I was interested to read on Sky Sports the former England caretaker manager Peter Taylor’s ratings for England’s starting eleven in the recent friendly international versus France.  A match England lost 3-2, in case anyone had forgotten.

 

Tom Heaton 6

Kieran Trippier 7

Ryan Bertrand 7

Phil Jones 8

Gary Cahill 7

John Stones 7

Raheem Sterling 7

Eric Dier 6

Alex Oxelade-Chamberlain 6

Dele Alli 7

Harry Kane 9

 

Not a number lower than 6; a pretty good scorecard I would suggest.  If this had been my end of school report for the subjects I had taken that year, and these were the scores I had received from my teachers, I would be feeling pretty chuffed with myself.

 

Physics 6

English Literature 7

English Language 7

Mathematics 8

Chemistry 7

Biology 7

Geography 7

History 6

French 6

Religious Studies 7

Physical Education 9

 

I could imagine the headmaster’s summing up at the bottom of that report: “Well done, Blake, very good effort; lots of progress being made; keep up the good work!”

Does the England football team deserve similar praise?

It is something that I frequently notice when players are being rated after matches.  The write-up of their performance may frequently be damning––“Lost the ball far too many times; regularly caught out of position.”––but it will be followed up with a high score out of ten, which seems to bear no relation to the write-up, which has gone before.

Sky Sports’ assessment of the France versus England friendly would suggest that England had played well, both in defence and in attack; that there was no obvious sign of weakness in the team.  I wonder if I was watching a different match?

Of course, I am making a critical assumption, which might be confusing matters.  I am assuming that Sky Sports’ ratings are being marked out of 10.  Perhaps this is not the case, and they are actually being marked out of 20.

Even then I think that some players’ ratings are overly generous.

© Donnie Blake

Donnie Blake thinks players’ ratings should tell it how it is.