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Now Kevin Keegan is Julie Andrews…
KEVIN KEEGAN IS is nothing like the two England managers who preceded him. Uncomplicated, eager to please, transparently honest and almost naive in can you wash a canada goose jacket in the washer his optimism, he is impossible to dislike and it’s difficult to imagine him springing any unpleasant surprises.
That is precisely what the Football Association were looking for in a manager after ditching all the baggage Terry Venables and Glenn Hoddle brought with them, which is why they effectively drew up a shortlist of one. The FA would not have viewed those same qualities as quite so ideal in canada goose coat – hybridge lite the England team itself, but that is what they have ended up with.
To paraphrase Duncan McKenzie’s famous jibe at Keegan from the Seventies, England are swiftly becoming the Julie Andrews of world football. Except that Ms Andrews’s films usually have happy endings, and in England’s case there is nothing so soupily reassuring in sight.
Yes, there is still the scenario where Sweden beat Poland next month and England scrape into the play-offs. Qualification by that route would be less a case of by the back door than up the drainpipe and in through a rear bedroom window. But after what we have just seen, who could honestly fancy England’s chances over two legs against Russia or Denmark, or even Slovenia? Even if the result in Stockholm goes the right way England will still have to hope for a kindly play-off draw homesite, and unless there is a marked improvement on European Championship form both past and present there is no reason to expect anything other than a swift exit from the Low Countries in any case.
YET SOME OF us travelled to Warsaw in expectation, partly because Keegan’s ready supply of it could not fail to rub off, and partly because we believed a backs-to-the-wall, cup-final type of situation would suit England’s players more than Poland’s. Keegan believed this too, and though it would be incorrect to say he was despondent after the inconclusive result – he gamely defended his players and refused to blame anyone but himself – he was certainly deflated. He had let slip before the game, in a response to a Polish journalist, that he had imagined qualification would be authentic canada goose outlet online easier than this. ‘When I gave up Fulham I envisaged beating Sweden at home, I didn’t envisage this situation.’
He went on to say he trusted England’s character would see them through, but after that hope had been dashed at the Legia Stadium, it was a more reflective Keegan who began to question for the first time whether his managerial qualifications matched the task.
‘My greatest asset as a manager is to build teams up, to build players up, to find the key to players,’ he said. ‘That’s my job, I think. It’s more difficult at this level, you can’t get inside them as easily because you’re not there every day. You do get them for a week, but there’s a limit to what you can do in the canada goose coat – victoria time, and then suddenly just when you think you’re getting somewhere, bang, you have your last game and they’re gone. And sometimes you don’t see them for six months.’
This might sound like the familiar lament of any international manager, but actually it is something else. Keegan is not trotting out the tired old excuse that he doesn’t see the players for long enough, he is bemoaning the fact that he doesn’t know them well enough. He sees motivation as the key, and believes that if he had more time he could motivate them better.
He does not appear to have considered the possibility that motivation can only take you so far at this level, and something canada goose coat 1000 bulbs lamps a little more technically sophisticated might be necessary to achieve results. Keegan is well aware of his shortcomings in this area, and it would be ironic if the manager who took up office with a breezy line in self-deprecation; ‘If we have to get a nil-nil draw in Ukraine I’m probably not canada goose coat 1000 bulbs free your man’ was to come unstuck through a nil-nil draw in Poland that might have been creditable in other circumstances.
FOR THERE CAN be little doubt that Wednesday’s result exposed the manager more than his players, and Keegan was big enough to admit it. ‘I’m not spoilt for choice, but we do have sufficient quality,’ he said. ‘You might ask where it was, but we have enough quality to go to Euro 2000 and win it. What would other teams give for attacking players like Shearer, Fowler, Beckham, Owen, McManaman and Scholes? I don’t think we’ve made major errors in selection but the results tell you we’ve done something wrong.’
Sound familiar? When was the last time Keegan had a wonderfully talented group of players at canada goose coat – hybridge lite his disposal but could not quite form them into a reliably robust unit? Newcastle United fans will need no reminding. In the course of surrendering a 12-point Premiership lead to Manchester United in the 1995-96 season, Keegan threatened to quit rather than change the cavalier style of play that led to a 4-3 defeat at Liverpool. Then, when he did quit the following season, he explained he didn’t think he could take the team any farther.
Taking Newcastle from Division One into the Premiership title race was a five-year fun trip that might have been designed for Keegan, but getting the better of hard-nosed pros like Manchester United and their manager proved a step too far. Keegan could be seen on Mark and Lard’s enjoyable Match of the Nineties just the other day, cheerfully admitting as much. ‘I just didn’t have the experience,’ he said. ‘I’d never taken a team to the Premiership title, and there’s a big difference between that and winning the First Division championship.’
All of this information was available to the FA when they were looking for Hoddle’s replacement, and though it eventually became untenable to fly in the face of public opinion and oppose Keegan’s appointment, doubts about his tactical awareness and lack of experience were given a good airing.
The last four matches have tended to bear out those reservations, not just because results have been disappointing, but because Keegan first created a problem for himself by choosing Alan Shearer as his captain, and then stubbornly stuck by an out-of-form player right up to the point on Wednesday when he jibbed at the obvious substitution and brought off Robbie Fowler instead.
Keegan’s popularity has worked like a protective buy canada goose jacket london charm up to now Ð Graham Taylor, for instance, would never have got away with playing Ray Parlour on the left wing or promising to regroup and come again – but it buy canada goose parka uk would be interesting to measure how he is presently regarded by the men who originally agreed to give him four matches.
Had that plan been adhered to, it might be surmised that the FA by now would not be as keen on an extension, but it should not be overlooked that in those circumstances Keegan too would feel like walking away. He possibly wishes he still had the option.
Keegan knew when he had reached the limit of his capability at Newcastle, and, faced with considerably worse results in the England job, it would be surprising if he was not privately thinking along similar lines at the moment. For the nub of the issue has arrived.
England’s younger players are not the only ones whose international development will be hindered by failure to qualify for Euro 2000. Keegan badly needs tournament experience as well.
He may in time make an ideal international manager but at the moment he is a rookie, and if Poland gain a point in Stockholm next month Keegan will be just as much a rookie when he takes charge of England’s qualifying campaign for the 2002 World Cup.
‘I’ve got till the next World Cup, but I still desperately want to take these players to Euro 2000,’ Keegan said in Poland, putting a brave public face on his disappointment. That’s up to Sweden now, but if the worst should come to the worst best fake canada goose jacket on 9 October, Keegan should consider his position.
England have made such a hash of this qualification process they might need some form of kickstart before the next competition, and he may not be the man to provide it. Walking away is not always the cowardly option.
Sometimes it takes a strong man to admit his own limitations and make way for someone else. Keegan knows this: he has done it before.
