England Falter At The First Hurdle
It's difficult to know where to begin with England. The 1-1 draw that was such a painful yet hilariously inevitable should have surprised absolutely nobody. The feeling of "here comes the equaliser" struck me all the way up until the 91st minute, and the only reason that I personally had to feel confident was when Russia's stoppage time corner failed to beat the first man. There was still time for England to throw it away, but Russia didn't look like they had a clue how to capitalise on that. But then a long punt into the box off said cleared corner and Berezutski, Russia's captain and aerial presence at central defence, managed to isolate himself against Danny Rose, and powered in the header.
Now on the goal itself, yes Rose was beaten far too easily, and it was terrific movement from Berezutski to allow that, but it smacks of poor organisation from England's defence. Someone taller and more powerful in the eye has to be keeping an eye on Russia's main aerial presence and aware that letting him get into a one-on-one with one of the smallest players on the pitch was a mistake.
In terms of mistakes made by Hodgson to allow the game to reach that point? Well not bringing on either Jamie Vardy or Daniel Sturridge up front was the vital one, either to support, but frankly instead of the tired, and completely ineffectual Harry Kane. Kane is England's top striker but he had a shocking game, in which bizarrely he was asked to take corners and made a mess of most of them, but worse than that was his discipline with the offside trap, as his woeful positioning caught him offside in a promising position three or four times when there was no need for it. Giving Vardy or Sturridge twenty minutes off the bench with England 1-0 up and giving them pace on the counter attack was the right decision, and I'm not entirely sure how Raheem Sterling got as long as he did on the pitch, given how useless he was. A lot of people are blaming the decision to take off Wayne Rooney for Jack Wilshire, but given that Rooney's aging legs mean I'm not sure he's capable of playing a full 90 minutes twice in one week without some sort of kickback, especially at the high tempo England will want to play with, bringing on the fresh and more energetic Wilshire was definitely a good decision, or at the least one that was wholly justified when he made it. Moreover, England still looked really comfortable until the goal and were still controlling the game. I doubt Rooney being on the pitch made any difference to the goal.
But onto the positives then, because ultimately there were lots of them, and whilst it's easy to picks holes in Hodgson's numerous tactical mistakes, he did ultimately almost get the starting eleven right. It seems strange to say that Hodgson deserves credit for playing the five Spurs players all in their correct positions, all together, since their chemistry both in attack and defence forms the core of this side, and moreover playing Adam Lallana on the right was also a smart move because Liverpool's Klopp are the closest thing in the Premier League stylistically speaking to Pochettino's high pressing style. As such, the midfield combo of Dier at the deepest, Alli in the CAM role, linking up with Kane with pressing wingers, and supported well by the full backs, worked a treat and was the main reason that England played well. And as I said, it seems odd to praise Hodgson for this, given how obvious the whole thing was. However, the main question of course, is in this team, who plays the Dembele role? And this brings us onto Wayne Rooney.
My problem with Rooney being in the team was that fundamentally he wouldn't fit into the system, not because I don't think he's capable of playing in the Dembele role, as he showed last night he's perfectly capable (ish, I'll come to that in a moment), but because I didn't think that Hodgson would have the guts to say to Rooney, play deeper and let Dele Alli play ahead of you (mostly because he favoured Alli in a deeper role in the friendlies because I have absolutely no idea) and Rooney in a more attacking role. And also because I didn't think Rooney had the tactical discipline to actually resist the urge to charge forward and get involved in the attack at every opportunity, and in that respect he did very well, dictating the play from deep which is one of his strengths, and as such the fact that he was in the deeper role freed up Alli, Lallana and the full backs to all play very, very well. Rooney himself had a good game of course, it cannot be denied that he turned in an excellent performance, but it was the fact that his positioning freed up England's more fluent attacking players that was truly beneficial to England's performance, with Dele Alli arguably the man of the match, with the only other main contender being the man who scored the stunning 25 yard free kick to put England 1-0 up, Eric Dier (again getting to that in a moment).
However, whether or not Rooney can play the deeper role against bigger opposition remains to be seen. It was a very smart move from Hodgson to test him in that role against Russia but Russia were pretty poor opposition, sitting deep and putting no pressure on the ball or on Rooney. Dembele's biggest strength is that when you press him, he simply doesn't give the ball away, and whether or not this system can work without Dembele in it, let alone with Wayne Rooney in it, remains to be seen when we play against a team that won't let us have over 60% of the possession and put no pressure on the deep-lying playmaker.
Moreover, as previously mentioned, the biggest problem in this game was individual performances up top. Weirdly, Kane turned in a really poor showing, but Raheem Sterling on the left was easily the worst England player on the pitch. He produced one or two decent moments in the first twenty minutes but after that he gave the ball away almost every time he had it. He always looks good when he's running at players, because he's fast and has tricky feet, but his final ball was nothing less than atrocious, always failing to pick a pass, a cross or take on the shot, and as such he produced nothing noteworthy in this performance. He simply has to be dropped for the Wales game, either to free up the attacking flair of Vardy down that flank, or the more solid option of Milner, who makes up for in creativity and defensive workrate what he makes up for in pace. If pace is Sterling's only attribute, it's also Milner's only downfall, which is why I can see Hodgson tempted by Vardy instead.
And despite playing well, England didn't create too many clear chances, mainly because Kane's positional play was poor and Sterling's end product was non-existent. The best chance of the match fell to Rooney, ironically, whose good effort from twenty yards was well saved by Russia's keeper. But then England got a free kick twenty-five yards out and Eric Dier, bizarrely, was the man to step up. I say bizarrely because he has never once taken a direct free kick for Tottenham in his career (but then Harry Kane doesn't tend to take corners). But, unlike Kane, Dier nailed it, his free kick sending England fans into ecstasy. It's just a shame that what came after was so inevitable.
Overall? This was a good performance, and a sign of decent things to come. I haven't changed my mind though. I still think England will top the group, win an easy game in the last 16 and be beaten by the first semi-good team we come across. Frankly, England's group is one of the easiest in the tournament, and this was a pretty poor start, against a poor Russia team.
Euros Round Up
Elsewhere in the Euros so far, Wales went to the top of Group B with a last gasp winner against Slovakia, in a game that really could have gone either way. A Gareth Bale free kick that Slovakia's goalkeeper Kozácik somehow conspired to miss put Wales 1-0 up inside ten minutes, having already survived an early scare as dangerman Hamsik beat three players and shot past keeper Ward, only for a phenomenal clearance off the line from the excellent Ben Davies saving Wales' bacon.
But Slovakia never looked out of the game, and despite a sterling defensive display from Wales, a wonderful move from Slovakia ended with Duda slotting the ball home to equalise just after the hour mark. And from there the game could have gone either way, both teams were playing pretty well, but it was Hal Robson-Kanu who scuffed a shot to send the mediocre Kozácik the wrong way and give Wales a win that on balance you'd have to say that they deserved, despite Slovakia crashing a header against the post late on, although Wales could easily have scored a third as Slovakia opened up defensively.
Oh and shoutout to Martin Skrtel, who is technically still a Liverpool player for a few more weeks, as he managed to elbow his way into almost conceding a penalty and two-foot his way into almost getting sent off. What a hero.
And poor goalkeeping is looking like being a feature of this tournament, as following a goalkeeping howler from Romania's keeper to allow Giroud to head into an empty net to give France the lead on Friday night, and a pretty poor piece of penalty keeping from Lloris (although it's always difficult to blame a keeper for conceding from a pen unless he gave it away and that dubious honour goes to the utterly hapless Patrice Evra), the only goal in Switzerland's 1-0 win over ten man Albania came from another keeping error, as Albania's keeper charged out to catch a corner and failed miserably, allowing centre back Schar to head into an empty net, Giroud style.
And Lorik Cana, Albania's captain, capped off a poor performance with two yellow cards before half time, the first a reckless scything tackle and the second a deliberate handball on the edge of the area when thoroughly beaten. And Switzerland really should have scored three or four in this game, as the resulting free kick hit the post, and main striker Seferovic missed two or three glorious second half chances, with Xherdan Shaqiri also guilty of missing a clear cut opening. But despite that, Albania nearly equalised, as lone striker Sadiku was through on goal, only to be denied by Swiss keeper, the terrific Yann Sommer.
But the final word on any Euros talk has to go to the world class Dimitri Payet, arguably the only French player to really turn in a top performance (except perhaps Kante) and unquestionably the best player on the pitch as his late wonder goal to win the game for France against Romania capped off what was an incredible display, with a goal, an assist, a staggering eight key passes and just all round general skill.
It's been a terrific start to the Euros, hoping for more excellent games over the next few days, and today it's ze Germans and everyone's favourite plucky underdogs, Northern Ireland, plus a tasty clash between Croatia and Turkey.
The Hard and Fast Section
- Looking like rain will wash out the third test.
- But Bairstow with another phenomenal hundred.
- Big win for England in the rugby against the Aussies.
- But Wales humbled by New Zealand.
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