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England are a one-half team after Montenegro defeat, Sir Alex Ferguson deserves praise: Jeff Powell

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The fear factor – fear of Wembley, fear of England’s fighting spirit – is being eroded. Not only game by game but, as it was in Podgorica, half by half.

Montenegro were visibly nervous in the first 45 minutes, paralysed as they were by the importance of the occasion and the crushing expectations of that volatile crowd.

The interval came with a wake-up call in the dressing room, one which played into a chronic England weakness

Too many England players – in their wealth and celebrity – are amounting to a one-half team.

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Falling to pieces: The recriminations begin in Montenegro after Dejan Damjanovic's 77th-minute leveller

Smoked out: England flagged after the break and were shown up by an increasingly confident Montenegro in front of a partisan crowd

If they start like an express train, as they did in the Balkans, they begin believing they are as wonderful as their agents, sponsors and bank managers keep telling them and, as captain Steven Gerrard admonished them, throw the game away.

When they kick-off sluggishly, the half-time whistle delivers a massive kick to the ego and they up their game.

That is a malaise which Hodgson is capable of curing. Should they qualify for Brazil then, given his wealth of international experience, he may even enable England to overcome a failing to master the art of big tournament football which has dogged them down the near-half-century since 1966 and all that.

But there is a bigger challenge.

World football is evolving fast, even among countries as small as Montenegro. The English game is stuck in its status quo of tactical rigidity and technical inferiority.

On the rise: England are routinely troubled by upcoming, technically superior nations such as Montenegro

The midfield sank into that rut as Tuesday evening wore on, losing control of the game and two priceless points to boot.

Some apologists blamed the absence of one injured young man.

Now, while Jack Wilshere is an honest talent with a promising future, if he is your answer then you don’t understand the question. Not only that but you are putting too big a burden on immature shoulders.

Until there is a root-and-branch reformation, English football will remain largely dependent on its combative qualities and never-say-die commitment.

That means giving everything, not just for one half but for the full 90 minutes.

Anything less and the fear factor will disappear completely into the morass of that lost midfield.

And if that happens the game really will be up for England.

Carrying the weight of a nation: England's problems lie deeper than the expectation placed on Jack Wilshere

  Fighting for the cause: England should be grateful to Sir Alex Ferguson

The conspiracy theorists who accuse Sir Alex Ferguson of ordering his players to turn deaf ears to England’s call have fallen silent at the moment.

Manchester United supplied five of the starting line-up - Chris Smalling, Michael Carrrick, Tom Cleverley, Danny Welbeck and Wayne Rooney – in Montenegro.

When Ashley Young went on as a second-half substitute that made it six Red Devils in England white. That’s more than half a team.

Had Rio Ferdinand’s doctors not advised him to pull out, that would have been two-thirds.

Not only that but Fergie’s United have been consistent suppliers of numerous England footballers through an era in which so many other leading Premier League clubs have become over-reliant on foreign imports to the detriment of the national team.

Hardly ungenerous for a Glaswegian, especially at a time when the Scottish play is becoming more of a tragedy season upon season.

 

Roy Hodgson is by no means the first England manager to fiddle with his substitutes while England burn in the World Cup cauldron.

In fact, the identity of the most prominent but hesitant of them might, at a perverse stretch, be seen as an optimistic omen.

Sir Alf Ramsey never properly got to grips with the replacement game.

It does need to be acknowledged that there were no subs during his playing career, nor when he managed Ipswich to the League championship or England to this nation’s solitary World Cup glory.

But after they were introduced, Sir Alf had his fingers severely scorched in the sunshine of Mexico ’70.

Changing of the guard: Sir Alf Ramsey's inability to get to grips with substitutes cost England dear in the latter years of his reign

Game changer: With one eye on the semi-final, Bobby Charlton was substituted for Colin Bell

Convinced that England were in an unassailable position at 2-1 up in the second half of that World Cup quarter-final against West Germany, Ramsey took off Bobby Charlton to rest him for the semi-final.

That released none other than Franz Beckenbauer, who had been ordered to man-mark Charlton, to complete a comeback which ended in extra-time victory for the Germans and long-term castigation of Ramsey for ‘the worst substitution of all time.’

And we hadn’t seen nothing yet.

Come the bid to qualify for West Germany ’74, England faced a final group match against Poland at Wembley which they had to win. That night went down in history for Jan Tomaszewski's bizarre yet inspired goalkeeping.

But it is also remembered for how – with the score stuck at 1-1 and England going out – Ramsey sat transfixed on the bench.

Bobby Moore, unwisely dropped for this crucial fixture, used to recall: ‘One or two of us kept imploring Alf to send on Kevin Hector. But he just sat there.’

No clowning about: Ramsey saw his fingers burned in 1973 thanks to Poland keeper Jan Tomaszewski

Ramsey finally deployed Hector with barely two minutes remaining but even in that short time Brian Clough’s prolific goalscorer with Derby County hit a post. Too little, much too late.

By that comparison, Hodgson reacted with alacrity when sending on Ashley Young in the 77th minute of a declining cause in Montenegro.

There are other old-school similarities between the two managers... as our photographs show.

Not only the pictures of them in agonies of indecision but also those portraying Sir Alf’s formal style of dress and Hodgson’s resistance to the tie-less trends of contemporary fashion.

Tough decisions: The well-dressed Ramsey shares other similarities with Hodgson

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