When dealing with a problem as complex as England, attributing repeated, myriad failings to fear sounds like a reductive explanation. Nevertheless, at the root of each of their many disappointing moments has been inhibition. Iceland, of course. Croatia at Wembley. The slow retreat against the Portuguese at Euro 2004. Portugal, again, in 2006. Romania in 2000.
It’s a long list and fear hasn’t been the only cause, but it’s become an accepted fact that, for many, playing for England is a terrifying experience. It’s something to be endured rather than enjoyed and the negative associations it carries often make defeat appear inevitable. An issue like that doesn’t correct itself overnight. It generally isn’t even cured inside a single generation. Whatever else Dan Ashworth manages to achieve at the Football Association, if his various initiatives help stop the shrinkage which occurs between club and country, his time at St George’s Park will have been a success.
Maybe there are even tentative signs that an emboldening is already underway: Paul Simpson’s U20s weren’t too afraid to win the World Cup, neither were Keith Downing’s U19s too scared to return from their European Championship with the trophy. England’s youth teams play bold, initiative-grabbing football without dwelling on the consequences of failure and that puts them halfway to victory before games even begin.
On Monday evening, the senior team was injected with a small dose of that same spirit. Fabian Delph and Phil Jones withdrew with injury and Gareth Southgate awarded a first call-up to Harry Winks, Tottenham’s precocious young midfielder.
Winks is fascinating. A bright passer of the ball with a fizzing intent, he’s the latest Spurs player to benefit from Mauricio Pochettino’s faith in the club’s academy. The nasty injury he suffered at Turf Moor last season probably prevented Winks’ first senior call-up from happening sooner, but he has recovered from ankle ligament damage and made his first Premier League start of the year against Huddersfield last Saturday.
Injury, it seems, hasn’t dampened his determination to be expressive. Thank goodness, because that’s his meal ticket - with Tottenham and hopefully with England too. Winks may not be characterised by flair or flamboyance, but rather that strange resistance to a game’s swirling pressures.
Unlike so many other developing players, his first steps haven’t been in any way tentative. There has been no deference to older players, nor any anxiety over what failure to grasp his opportunity might mean. Winks doesn’t push possession around the pitch and hope for a seven-out-of-ten mark and re-selection by default; he carries a clear intent to change games, firing his passes into feet and carrying the ball forcefully up the field.
He did that on debut in Tottenham’s late win over West Ham at the end of 2016, scoring a goal in the process. He did it again as a substitute away to Manchester City, when Pochettino needed momentum and a midfielder with the intent to provide it. And, more recently, he was at the forefront of an impressive Champions League win in Cyprus, when Spurs navigated through a tricky tie with APOEL.
To this point in his career, circumstances have had no bearing on his performance. He has made mistakes, certainly, and can sometimes appear naive without the ball, but he has never been passive. England need that. They need players who can be relied upon to give true accounts of themselves.
Winks comes with a knifing passing range which Southgate doesn’t already have in his midfield, but more important is the 21-year-old’s willingness to make himself visible. Without that, as has been shown so many times in the past, attributes can quickly recede to worthlessness at international tournaments. Players have to be bold enough to run the risk of becoming scapegoats. They have to want the ball. They have to want to something with it.
Writing in his autobiography, Walking on Water, Brian Clough noted that “there are many players who can get away with a certain lack of ability because they are particularly courageous. Very few, if any, can get away with not being brave at all, however talented they might be. Ability with never blossom if a lad is too frightened to have the ball.”
Intangibles are anathema to modern football’s thinking and those who continue to place stock in them are generally parodied. With England, though, they remain as relevant as ever. At this low point in the country’s footballing history, the only real requirement is that the team lives up to its billing. Southgate’s players won’t be expected to produce any miracles in Russia next summer, but there is certainly an appetite for the team to go as far as their limitations will allow. Given what has come before, anything other than under-performance would be progress.
With that in mind, it’s imperative that their squad is comprised of those with enough fortitude for the task; between now and May, sporting cowardice must be purged. That’s why Winks belongs. And that’s why the nation will quickly realise that he’s necessary next summer.
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