team spirit definitely won’t win anything.
I wrote in this column at the time of the Wayne Bridge affair that taking John Terry was a mistake and he should have been dropped.
It was nothing to do with his ability as a player. I was concerned then about team sprit and unity.
I have always defended the right of the manager to pick the team he wants because his neck is on the block if it goes wrong.
However, against Algeria it was crying out for Joe Cole to come on and freshen things up by adding a touch of creativity.
But for Terry to speak about that publicly was wrong. He should have knocked on the manager’s door and told him face to face what he was thinking instead of doing it the cowardly way through the media.
That did not help England’s cause and I believe it has damaged it.
There will be some players who agree with Terry and some who don’t but I bet most will be critical of him undermining Fabio Capello.
Let’s be clear: England’s World Cup destiny is still in their own hands and a win over Slovenia will guarantee them a place in the last 16.
But that would surely only put a plaster on what has become a very public wound.
England are a team with some great functional players but without any real creative ones who can make things happen.
Barry, Gerrard and Lampard are superb functional players and at their clubs play with some great creative players. If you blend the two you end up with a top-class team.
The reality is that England are not good enough to compete with the top countries because we have not had a world-class creative player since Paul Gascoigne.
We have to change the way we play at international level with 4-4-2 outdated. 4-2-3-1 appears to be the way forward at international and European level.
But even without a truly world-class creative midfielder, England have more than enough to get through.
If they don’t it won’t be anything to do with ability but everything to do with a disunited camp.
■ This is my last column until August as I am off on my hols to recharge the batteries to get ready for what promises to be a fantastic new season for us with four of our teams in the Premier League.
