Jeremy Guscott: George Ford has to play with a smile on his face again

George Ford faces another huge decision in the coming weeks, as from today he is officially allowed to hear offers from rival Premiership clubs eager to lure him from the Rec.
For me it’s a simple question: where do you think you will play your best rugby? It is an unusual situation to be in and speculation over his future must be distracting him from his game. While his form has not been bad for Bath or England, for me he is still somewhere off his best. And it’s been a while now since we’ve seen it.
Ford settled in well at Bath after switching from Leicester Tigers in 2013, and the season after, when Bath reached the Premiership final, Ford was running the show like a seasoned professional to the point he was the standout player every week in a squad full of internationals.
He had always been touted as a precocious talent coming through the Tigers Academy and England age-groups and I thought he looked a decent prospect; good awareness, tactically astute and could do all the basic skills very well.
But the thing that set him apart for me was that he offered something few other 10s in the land could: speed. I like to see players run, and having a 10 who is not afraid to take the ball to the line, see the gap and have the gas to get through it made Bath a dangerous team.
His off-loading and awareness in support was top notch and at times during that season it was as if he could do no wrong. I don’t surf but I liken it to the feeling they must get when they time it perfectly through the tube. I had spells in my career where everything you touched came off and it’s a great feeling. When the run ends, though, it can be tough.
Usually a happy player off the pitch is a happy player on the pitch. That year, working closely with his Dad, Mike, George was clearly a happy man on and off the pitch and his game was developing every week.
The following season – post-World Cup – it was a very different story. Poor performances on the field allied to tension off the field led to inconsistency and he has struggled to get back to where he had been.
Since losing that Premiership final to Saracens in 2015, he has been dropped and recalled by England twice, and struggles for consistency. And his running game has diminished. After the changes in management at the club, it is no secret Ford was not best pleased about the handling of his father’s dismissal.
While it is hard to speculate on how George feels off the pitch, on the pitch, rugby wise, there are not many better options for him than Bath.
Wasps would be appealing with the personnel in the back line but with Danny Cipriani and Jimmy Gopperth in residence, a move is unlikely. Northampton could be another appealing option, as despite their current patchy form, there are a lot of top players and they can click into place quickly.
A return to Leicester would also make sense, with neither Owen Williams nor Freddie Burns firmly established in the shirt, and Tigers desperate to reassert their authority. The one club in the mix that does not make sense to me in rugby terms is Sale.
For Ford to be considering a move up north there must be big plans to make Sale into another team of galacticos like in 2006 when they won the league, otherwise a move to a team who are mid-table at best would not help his international ambitions.
Ford’s partnership with Owen Farrell has worked well for the past year but it will have a sell-by-date and on current form, Farrell would be my No.10.
England boss Eddie Jones will likely try a big bruiser at 12 in the Six Nations, with either a fit and firing Manu Tuilagi or Ben Te’o able to offer the back line a lot more in terms of physicality.
When that happens, Ford must be hitting his best form to have a chance of ousting Farrell. The confusion Ford can create in an opposition backline when he’s running the show in top gear put him into the England shirt in the first place and he needs to get that back to keep it.
Moving to Sale could make that very difficult. Alex Lozowski’s rise to the England squad since his switch to Saracens shows the impact of putting yourself in the shop window. Ford needs to be playing in big games, consistently to be in the mix because at the moment Farrell’s a match-winner and must be one of the first names on the sheet.
While Farrell is enjoying the benefits of playing behind a ferocious pack for the best team in Europe, Ford is at the centre of a rebuilding process at Bath in a team re-identifying themselves after the changes in coaching personnel.
The key for Ford now is to sort the off-field distractions because he needs to be focussed with a big six months ahead of the Lions tour. If he can get back to his running game, threaten the opposition like he used to, he’ll make it a far tougher choice for Jones when he does reshuffle the midfield.
For rugby reasons alone, I can’t think why Ford would want to leave Bath. However, for a player to fulfil their potential and play with freedom, it’s a must he plays with a smile on his face and only he knows if that can happen at Bath. For everyone’s sake, I hope it’s resolved quickly now the official shop window has opened.