Former England defender Rio Ferdinand claims that the current national side have lost their identity and has called for an overhaul of the national coaching strategy.
The Manchester United centre-back, 34, played at three World Cups but never went beyond the quarter-finals, and he believes the reason England are continually eclipsed by teams like Spain and Italy is because they have no coherent playing style.
“What is our identity?” said Ferdinand, who retired from international football in May.
“I’ve said that on Twitter I don’t know how many times and people come back and say, ‘What are you talking about?’ But what is our identity?
“We started to see something when Glenn Hoddle was in charge (1996-1999), a bit of an identity then, free-flowing football, and you would say we were starting to get an idea of the pattern of what he wanted to implement in the team.
“Since then I don’t think we’ve actually really seen an identity, where you could say, ‘That’s an England team’, where you look at the under-21s and go, ‘That’s an England team’.”
“I just don’t think you see that connection between our (senior) team and the under-21s, or the under-17s and the under-20s team and the senior team, and I think that doesn’t bode well for the England team.”
England won the World Cup on home soil in 1966 but since then they have reached the semi-finals of a major tournament on just two occasions — at the 1990 World Cup and the 1996 European Championship.
Ahead of the friendly with Scotland on Wednesday, Ferdinand says England must be prepared to sacrifice short-term success in favour of a more long-term approach.
“We might not qualify for a World Cup or a European Championship but I would rather not qualify for one or two tournaments knowing that in 10 years’ time we will have an identity that everyone can identify with and say, ‘Yes, that’s us’, and be proud of.”
England assistant coach Gary Neville has echoed his former United team-mate’s concerns, calling for the introduction of a quota system to safeguard the progress of home-grown players at Premier League clubs.
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