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Boxing Talking Football with…. Robbie Fowler: England will not win the World Cup
During the summer we sat down with the Liverpool legend Robbie Fowler who gave his thoughts on Gareth Southgate and how he and England will do at the 2022 World Cup. During our talk with him, he spoke about his expectations for England at the World Cup, the issues the team has and how they will try to solve them. He also gave his opinion on who the favourites are and we might see a South American team run with the trophy this year according to Fowler.
Robbie Fowler agreed that England underperformed in the Nations League and in the beginning of our talk with him he gave his thoughts on what England should improve prior to the World Cup.
“I think it’s tough now.”
“I think a lot has been said and a lot has been done, certainly the last probably three, four internationals (in the Nations League). I don’t read anything into them.”
“The players have had an unbelievably long season. They’ll never admit this, but they probably didn’t want to be there”
“We as football fans love watching the game. We love going to the game and getting excited about all the players. Various people within the game have said that there are too many games. And all of a sudden we’re playing a lot more international games. So, it sort of contradicts what we’ve been told for the past few years.”
“I think these games, the Nations League games, where England have obviously had the worst result they had for years. I think they’ve been a non-entity.”
“The games have been rubbish, the games have been poor. The players have come to these games on the back of a long, long season.”
“They gotta play these games, then straight back into the preseason and obviously the World Cup is upon us. We as football supporters, we as media, we probably say something really negative about England’s performances, but in all fairness, I think that the players will be absolutely shattered.”
“I don’t think they’ve been looked after this summer and I don’t think that’s a good thing. It’s not just for England, it’s for a lot of national teams. And although someone will win the World Cup, I think the preparation from the governing bodies who run football has not been great, in all fairness.”
“So, we can sit and analyse England, we can say where they went wrong, where they can get better, but England is not a million miles away. I think if you look at the last European Championships and the last World Cup, obviously the semifinals and a final.”
“People have said that they have had relatively easy runs into finals. But you still gotta do it. You can only beat whoever’s in front of you and England has done that.”
“You know, you’d expect them, with all due respect to the other nations, you’d expect them to qualify for as long as I live, for every World Cup, for every European Championships.”
“Let’s be honest, it’s probably getting easier for the so-called better nations to qualify. And I don’t think that it will ever be a problem for England.”
“I think it’s when we get to the latter stages of the tournaments is when we’ll see the England team come into the fruition that we want.”
“And I think it starts by getting the players looked after.”
“It’s fewer games, certainly from a national team point of view.”
“And in terms of performances, I’m not reading anything into how they performed in the last few games because it’s quite brutal and I don’t think that the players wanted to be there. I think they wanted to be on the beach. They got relatively short preseasons, a short turnaround and the season is coming back relatively quickly because it’s been moved forward due to the World Cup.”
Fowler says that there is a big pressure on Gareth Southgate and that all eyes will be on him during the World Cup, but he underlines that the criticism against Southgate is a bit too harsh.
“I think it’s very harsh.”
“In the last couple of tournaments, we’ve been in a semi-final and a final.”
“I can see why people criticise him. People always want the best.”
“When you look at the Italy manager. He won the European Championships and never qualified for this year’s World Cup. I think they (Italian fans) can possibly be a little bit justifiable in terms of ‘oh what’s happened there?’ It’s a really tough turnaround to watch for Italy.”
“England hasn’t been like that. England is going to go to the final (the World Cup). But I think people are maybe getting a little bit too ahead of themselves in terms of the perspective of what we’ve achieved and what we’ve done. Maybe getting a bit carried away with the last few games”
“The players didn’t want to be there and you can see that in performances.”
“I know people will say, ‘well they gotta be professional’, but it happens. It’s like that in any walk of life. There’s gonna be bad days in any business, in any job, that you’re having tough times and England has had a tough summer.“
Fowler said that he doesn’t believe that England will win the World Cup, even though he thinks they will improve from their games in the Nations League.
“I think so, I think if you sit and analyse managers, whether it’s national teams or club teams, the best managers are the ones who are ‘man-managers’.”
“I think technically and tactically, you need to have a little bit about you. But I have no doubt that if you’re a good man-manager that the players can respond to, you can give a little bit more and the players can give you a little bit more.“
“Players don’t want to be around robots all the time. They don’t want to be robots themselves. They need a little bit of a relaxed atmosphere.”
“I think that when everyone goes to the England camp, and I’m not just saying it’s England, this could be any nation, you have to have some sort of a relaxed atmosphere that will bring out the best.”
“Everything’s robotic and has stalled, and you can see that in performances. You look at the last few games, England has been playing okay, but I think we tend to think, ‘f*** it, you’re only good as your last game’. We tend to think, or we tend to fear, the worst when we have a real adverse performance.”
“For the next England game you’ll see a different team, I have no doubt about that. Because the players will be more than up for it.”
“And they’ll go into this tournament, certainly at the World Cup, as probably one of the favourites.”
“Will they win it? I don’t think they will. Would I like them to win it? Of course, I would because I’m an Englishmen and I would obviously like my nation to win a World Cup. But it’s about getting that sense of realism, you know. And use your head and there are better nations out there at the moment and I don’t think that’s an argument.”
Fowler believes that Harry Maguire is one of the players who could give some headaches to Gareth Southgate during the World Cup even though he still thinks he is a good player.
“It’s a tough one. I think he probably has an idea about the team. But when it comes to certain cut-off points, there’s gonna be someone within the Premier League who will jump out and maybe impress.”
“The obvious answer is Harry Maguire who’s had a tough time this year.”
“Do I think he’s a bad player? No, he’s playing for a team, who have probably struggled and that’s probably shown in his performances to a little degree. He’s not a bad player, he’s just having a tough time.”
“Players rely on confidence quite a lot. If Manchester United start winning games quite handsomely and they got a chance of maybe being towards the top of the Premier League. Then the confidence of these players lifts and you can see that in the performances. I think that’s one of them.”
“If you sit and analyse the team, who else can come in. It’s tough, you know. I think we sort of know the ins and outs of what the squad might be. But, I’ve no doubt that there will be some additions.”
The Liverpool legend points at the right back as a position which could be an issue for England at the World Cup, and he says that Trent Alexander-Arnold is probably not Southgate´s favourite player.
“I’m not sitting here and being negative towards Maguire.”
“I think that’s just me being a fan from the outside looking in and I can see the way he’s playing, and that he may be struggling with a little bit of confidence. Gareth Southgate’s playing him because he obviously feels that he can improve that confidence. And when one plays with confidence, you will see different animals. You really do.”
“In terms of players coming into the midfield, you’ve got obviously the young Jude Bellingham who’s still an absolute kid. He’s dominating games in Germany, he’s dominating games in Champions League and he looks as though he will be a player in the national side for years and years to come.”
“I think England has a good base. You got obviously Trent Alexander(-Arnold) who is probably not Gareth’s favourite player because obviously, he likes to bump forward. You maybe got Reece James or someone else who will sit there and be more, not more composed, it’s probably the wrong word, but more disciplined if you like.”
“Maybe he (Trent Alexander-Arnol) lacks a little bit of discipline or Gareth thinks he lacks a little bit of discipline to hold that position on his own. So, there’s plenty to work on with England.”
“I mean, that could be the goalkeeper, (Jordan) Pickford had a great season. I’m not sure anyone will overtake him as number one in all fairness. I can’t see that. But again, we’re a long way off this tournament. The months will obviously come up quite quickly. But there are a few players who will force their way into the squad. And Gareth has a lot of decisions to make, but we’ll find a better England team in the next performance.”
“I’m not reading into those (recent) games, cause that’s happened. The players didn’t wanna be there, so the players know that they’ll have to perform and will need to perform so much better if they think they got a chance.”
Fowler points at England’s ability to be flexible as a strength. The formation is not set in stone and could be changed during the World Cup as the tournament progresses.
“I think he has got options.”
“And I think that’s the good point of being a manager. I think you’ll have an idea about who you’ll want to play, and the first goal of a manager is ‘let’s not concede.’ If you don’t concede you got half of a chance of winning the game.”
“With the offensive players that you have, in terms of Harry Kane, you’ve got half of a chance of maybe getting a goal. So if you keep a clean sheet, you have a chance of winning the game.”
“Is it a bad philosophy to have? It’s not. It’s a bad philosophy to have if you’re never winning games. But, England will win games, that’s what we have to remember.”
“Regardless of people talking about formations and players in different roles. Whether you play 4-2-3-1, or whether they play, it doesn’t matter, because no one really mentions the fact that when you’re on that pitch and you move a player, five, ten yards, that formation changes.”
“So you need to learn how to play when you’re offensively going forward. But you also need to adapt the game to how you want to defend as well.”
“For me, formations are not really set in stone. It’s getting players to fill in a specific role that you want as a manager or you want as a coach. That might not necessarily be the formation that people on the outside are thinking about.”
In the end of the interview we asked Fowler about which nation he thinks is the strongest and we might see a South American team win the trophy this time according to Fowler.
“I think you always have to look South American.”
“Straight away you go to Brazil and Argentina. I think they are among the stronger nations.”
“When we think of certain European nations, I mean Germany is strong, always strong. Okay, they had a few bad results here and there. But I think by the time the World Cup comes along their manager will have them in ship-shape condition.”
“I don’t think you write off Spain, as much as people going on about Barcelona and Real Madrid have not been the teams they were. They’re still great teams with great players and you have to assume that the Spanish team will have an abundance of those types of players from all those great squads. So they all must be thereabouts. And they are capable of winning games.”
“As much as we all mention England with players who are capable, I mean you can talk about any nation. Whether it be Messi at Argentina, whether it be Neymar at Brazil, whether it be Gavi at Spain. All these teams have individual class and individual talent, which can swing games. Maybe some of them got more than England. I just wheeled off four teams who have realistic chances.”
“I want to put England in that mix. I think they have a chance. Again, do I think they’ll win? No, I don’t think they will, but I think they can have a good run.”
“You got France. France is strong. You’d assume Belgium will be strong.”
“It’s like anything in football, you have no right to go out there and say you’re gonna win a trophy. You gotta go there and show everyone why you deserve to win that trophy. And I think those teams can do that.”
“Can England do that? I think they can. But I think a few nations are better than England and I think Argentina are, I think Brazil is probably a bit of a debatable one, because of obviously where they are in their period of history. I think France are playing really well at the minute. France has a good team. France has a good mix of players who are playing at the top of the game as well. They are probably one of the better European nations at the minute”
“People think you go out there and you play the way you can. It doesn’t really matter because you need a little bit of luck along the way as well. England has had that in the last two tournaments in the runs they had to warrant the position they got themselves in.”
“Whether it was the semi-final or the final, they had a little bit of luck.”
“Every team will need a little bit of luck, and that’s football. So you need the talent, you need that drive, you need ambition. But, you need luck as well.“
