20th June

I wasn't going to post one of these until after I finished my essays, especially not tonight. But ah well. Here we go.

England.

So I want to be a sports journalist. It's no secret. It's the reason I started this blog after all. I want to spend my life watching and reporting on sport. Sport of all kinds, I like rugby and am hoping to go to a lot of games this season. Watching Andy Murray in the Grand Slams is always good. I really, really like cricket, and watching England's test matches whilst I read Nietzsche is going to be one of the highlights of my summer. 

However, as anyone who knows me even slightly well knows, I love football more than any other sport. Football is not only my favourite sport, but one of my favourite things period. I can probably list on one hand the amount of things that have had a bigger impact on my life, and continue to have a bigger impact on my life than football. I'm not trying to sound dramatic here, but I love football, unabashedly. So I just want to make that clear, because what I want to write tonight isn't from the head, but from the heart. 

Sack Roy Hodgson. 

It felt very good to put that in writing. You see up until this point in the tournament, my gut reaction has been cynicism. I was cynical when England were 1-0 up against Russia, confidently predicting 60 seconds before it happened that England would concede. I was cynical after the Wales game, confident that Wales would still top this group by beating Russia whilst we stuttered against Slovakia. And so they did. And fair play to them, they've deserved it, they deserved to win both of the games that they won and they deserved at least a point against us. I think my feelings on this tournament, and Roy Hodgson's management as a whole actually can boil down to two quotes.

Roy Hodgson: "I never thought I'd see an England team go to a major tournament and dominate three matches."

Slaven Bilic: "Let's not praise possession because they played against a team who didn't want possession."

Nail. Meet. Head. 

I'm not going to mince my words. I think England have been terrible in this tournament. We've dominated possession against three teams that were more than happy to let us. We've seen a lot of the ball, passed it okay in the midfield, but the second we've needed to break a team down, we failed miserably. I cannot recall a good chance in the Russia game, and it needed a wondergoal from Dier to break the deadlock that day. Against Wales, okay we actually created one good chance early on and then the two goals. Today? Vardy and Alli had glorious openings after two excellent passes from Hendo, but other than that? 

Russia, Slovakia and Wales are three teams that we should be beating. Ironically, the only one we have beaten is the only one that's actually looked like a very good team in this tournament, since Wales were sensational against Russia and Slovakia and if I'm being honest, could have beaten England if they'd gambled a bit more at 1-1. 

Now there are plenty of reasons why we've not played well. Kane and Alli look burnt out, Sterling, Wilshere and Henderson all came into this tournament out of both form and fitness, the center of our defence is mediocre, our goalkeeper error prone. Rooney is overrated. All of these are, how shall I put it, external factors. And by external, I mean things that are not directly the fault of Roy Hodgson. And not everyone has played badly, Lallana has had a very good tournament so far, Eric Dier has been excellent, Walker, Rose and Clyne have done very well. Sturridge and Vardy produced two moments of magic when their team needed them to. But here's the rub. 

Hodgson has ruined this team. The formation is terrible, he's playing the wrong players, he's playing players out of position, he doesn't know what his best team is, he's stifling our best creative players, he picked the wrong squad to begin with and frankly is out of his depth. 

Right okay, some logic is needed I suppose. Daniel Sturridge, arguably England's most potent striking force, spent the majority of tonight's game wasted out on the right wing. Dele Alli has been playing deeper than usual and looks like he doesn't really understand the position he's playing in. Sterling started two games despite not having a creative bone in his body, Kane has been isolated, the 4-3-3 clearly hasn't worked but Roy is persisting with it, shifting to a diamond towards the end of the Slovakia game when things got desperate. Simply put, England haven't looked like scoring in this tournament really. 

And we have a team of extremely talented players. We have FOUR Premier League team of the year players in there: Alli, Kane, Vardy and Smalling. All of them are top players in their position. Our full backs are amongst the best in Europe. Our keeper is error prone yes but he's also a top keeper. Eric Dier is maturing into one of the best holding midfielders in the world, let alone the Premier League. Rooney isn't as good as he used to be, but it cannot be denied that he always gives more than anyone for the team and occasionally produces moments of top quality. Lallana has had an excellent tournament. Sturridge is one of the most technically gifted strikers in the world. We have a lot of very, very good players. So why can't they form a cohesive unit? Two words: Roy Hodgson. 

Okay, so now I've justified my position on a logical level, it's time to get to the heart of the matter. When the final whistle blew today, and in fact my overwhelming feeling when England conceded against Russia was a level of smug cynicism. A feeling of: I told you so, a feeling of superiority born out of the fact that other people were surprised at how appalling England were. I wasn't angry that England had played badly, although obviously I was a little disappointed. I was expecting it. And it duly arrived. And then, driving home, it hit me. It hit me just how much I hated myself for it. 

Because I've been a football fan for as long as I can remember. And being a Liverpool fan over the past decade, as so many people will I'm sure be queueing up to remind me, has not been fun, hurtling violently from one disappointment to the next, occasionally getting close to something resembling progress, only to be kicked in the chest. But throughout that decade, stupidly, weirdly, I never became cynical. I remained a sunshiney, deluded optimist, desperately believing that Liverpool would and could turn it around. 

Now let me explain. This season has been a mixed one for LFC. The last two or three have been. I've seen a lot of world class performances, and a lot of true stinkers. I'm reasonably good at gauging whether or not I think the team that I'm supporting have done well. And I'm not for one second buying the idea that England have played well during this tournament. I've been more disappointed by England's performances than I have by most from LFC this season, and we finished eighth. 

So yeah, to bring it right back around to where we started. I love football. I love football so much I've watched almost every single game at the Euros. And actually, I've loved this tournament. England aside it's been a pretty good tournament so far, and I don't think I've cheered harder than when Northern Ireland put their second past Ukraine to put them on the brink of qualification, with surely now anything better than a 4-0 drubbing enough against the Germans tomorrow. I'm actually surprisingly happy for Wales now we're not playing them. But England?

I've hated almost every second of watching England. And that's fine. That happens. I've hated watching Liverpool a lot of times in the last few years. And actually, England have occasionally made me angry. And that's fine too. I've been angry at Liverpool quite a bit recently. But cynical? I am not a cynical person. I have never been a cynical person. And in ten plus years of following football, I've not considered myself a cynical fan of Liverpool or England at almost any point. 

But right now? Right now I've become something I'm not, and I've, and still am, reacting to a team I should theoretically be rooting for in ways that I'm not proud of. Football is at base an emotional sport, and it can be many many things. I've had seasons where I've been hating it, I've had seasons where the whole thing feels pointless and painful. 

But this? Roy has managed to almost entirely neuter me of emotion. There are very, very few points where I've come close to completely stopping watching football, funnily enough Hodgson at Liverpool was one of them. But I hadn't watched England play football in almost two years before April of this year. And you know what, I'm really tempted to stop watching. Imagine that, wanting to stop watching your national team in the middle of an international tournament. Thanks Roy. 

But ah well, at least we had more possession than Slovakia.

Oh and no Hard and Fast Section tonight, If England can't be bothered, why should I? But you can have a picture of Eric Dier winning a header because it looks good on the thumbnail. (If this sounds slightly petty and petulant then I think you missed the point of the post to be honest)