As a player he was renowned for his frankly ridiculous goalscoring record, but in the pundit’s chair Alan Shearer does enjoy a good rant.
The Newcastle legend absolutely tore into England after their embarrassing Euro 2016 exit at the hands of Iceland, and has since said that he would “definitely speak to them” if the FA came calling about the now-vacant managerial position for the national side.
The former striker was also in the chair for Wales’ quarter final victory over Belgium last night and, inevitably, comparisons between the two nations were made.
On paper England have a far superior squad to their neighbour and bitter rivals, but in the end a last minute winner against them in the group stages was pretty much all the Three Lions had to cheer about in yet another bitterly disappointing tournament.
Wales, on the other hand, have just beaten the highest ranked side in Euro 2016 and qualified for the semi finals for the first time in their history.
Shearer disputes the argument that the academy system and a weak mentality are to blame for England’s failures, and instead points to the fact that Wales are just a much more organised team with an effective system.
Wind him up and let him go… Alan Shearer has something to get off his chest about England #ENG #bbceuro2016 https://t.co/eqIaWSyHzp
— Match of the Day (@BBCMOTD) July 1, 2016
He said: “What we’re missing is a plan. We’re missing a team that has direction, playing players in their right positions, not shoe-horning players into positions.
“We did that with Scholes and Gerrard and Lampard and we weren’t successful, we did that in this tournament and that’s why we’ve gone out.
“For ten games in qualifying we played a system – we didn’t play it once in this tournament and that tells you where we went wrong.”
Well said.
