Why do people 'froth at the mouth' about England's 'egotistical lummox'?

Harry Kane boils the blood of some football fans like no other; why is that? Plus, Gen Z footballers, World Cup qualification and more.

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Why do rival fans hate Harry Kane so much?

I’ve always found it more than a little odd how many fans (mainly Liverpool and Arsenal to be fair) froth at the mouth at the very mention of Harry Kane, but I’d like to congratulate Tom G for allowing me to shout house on the most nonsensical list of criticisms I’ve ever seen, it truly is a thing of absolute beauty. Let’s recap them one by one:

‘Hollywood balls that only occasionally do anything meaningful’ – well he’s led the league in assists so they seem to be slightly more than occasionally helpful. This is just a bizarre criticism, he doesn’t play 50 yard balls but is recognised as a brilliant creator.

‘tactical ill discipline’ – not sure what this means at all. Can only think it’s moaning about dropping deep, but there’s zero evidence to suggest he has done this against manager instructions.

‘actual ill discipline and two footed challenges’ – I’m quite certain I’ve watched a lot more of Kane than Tom has, but I can’t recall a two footed challenge and can only remember two bad ones (against Liverpool and City).

‘doesn’t track back’ well he definitely does although he’s not as mobile as he used to be he’s also an outstanding defender from set pieces.

‘dives’ – Ah this old chestnut. I’m not saying he has never dived but he’s nowhere near the top of the list. Tom is probably a Liverpool fan, and the irony of a guy who has spent years supporting Owen, Gerrard, Suarez and Salah moaning about diving is off the charts.

‘requires effort and runners from other people’ – what the hell does this even mean? Which footballer alive doesn’t need that? Let’s just move on.

‘requires fixed formations to get anything out of them’ Kane has been hugely successful in Poch’s attacking 4-2-3-1, Jose’s very different defensive 4-2-3-1, Conte’s 3 at the back and wingbacks and various shades of 4-3-3 for Southgate, Tuchel and now Kompany. Again just a ludicrous stick to try to beat Kane with.

‘only scores from set pieces’ – he scored 180 non penalty Premier League goals, second most after Shearer and a much lower percentage of his goals were penalties. And don’t get any Spurs fan started on his free kicks. It’s the one thing he was always terrible at.

There are plenty of footballers who have been unpopular with rival fans, but I can’t think of one where this causes them to spend far too much of their time trying to deny the very obvious fact that he’s exceptionally good. Tom, you really need to move on.

Phil, London

READ: Harry Kane teaches England pair a lesson and silences critics in comical Ireland collapse

Saka egotistical? Behave

Sorry but I just have to step in here regarding the Kane mail. Your bias is showing very strongly. Or maybe mine is but whatever.

Do you genuinely think Saka is too selfish to stick a cross in for Kane? It’s literally Saka’s biggest strength. His football IQ is unbelievable. He does not overcomplicate things at all. He looks for crosses all of the time, he thrives off it. I love Kane too so this isn’t me having a dig at him at all. I think he gets a lot of unfair stick. But Saka is not the correct person to aim your criticism at.

Dion Byrne

On Curtis Jones, Rico Lewis and Gen Z

Gosh my knees are jerking all over the place after the Greece game. Clearly Liverpool’s 11th best player (according to whoscored.com) is Xavi, Iniesta, Modric, Zidane, Cruyff, Platini and Hagi rolled into one but with true British grit that makes him better than all of them.

Of course had his cheeky flick not gone in and Rico’s shot had, the babbling gurning journos would’ve written the exact same horsesheet about Man City’s Gothic Dwarf Genius. The Cure’s Robert Smith just time travelled from the 1980s and got to play for Man City? The obvious conclusion is that time travel makes you better looking, very fit and a few inches shorter.

Taking a step back from ‘The Madness’, what actually happened v Greece and WTF has Lee ‘crazy horse’ Carsley been up to as England manager??? Making our celebrity players look like donkeys and then making our kids look better than Brazil. I mean this is England – our entire football culture is built on celebrity donkeys. We don’t want humble technically gifted team players keeping our hyper individualistic celebrities out of the team do we? Not when they’re worth £100m a pop. You couldn’t buy a round of drinks in London with the value of Curtis Jones.

The very obvious conclusion to the Greece game is that the absences of pub footballers Harry Kane and Declan Rice as well as positionless hoofer Trent had a hugely positive impact on our cohesion and shape and we really looked like a proper team.

But the key thing on the pitch was this: The players combined, connected and interacted differently to how England players usually do. It was really weird to see England players do that. We need to know why.

These players look like they really trust each other. Like, ‘if i give you the ball in a dangerous zone with 3 men on you – you aint gonna lose it’. A complete 180 to players like Declan Rice and Steve Gerrard who both act like someone’s just lobbed them a hand grenade when receiving the ball in dangerous areas at international level.

My guess would be that the older Gen Z players think more like millennials while the younger Gen Z are 100% Gen Z and these guys have brought their Gen Z mentality to the national team.

But the billion dollar question still remains: where are the English midfielders who can compete with the best in the world over 120 minutes of knockout football??? Anyone seen a Gothic Dwarf Genius in an England shirt recently? Gosh my knees are jerking so hard now.

Ben Teacher

How to tidy up World Cup qualification…

My head goes off in all sorts of different directions on my daily walks. The other day I was thinking about World Cup qualification, everything I don’t like about it and the changes I’d make.

There are three things that annoy me about it:

– I don’t like cross-group comparisons. “The best two runner ups qualify and go into playoffs”. That sort of thing. For me, it rewards the teams that came second in the easiest groups at the expense of those in the toughest ones.

– I don’t like how UEFA Nations League rankings are starting to sneak into how teams qualify for the UEFA playoffs. It’s the first step on a path that ends with UEFA just putting forward all its best teams without bothering with qualification matches.

– And I don’t how the World Cup isn’t competed by the best teams. I appreciate that the game needs to be promoted all over the world but I think the tournament would be better with more European or South American teams. Is some sort of compromise possible?

And here’s my solution. It’s based around making the intercontinental playoffs “a bigger thing”.

So, first off we have 24 places allocated something like this:

– two to North America

– four to South America

– ten to UEFA

– five to Africa

– three to Asia and Oceana, combined together like in the old days.

Maybe some of these allocations could be shifted up or down by one (one more for North America or Asia at the expense of Africa?). The main thing, though, is that it adds up to 24 and that UEFA looks underrepresented at this stage.

But then I’d also give each confederation that same number of places in the intercontinental playoffs. So there’s no excuse for having inter-group comparisons. Africa can finish with five groups, with five winners going through and five runners up going into the playoffs. North America might finish with a group of eight with 1 and 2 qualifying and 3 and 4 going into the playoffs.

So we have 24 teams in the playoffs. We play 12 semi finals and six finals. They could be two legged affairs or one off games in the host country. But with 24 teams there, they’re a big thing. The Asian and North American teams get their day in the sun, televised all over the world, but the six winners are all probably from Europe or South America, making for a stronger tournament.

As for the tournament, we have the 24 direct qualifiers plus six playoff winners. Throw in the hosts and holders without docking qualification places from their confederation (so sneaking in an extra UEFA place or two) and we have 32 teams, the ideal number for a World Cup. Eight groups of four, top two through to knockouts, no inter-group comparisons,

What’s not to like?

Steve Mills

Infallibility v transparency

Clearly Mark, MCFC, believes in attacking the messenger as much as the message – first by classing my letter as a ‘rant’ and then stating ‘the spelling errors are his!’ In a letter that seemed closer to a rant than mine. But let’s dig a bit deeper into the topic.

To be clear, I make no assertions of bias or conspiracies , simply incompetency – but incompetency that is hidden behind closed doors. Not incompetence in on field decisions (although there are some) but in how the PGMOL operates. There is no transparency with PGMOL. Of the 600 PGMOL members, and in particular those that officiate PL games, how many are women or black? It really is a ‘lads’ group – hearing them speak, listening to ex-referees or the published audio from games. And bringing with it all the baggage a ‘lads’ group brings. Hence why I likened it to a cabal.

By lack of transparency we are not talking about having refs speak to the media after a game where we will get the standard response to any question regarding a decision.

It’s not that the officials don’t know the rules or how to apply the rules but in fast paced games, mistakes will happen. It’s how mistakes are handled. If the first thought is to deny it was a mistake or use the tactic of saying ‘it is being reviewed’ with no timetable for a response, let alone a resolution, it only heightens the emotion surrounding the event and encourages people to believe a cover up

Is taking place. This isn’t helped by ex-referees ‘tell-all’ bios indicating iffy situations in the past.

I can see why some officials have mentioned concern over having open microphones given how inarticulate they are – especially compared to Rugby Union refs. Rugby Union is arguably more complex to referee, especially around the scrum, ruck or maul. But listening to their instructions to the video ref about what they want to be reviewed is always crystal clear. They show leadership and transparency. By contrast could we expect the same from the ‘ladsy’ PGMOL refs?

Let’s face it, as Badwolf stated, the media is an even greater culprit when it comes to storing the pot and creating animosity towards refs – all of whom show less knowledge of the game. But officials have placed themselves on a pedestal – seemingly a pedestal of infallibility – by generally supporting iffy decisions or by not providing more immediate and clear reasoning. If a mistake were truly made, such as the goal being called offside in the Spurs/Liverpool game, it would been far better to have addressed quickly, indicating the process changes to prevent the same error happening in the future rather than being pushed to finally releasing the audio and showing the complete dogs bollocks they had made of that decision.

Circling the wagons around a colleague might seem like the best decision. ‘We have your back.’ But ultimately, as in the case with the Coote situation, once it becomes public, it doesn’t just hurt those directly involved, such as Coote, but the integrity of the organization as a whole. We see this all the time, with Welby being the most recent example.

You can’t demand respect, it has to be earned. Granted there aren’t many great role models in football (and sport in general) to fall back on with corruption rife in the top level organizations like FIFA or UEFA. But it’s weak and ineffectual leadership to use that as an excuse not to move forward. Being a good referee does not mean they would be good managers or organizers, and the PGMOL is supported by a number of people but we hear little about their involvement in the process. Just as clubs push managers out in front of the media, Webb is the person front and centre, even though there is a COO among others.

Ultimately the PGMOL’s lack of transparency is contributing to the way referees are perceived. With the David Coote situation the PGMOL is showing it hasn’t learned.

Paul McDevitt

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