By David Lacey
Football Unlimited
England coach Keegan weighs opening move towards a summer offensive
In five days Kevin Keegan will begin his march to the scaffold. Or he may be about to embark on a journey that will earn the nation's undying gratitude and see him ennobled as Lord Kev of Armthorpe. Either way Keegan's announcement on Thursday of an England squad for the friendly against Argentina at Wembley on Wednesday week will set in motion a chain of events leading to the 2000 European Championship this summer. By the time England meet Portugal in Eindhoven on June 12 he will hope to have discovered a team chemistry of sufficient stability not to blow up in his face.
After the Argentina game England have three more warm-ups before they settle down in Spa, their Euro 2000 home noted for its proximity to the Belgian grand prix circuit and the fact that it was the headquarters of the United States' First Army in the Battle of the Bulge. It is to be hoped that the importance of accurate passing at speed as well as the need to avoid being outmanoeuvred by sudden offensives is not lost on Keegan's players.
Three months ago England qualified for the European Championship by beating Scotland over two legs in the play-offs. The celebrations were muted, for though Keegan's team won soundly enough 2-0 at Hampden Park they performed so ineptly when the Scots won 1-0 at Wembley four days later that critics doubted the coach's capacity to achieve anything of significance in the tournament proper. After all England have flopped in four out of five European Championships. If he is to buck the trend Keegan needs to find a way of restoring the tactical discipline, organisation and quality of passing that distinguished the better efforts of Glenn Hoddle's side. Before that, however, he has to find an England team worthy of the description.
Not that one is likely to emerge against Argentina given that the match is sandwiched between a Premiership confrontation involving Leeds and Manchester United and the resumption of European activity the following week. Withdrawals from the squad look inevitable. Nevertheless Keegan needs to glean something from the occasion, for England will not play again until a fortnight before the start of Euro 2000. Brazil and Ukraine are at Wembley on May 27 and 31 with England visiting Malta the following weekend. By then Keegan will need to have established the shape and make-up of his side as well as his strongest options.
The England coach's main problem involves the extent to which he can infuse new blood into the team without shedding tournament experience, which is so essential at this level. Yet since the play-offs the form and fitness of certain senior players have posed worrying questions while the prowess of a number of youngsters argues a stronger case for their inclusion.
Serious doubts
Football was never kind to comfortable assumptions. After England had won at Hampden nothing seemed more certain than David Seaman and Tony Adams would form the bedrock of the side facing Portugal, Germany and Romania in the opening round. Two saves from Seaman and an exemplary tackle by Adams on Billy Dodds had as much to do with the win as the two goals by Paul Scholes. Yet Adams's enforced absence from the Arsenal team through injury and Seaman's sluggish performances in goal have since raised serious doubts about both players. Nigel Martyn is restating his case for being the first-choice goalkeeper and defensively England look like relying even more on Martin Keown and Sol Campbell.
Uncertainties in midfield remain. Even now adequate replacements for Paul Gascoigne and David Platt have not emerged and, though the recall of Paul Ince provided a useful stop-gap in the absence of the injured David Batty, Ince is no longer the box-to-box influence he once was. The lack of a creative force between the penalty areas, someone who can combine imaginative passing with the ability to go past opponents and get into scoring positions, will almost certainly hasten the international career of West Ham's Joe Cole, who is likely to appear in Thursday's squad. At 18, Cole is the same age that Michael Owen was when the Liverpool youngster brushed aside Argentina's defence so memorably in St Etienne.
Steven Gerrard, the fast-maturing Liverpool midfielder, may also catch Keegan's eye and if the England coach is intent on giving another West Ham player, Frank Lampard, further chances to make the squad for Euro 2000 then now seems as good a time as any. Only an unheralded return by Graeme le Saux will restore the balance on the left that England have lacked in most of their nine games under Keegan. Leicester's Steve Guppy remains a naturally left-footed alternative and Tottenham's Darren Anderton or Leeds's Lee Bowyer might make a go of it on that side. Anderton's fitness, however, is unreliable and the future of Bowyer, like that of Jonathan Woodgate, has been clouded by the police investigation into an assault on an Asian man. Kieron Dyer's versatility may be invaluable once the tournament starts.
Up to now Keegan could comfort himself that he held a strong hand in strikers. Not any more. Owen and Robbie Fowler have yet to make successful returns from injuries, Emile Heskey's formidable presence is not being matched by goals on a regular basis, and Alan Shearer and Kevin Phillips are not quite the same without their respective foils - Duncan Ferguson and Niall Quinn. Teddy Sheringham may yet return.
"The time to judge us," said Keegan after England's home defeat by Scotland, "will be on the big stage. But we can't just go on like we have beendoing and hope it will come good."
Quite so. At the moment he can rely on Keown, Campbell, Scholes and little else apart from David Beckham getting out of bed the right side. The Argentina game may provide some fresh ideas but is more likely to rekindle familiar misgivings. In fact neither England nor their coach will know exactly where they are until late May, when clubs have finished with the players and Keegan can concentrate in earnest on winning the European Championship - or at least returning home with a plausible hard-luck story.
Leicester's manager Martin O'Neill will ask Kevin Keegan not to include Emile Heskey among the England players on duty against Argentina on Wednesday week to avoid any injury risk four days before the Worthington Cup final. The men who matter
