There is a problem with coaching, but I don't think a good coach, even the best one, will fix all of England's problems. Ericsson wasn't bad when he came, was he? But he didn't make England a particularly superb team. The same with Capello, one of the best coaches around, he came, and England looked more solid. But it wasn't as if they looked like world beaters.
The problem is a combination of coaching and footballing abilities. English players are used to playing high tempo football without stops. International football is not like that, the games aren't 100 mph like in England. The games have lots of stoppages, it's slower because the opponents keep the ball when they have it. So when England get it, they should also keep it, and not rush with it, which they usually do. There needs to be 1-2 playmakers, who do that, if other players are incapable of doing that. England's game looks patchy, players look a bunch of individuals and not a team, the game is very patchy. There's no pattern to the play. I don't think this is due to lack of passion.
The thing with Capello and Eriksen is that they actually got to the glass ceiling. They hit the level which exposed some of the things you mentioned. Ultimately Capello and Eriksen lost their big games to Brazil, Portugal and Germany. Brazil and Germany are better than England and have better set ups than England, and that's where you can call the lack of high quality coaches into question and youth develop throughout the clubs, the players technique and so on. Against two of the best 5 nations in the World they came up short. Given how much money the English FA spend that isn't actually good enough, but for the players England had that's about right. They were equal to Portugal (probably the better team in 2006) but are terrible at penalties (another English flaw). That's about right with the players England have, isn't it? The England are overrated backlash came from the press trying to push the fact that England were better than those German and Brazilian teams, and they simply weren't.
The problem now though isn't that England lose to Brazil or Germany, or on penalties to Portugal. Now England's youth teams gets passed around by Norway and Israel, and Egypt and Iraq. England's senior team gets dominated by Poland and Montenegro. This is where the technique argument falls down for me. Most of these English youngsters have good technique. I don't mean they'll be world beaters and will go on to have 500 top flight appearances. I mean the likes of Coady, Thorpe, Dier, Pritchard and Kane would've been released long before now if they couldn't control a ball and pass it. They're being coached at club level by better coaches than these Chilean and Iraqi players. Same thing at senior level. The vast majority of English players are playing at a higher standard than the Ukrainian's who came to Wembley and outplayed them. And it's not like at club level most of these players don't play for teams that try and play possession football. As good as Barcelona? No. But they keep the ball and pass out from the back.
It's the England coaches. Every England coach from Noel Blake (U19s) up is about shape and play out of possession. Everyone pays lip service to the idea of playing the ball out from the back, but the reality is that most of the time that's no more than them saying "pass it out from the back", you never see any real pattern of play to it. It's just passing for the sake or it, until they pass themselves into trouble and then it goes down the line anyways, just as it would've done in the first place.
Just on the playmakers bit Xxavi - I would agree in general. I think it's what England of the last generation have lacked (I think had it still been Hoddle, Cole would've ended up playing there). The next generation of English midfielders are all in that style though. I'm not saying they'll all be brilliant, but players like Wilshere, McEacheran, Tom Carroll, Pritchard, Ward-Prowse have more in common with Spanish midfielders than the Lampard's of this world. Coady is moving away from that at a pace (especially under Inglethorpe) and someone like Loftus-Cheek at Chelsea, whilst huge for his age, is way closer to a continental footballer than the archetype English midfielder of the last ten years. It's early days so far but I'd say the academy system is actually working in terms of producing more technically rounded footballers - we'll see how that plays out at club level over the next five years or so.
The problem is that at international level it'll still be filled with coaches who don't want embrace the fact that the English footballer is far more progressive and positive than they are.
