Looking Back On Five Years Of Sven

It's Sven Goran Eriksson's five year anniversary as England coach today and 45eachway would like to mark this special occasion with five pros and cons from Sven's half a decade(!) in charge. As you always should, we give the bad news first:

Bad News

Rubbish friendlies (except the Argentina one)

Allows 'star players' like Beckham to exert too much influence

Sticks by out of form players for too long (see Andy Cole, Emile Heskey) until they move to less fashionable clubs (see Andy Cole, Emile Heskey)

Ineffective substitutions in big matches (Brazil, Portugal etc)

Northern Ireland 1-0 England

Good News

Qualified for every tournament going

Knows his first eleven, give or take one centre back

We're better now than when he started

Solved the infamous 'left sided' problem (sort of)

Germany 1-5 England

There are still complaints that Sven is not English, but
a) that's not his fault, and
b) who else was there in January 2001? Peter Reid? Exactly.

45eachway hopes we'll look back on Sven as an excellent foreign stop gap for a period when decent English gaffers were thin on the ground. There are some other things we're not keen on (the sex scandals, the extortionate salary) but they don't really affect what happens on the pitch. There's Owen Hargreaves too, but even he's not that bad.

Sven must be doing something right to have stayed in such a high pressure job for so long, and England really are looking quite good in the run up to Germany. So, Mr. Eriksson, on your five year anniversary we salute you. Now go win us the World Cup.