Gary Neville: It was right to keep Capello

Gary Neville, writing in his column in The Sunday Times today, says the English FA was right to retain Fabio Capello, despite what went on in the World Cup.

The following is his column:

Once again, England have been knocked out of a major tournament by Germany and England’s players didn’t perform to their potential in the game.

Fabio Capello is the best man for the job, but there is no magic wand.

Defensively, England weren’t compact enough and couldn’t get to the ball quick enough, and I think the lads made some elementary mistakes. Although it should have 22 at half-time, which would have made it a different game, I felt the defence was always a concern.

Losing Rio Ferdinand and Ledley King, added to the uncertainty around the goalkeeping position going into the tournament, proved too much in the end. When we came up against a good team like Germany, we were found out.

I had said previously that I felt we would struggle after losing the quick part of our centre-back pairing in King and Ferdinand. Against the likes of Thomas Müller, Lukas Podolski and Miroslav Klose and Mesut Özil, who have pace, penetration and movement, we needed more protection from midfield.

Midfield has become such a main focal point in European and international football that we could not afford to have just two players there. Although we did try to narrow the midfield through James Milner and Steven Gerrard on the flanks, they were getting dragged out by the German full-backs and the spaces in midfield were too big.

I don’t think England underestimated Germany. This isn’t the best Germany team you will ever see, but Germany always peak in tournaments, they have good players and they play as team. They’re not an outstanding team, but I won’t be surprised if they get to the final.

You could argue that England should have brought more attacking substitutions on in the second half, but Joe Cole and Emile Heskey were introduced. I doubt it would have mattered who was brought on after Germany’s third goal because the lads looked deflated and the game was probably irretrievable.

If you look at the quality of Argentina, Brazil, Holland, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Uruguay and Chile, you would have to think long and hard about whether England are better than any of them. Maybe we expect too much, although there is no doubt England are better than they showed in this World Cup.

The real failure was in the group stage – not finishing top cost England dearly because we ended up playing Germany not Ghana. Perhaps another failure is that we pitch ourselves too highly and end up being second favourites for the World Cup when we don’t deserve to be. We need to temper the expectation – being in the last eight or 16 teams is probably about right at the moment, and that is where we have been in the past four or five tournaments.

Ultimately the blame has to fall on everyone who was part of the England set-up. When England are knocked-out of a tournament, criticism will always be directed at the manager and certain players. I’ve been part of failures as bad as England’s in recent weeks and you have to take your share of responsibility.

After the tournament the FA said they wanted two weeks to decide Fabio Capello’s future. They ended up deciding it in four days. They supported the manager and that is the right decision.

Capello is 64. Whatever happens over the next two years of his contract he will go down as one of the most successful managers in football, so to suggest that he doesn’t have a winning mentality or can’t win major trophies is wrong. England have a man in charge who is one of the very best. For me, sacking him was never an option. We would have just perpetuated the cycle of changing managers and tactics all over again.

There is talk about Capello blooding youngsters ahead of Euro 2012, but there is no magic wand. Ok, David James is 39, but Ashley Cole, Glen Johnson, John Terry, Rio Ferdinand, Ledley King, Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard, Joe Cole, James Milner, Michael Carrick and Gareth Barry will still play. You can’t just conjure up 11 brilliant new England players. These are the best England players and the last few England managers have picked them because of that reason.

There are perhaps one or two young players that could force their way into the next squad, but there is no factory that will suddenly produce a group of new England internationals no one has ever heard of.

I think if the English public had picked the World Cup squad it would have been almost the same. The reality is, the majority of players who played in the first 11 in the World Cup will be playing in England’s next friendly in August. We can try to extract better performances from our players, but the young players who are good enough are already in the squad or on the fringes.

In terms of what can be changed to improve England’s prospects in future, it is quite difficult to change the whole English structure just to benefit the national team. The Premier League is one of the best in the world and we accommodate foreign players.

My view is that if English players are good enough they will come through. We already have community and school programmes. You could argue that the academy system needs to be improved, but there is no secret formula. England will always produce good players, but so do other countries and we can’t stop them doing that. Ghana did well and should have gone through against Uruguay in their quarter-final, but apart from them the African teams have been a bit disappointing.

I was surprised Brazil were knocked out. I thought they were the best team in the tournament and certainly the best defensive team, but the two goals they conceded to the Netherlands cost them dearly . The Netherlands now play Uruguay in their semifinal , so both have a wonderful chance.

Spain started the tournament quite poorly but they have the defensive qualities, possession skills and attacking threat to win the tournament. Seeing that Brazil are now out, I’m now going to tip Spain to lift the World Cup.

Send your World Cup questions to Gary Neville to sunday@timesofmalta.com