Internationals / Frank Gregan / 25 June 2009 / Leave a comment

Frank Gregan is full of praise for the England Under 21 team and hopes Stuart Pearce and Theo Walcott become important members of the senior England set-up. But history has taught us things don't always work that way.

England U21s face the hosts Sweden in the semi-final of the UEFA Championship on Friday night hoping to secure a place in Monday's final. Stuart Pearce has every right to be feeling pleased with himself, he has the opportunity to be the first England manager in a quarter of a century to win this tournament. Success will likely mean a campaign from the red tops to have him installed into the first team hot seat should Fabio Capello have any sort of blip.

Not everyone has been delighted with the way that Pearce has handled affairs in Sweden. Arsene Wenger believed that Theo Walcott needed to be rested this summer but the Arsenal player elected to answer his country's call to arms only to find himself dropped after a poor performance in the opening game against Finland. Walcott gave vent to his disappointment in the press stating that he believed he "deserved more support." Pearce's riposte left all of the squad in no doubt as to what he expects of them when he said anybody having a bad game runs the risk of being axed and called for "no egos, no superstars just a collective will to win."

Pearce and Walcott are both in the fledgling stages of their respective international managerial and playing careers and an U21 winners medal will do neither of them any harm as they stake their claim for more involvement with the senior team. Should Walcott have a big season for Arsenal he will likely make the England wide right berth his own and will play an important role during the World Cup finals in South Africa next year. Victory in South Africa will mean legendary status for all involved and Walcott has every chance of making England's starting eleven. Stuart Pearce will be looking to learn from Capello on a daily basis with an eventual goal of taking over from the Italian when the time is right, which will hopefully be many good tournaments down the track.

But for the time being he'll be more concerned with proving that England deserve the favourites tag that Betfairians have given them going into their match with Sweden; they are [2.14] to win in 90 minutes on Friday and a very skinny [2.84] to win the tournament. The buzz from the English camp is that Walcott will start and given his ability to get beyond the full back and put the first centre back under pressure, odds in the region of [1.7] on England in the corners match bet should be snapped up.

So it is all fine and dandy in the England U21 camp and the future looks to be in very secure hands both off the field and on it. However, at the risk of raining on the parade, let's learn our lessons from history and consider what happened to the brightest U21 manager we had in a generation and the joint-top goalscorer that the U21s have ever produced.

Peter Taylor was the manager who was perceived as the best the U21s had had for ages, indeed he even looked after the senior team in a caretaker capacity for a match. He became the victim of politics during an FA regime change and left to return to club management in just about every division, including the Conference, where he was in charge of Stevenage. It looks likely that he will resign his post this week with Wycombe Wanderers having just won promotion with them but being deprived of funding for the coming season. He has had an honest, workmanlike career but it could have been so different had things worked out at the FA.

Two players share the U21 goalscoring record. Alan Shearer kicked on and had an outstanding career but the other player remained firmly in the unfilled potential category despite being a big Arsenal purchase and looking as if success was assured. Let that be a lesson to Theo Walcott, he has achieved nothing yet and unless he gets his head down and stops looking for preferential treatment he could also find himself on the slippery pole. The other U21 top goalscorer was Francis Jeffers currently with Sheffield Wednesday, a solid traditional club but a long way from where Jeffers would like to be.