I thought he had a good game to be fair. Dier was the man of the match for me, but Rooney was at points controlling the play with some clever and accurate passing in the way that Huddlestone used to for us. For me, Lallana and Sterling were disappointing. Alli showed moments of brilliance but wasn't consistent enough. Kane just wasn't at his best. There was one goal each for all four of them had they taken their chances better. Walker had a very good game. Rose also. I now see why Rooney is in the squad. Not sure if anyone else can do that role that well for England. Plus, he's a goal threat when he wants to be and has the tenacity that is too often missing from Englands players these days.
I kept hoping for Vardy to come on for Lallana or Sterling, Kane to drop behind him and Alli to occupy the left or right side.
I agree with you on Wayne Rooney, although I do wonder how he will get on in that role against stronger opposition. I'm a big fan of Sterling, but he was bang average last night. I'm also a big fan of Adam Lallana and thought he did well, although he is far too attacking minded for Woy's game plan. Unfortunately Kane looked lethargic, maybe a long season is catching up with him.
The Germany game showed that when an opposition team is confident in their own play, England will get opportunities to play their best no matter how little possession they may have. The Portugal and Russia games showed that against "organised" defences, England do not pass forward fast/accurately enough, and are not clinical enough when goal-scoring chances come. Sadly both of those things applied to Spurs in 2015-16.
Stirling and Lallana both looked bright, but both produced nothing. I would suggest that's not a coincidence. Alli and Kane were closely marked because they were liable to produce something. Stirling and Lallana were not because they weren't. Even Messi fluffs plenty of chances. England were even less clinical than most, true, but the special problem with England was the half dozen potential tap ins that flew harmlessly by because players including Kane did not run at the goal early enough or hard enough. The team should watch a highlight reel of Vardy, who excels at exactly that: assuming the good ball is going to give him a chance to score, and running accordingly. Therefore, Vardy should have started or been subbed in early. Bottling it, unfortunately, is not the result of luck or chance, it's the result of a poor reaction to pressure. It may begin for many reasons, but it goes on for one. The moment a player or team bottles it, he or it creates a traumatic memory which will make bottling it in the future more likely. If anyone could make a team stop bottling it, they could make millions. Sports psychologists claim they can make progress. Who knows? I'd give them a try. Traditional medicine is certainly another tempting alternative. I might disagree. England and Spurs are similar in bottling it. As far as scoring and buildup go, Spurs nearly led the league in scoring. I have trouble imagining a tournament where England would be among the top scorers (except for having the good fortune to run up the score against an especially weak team). Spurs' buildup was too slow fairly often, I thought, but it was fast fairly often as well. Spurs' scoring wasn't disproportionately against weaker teams (4 against Man City, 3 against Man U, for example). So in a nutshell, bottling aside, Spurs were quality, England aren't. IMO. Rooney was good, but had acres of space. He also had a couple of bad giveaways on the few occasions he was put under pressure. So while I would give him a good rating for his distribution (he had a number of pinpoint long passes), I think he's disaster, or at least a big weakness, waiting to happen against a team that exerts pressure. Hodgson has prioritized politics over the team. That is racing bottling it for being England's biggest problem. If Alli and Kane are the best thing England has (since they were the best partnership in the PL) how is it that Roy has told them to stay apart? If Drinkwater and Vardy are the second best thing, why was Drinkwater cut, and Vardy not on the field? On the other hand, the rest of the Spurs in the team, combined with a couple of present and former Pool players, made England much more coherent than in past tournaments. Put Alli and Kane together at the top, or arrange a team where everyone is in a sensible place, and England should be able to make the last 8, at least. If they don't bottle it.
Spurs had their costly moments last season. The last two England games have mirrored those moments. The solution to the problem is not unattainable (if England have any intelligence) .
Quality always shows through Charlie picked up a nasty crack on the head - lots of claret but seems OK....
Talking of Spursy performances, Croatia/Turkey reminded me a lot of our games against Kvetch Brom and the Chavs at the end of the season - rather than rise above the Turks' tactics of clog, clog and clog some more, there were times where the Croats got dragged into committing niggly fouls in response, and it has to be said Brozovic and Perisic missing a handful of gilt-edged opportunities to make it 2-0 was pretty Spursy, too.
I thought Rooney put in a decent impression of Dembele but the other five non-Spurs players were not as good as Hugo, Jan, Toby, Erik and Christian. I think we need to go for 4231 with Wilshere or Henderson next to Dier and Rooney and Milner either side of Alli. Adding Sturridge or Vardy in any position other than Kane's would leave us to open or require Rose and Walker to hang back.
Its quite possible that Kane is taking the set pieces because they've done some sort of test and he is the best at them?
Sounds very likely. Eventually Hodgson may realize he could test who's best at directing them into goal.
If only I remembered to take a drink every time the commentators mentioned George Best, maybe that match would've been somewhat entertaining...
It was the interview at half time with David Healy that got me...thinking that Danny Drinkwater et al should be recording videos and posting them online at half time of every England match.
Thought we played really well. Time will tell how bad Russia were and how much was down to us but performance-wise I was pleased. The equaliser is a huge blow though and I don't think Roy's substitutions trying to shut up shop helped. Vardy should've come on for Kane for the last 15 minutes, give them something different to deal with in defence. Not all Roy's fault though, we should've scored at least one more. Great strike from Dier though. You could field 11 Eric Dier's and have a very good side.
