Fickle Football Press (or FFP)

If FFP at club level stands for Financial Fair Play, then for England at International level it surely stands for Fickle Football Press as far as the media is concerned.

I’m as frustrated as the next fan at the nil success rates over the years, so things DO need to improve – but it’s never going to happen overnight is it?

Did the press not see the last World Cup? We gave it a go, and granted we had no luck at all, and in truth but we fell well short of any achievement - but what makes people (and in particular, sections of the English media) think we would suddenly become brilliant again after one match?

Several of the England players in the match last week against Norway had under 10 caps and they will need support and encouragement after poor performances rather than rants.

Thankfully this latter approach does appear to happen from within the camp as the performance in a game that mattered against a very good Switzerland team was the best we’d seen for a while.

How do the press react? They start looking at venues in France where England might be based if we qualify! Fickle.

I don’t buy for a second that the players and staff don’t care. Joe Hart exemplifies what it means on the field, and Gary Neville exudes a huge drive to succeed off the field.

Things are definitely going in the right direction with these guys on the scene.

The trouble is a lack of patience.

Much of the media/press commentary forget (or choose to ignore) that both the Spanish and Germans had spells like this in the not too distant past, when they had to retire many of their own so called golden generations and ‘start again’.

Positive stepping stones are all important.

I often glance at the views of the spuds-flogging, goatee-trialling, former goal machine king of Twitter Gary Lineker to see what his measured views on football matters are:

“Judge this group in 4 years time, not after their first 90 minutes” says King Links.

That’s good enough for me.