JOHN CROSS’ DIARY: England and Manchester United legend Wayne Rooney was scathing in his assessment of Liverpool right-back Trent Alexander-Arnold ahead of Euro 2024
This weekend feels as if Euros fever has really caught on in Germany.
The bunting is out, lots of flags, giant TV screens, wall-to-wall shows featuring every former Germany player from Per Mertesacker, Lukas Podolski to Bastian Schweinsteiger. Back in Erfurt on Friday night (where we are staying near the England training base), the city was buzzing with excitement and Germany kicked off the tournament with a 5-1 win over Scotland to really lift the mood.
The trains are an absolute disaster in Germany. Delays, cancellations and they are spectacularly worse even than our trains back home. Honest. So, we drove from Erfurt to Bottrop (near Gelsenkirchen) in our electric car (Germany hasn’t embraced electric cars yet either) and that took quite a few hours.
Having scanned the back pages on Saturday morning, all the papers were full of ra-ra positivity and getting behind England. The Daily Mirror’s last back page before we kick off had John Stones, a big flag of St George and the eloquent England defender saying we believe we can win it.
Now, if that does not get you in the mood…. The papers were so positive. As we should be on the eve of the tournament. Let’s get behind the team. Then, for entertainment, we listened to Gary Neville’s excellent Overlap podcast. It’s such a good listen and has superb guests.
The episode the other day had some good debate with fans, good debate with ex-players like Wayne Rooney and, as ever, Neville is a good host who drives the conversation. I think Rooney is top class – interesting, insightful and funny. He’s got the ability to be football’s next top pundit.
One of the topics on the show was the press and how we allegedly want the team to fail. Basically, they went all in and you had one fan saying how back in the day the journos would talk about how they wanted to get managers sacked. In fairness, Neville pointed out how the relationship with players and press has changed for the better and it’s been good under Gareth Southgate.
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Let’s be clear here, Neville was part of previous set-ups as player and coach and it would be fair to say that he’s changed, too. Because in those days he hardly embraced a spirit of openness which Southgate has embraced. Back in 2016, the England players would not even talk about who was good at darts.
That’s why Southgate likes to have players-v-journos darts matches at tournaments. It’s a symbolic two fingers up to the bad old days.
But one thing really got me thinking. The press do like Trent Alexander-Arnold. Why? Because he’s a bloody good footballer. So, we’ve been quite supportive in general, I think. The same goes for Southgate. Some fans think the press is too nice to Southgate.
But now ex-players have become way more critical than the press. Here’s Rooney from the Overlap on Alexander-Arnold. “Defensively, he’s all over the place. He can’t defend. I wouldn’t have him anywhere near the middle of the pitch. I’d have no problem with playing him here [at right-back]. I think in here [midfield], I wouldn’t have him anywhere near there,” said Rooney.
So, let me get this straight. It’s ok for ex-players to be critical. But the press can’t be like that? To be clear, I want people to say interesting things. I want Rooney’s insight and I like debate.
But let’s have it right. Why do ex-players think they can be critical and the press can’t? I find it a bit baffling. They say highly critical things and then don’t like it when inevitably it ends up as a headline.
Sure enough, at Southgate’s pre-match presser he was left fielding questions about Rooney’s remarks. It’s remarkable they can’t see the irony.
I seem to remember before the last Euros, any journalist covering England regularly would know Raheem Sterling would start and wouldn’t question him because he was so reliable in the shirt. But it was other parts of the media who debated it and then they start asking questions about proving the doubters wrong. Er…
Let’s hope the team makes us proud against Serbia. It’s the one time, covering England, where I don’t shy away from my allegiances. I’d love to see England do it.
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