Numbers don’t add up for Roy
HODGSON FAILS TO RECALL WORLD CUP WOE
THERE was a moment here yesterday when Roy Hodgson appeared to be employing a strategy that might have been suggested to him by the team psychiatrist. If Steve Peters sensed at any stage that England’s manager was struggling under the burden of history ahead of this afternoon’s monumental, must-win encounter with Wales, perhaps he advised him to simply erase it from his memory; pretend it didn’t happen.
It would certainly explain why Hodgson seemed to forget the last World Cup and the fact that his side lasted only six days before booking an early flight home from Brazil.
Mario Balotelli and Luis Suarez? It was as if Hodgson had never heard of them, the evidence of a defensive, detailed response to being reminded that it has been a while since England last won a match in a tournament. The reality: England 1 Ukraine 0 in Donetsk, just under four years ago. But Hodgson rewrote history in response to a question that had actually been directed at Wayne Rooney.
‘I suppose we could sit here and boast that since 2012 we haven’t lost a qualifier or a game in a tournament, unless you take the loss on penalties because we lost to Italy on penalties and it was 0-0,’ he said. ‘We won two and drew two in 2012, we won 20 qualifiers, or won 16 and lost four, and we’ve drawn our opening game here, so we could — if we wanted to — start saying we are a difficult team to beat and see what happens tomorrow.’
Just to clear it up, Hodgson’s England lost two games at the 2014 World Cup, both 2-1 to Italy and Uruguay. They also have not lost a qualifier, winning 16 and drawing four.
In fairness to Hodgson, he might have thought the question was specific to the European Championship (it was not). Or maybe the lunch he enjoyed on Tuesday with Mr and Mrs Delia Smith went on longer than he had planned.
Whatever the truth, England’s record in tournaments under Hodgson is pretty damn poor and here today that needs to change. Here today Hodgson’s England need to prove that they can conquer a team when it really matters.
‘England have played (against) great players in the past,’ said Chris Coleman yesterday, a reference to Gareth Bale but also a very deliberate attempt to remind his opponents of the problems they have endured.
It was Suarez in Sao Paulo, Balotelli in Manaus. Not to mention Andrea Pirlo in Kiev. That is Hodgson’s experience but of course there are plenty of other examples if we trawl through England’s history.
There is one piece of history Hodgson will want to avoid. Fail to win today and he will become the third England manager to go six tournament matches without a win, the other two being Walter Winterbottom and Sir Bobby Robson.
The manager of Wales was impressive yesterday, suggesting with a hint of mischief that one weakness England might possess can be found in the fact they have experimented with so many different formations. ‘ Maybe they’re not settled, or maybe they’re a bit more settled than we think they are,’ he said.
It could well be the latter given Hodgson’s apparent desire to stick with the same team and same formation as the Russia game, his only hope being that they prove more clinical this time.
They will need to be and not just because of the obvious threat posed by Bale. Wales suffer from limited ability in specific areas of the pitch but they certainly boast a midfield superior to the Russian unit England met in Marseille.
Aaron Ramsey, Joe Allen and Joe Ledley is a trio Rooney may well find more of a challenge, and how well England’s captain copes might just determine the outcome of this game.
Against Russia Rooney looked extremely comfortable in a role he had never before performed at international level. Against the Welsh, however, things could be different. Rooney seems to think he can adapt, saying: ‘You can do what you can do on the pitch and if the opponents do something different you have to see that on the pitch and do something different yourself.
‘If you see space, you’re not going to go into a crowd of players; you’re going to take that space. If there’s not that space there then you’re going to have to go and find it.’
You get what he means but this comes back to Coleman’s point about formations. While Wales have arrived at a system their manager believes best suits his players, England remain in the experimental stage.
On the plus side, they did put in an impressive first-half performance last weekend. But it led only to a draw against opponents who Slovakia proved yesterday really are very ordinary.
Wales are not ordinary. They have a player of the quality of Suarez and Pirlo; someone superior to Balotelli. Not that Hodgson is in any hurry to make a comparison.
It is almost 58 years to the day since Wales last played a match of this magnitude in an international tournament. June 19, 1958 in Gothenburg, a World Cup quarter- final against Brazil.
Defeated by the first international goal from a 17-year- old prospect called Pele, they returned home. As Mel Charles, brother of Welsh legend John and the man Pele rated as the best centre half in the tournament, got off at Swansea station, he met an old friend.
‘Haven’t seen you around for a while, Mel,’ said his pal. ‘Been on holiday?’
Wales’s only World Cup appearance had barely registered at home. the day of the Brazil match, the South Wales Evening
Post led its back page on the second day’s play in a County Championship game between Glamorgan and Essex at Llanelli. It is fair to say cricket won’t be getting much of a look-in today.
Chris Coleman, the Wales manager, made several references to the circus around England, on the eve of their meeting in Lens. His players have certainly been in the centre of the ring this week. Wales have more pride and passion, says Gareth Bale.
Not a single English player would get in Wales’s team. Football doesn’t really indulge in the trash talk that sells payper-view title fights in boxing, but this has been close to it.
If the idea was to rattle England, it may have worked. there were smiles around the England camp, but Wales looked the much more relaxed party yesterday, although results may have something to do with that.
Roy Hodgson sounded a little surprised at the news Slovakia were leading Russia 2-0 at halftime (final score 2-1). He knew it was bad news for his team. Not only did it put England’s failure to hold a 1-0 lead on Saturday in sharper relief, it firmly established Russia as the weak link in the group.
Wales now have a free hit in Lens. Win, and they are through to the Last 16. Draw, and a point against Russia on Monday will see them through. Lose, and they will qualify with a final game win. For England, the stakes are considerably higher. they cannot go out today, even with defeat, but that worst- case scenario would mean Slovakia need only draw the last game to leave England in third place, at best.
the last time England played a world- class forward in a tournament match, Luis Suarez in 2014, he put them out of the World Cup. Bale cannot make England’s demise certain, but he could shred nerves and egos if he performs at a peak.
‘One player cannot make a team, but one man can inspire a team,’ said his Real Madrid manager Zinedine Zidane. ‘With the way Gareth is playing his team-mates will believe anything is possible. He is capable of moments of brilliance where he wins games on his own.’
Wales have not beaten England since 1984, but they are a different proposition now with Bale.
‘ It’s not England v Bale, it’s England v Wales,’ Wayne Rooney protested. ‘We’ll have to stop a few of their players if we want to win.’
Hodgson has a decent record in his Battle of Britain matches but, as he admitted yesterday, tournament football makes this a fresh proposition. ‘ the games with Scotland were about bragging rights,’ he said. ‘ they were good games, tough games, but it is different when points are at stake.’
And more, given that this tournament effectively serves as Hodgson’s job application for when Euro 2016 ends. It is hard to see how he can win a new contract without making a significant impression here, and that would include smooth progress, rather than an unedifying scramble, to the Last 16.
England’s European Championship record is bizarre. technically, given that the result of a penalty shootout is a draw, England have not lost a game in the finals since playing France in 2004 — although they did not qualify in 2008 — and have only lost three since 1992.
Yet in that time, they have made scant impression, reaching the last four just once. Many of the major countries have started slowly here but all — France, Italy, Germany, Spain — have found ways to win.
England, by contrast, found a way to draw having outclassed Russia — a result that has allowed Wales the luxury of heaping on the pressure.
‘the talking? I’m surprised people focus so much on it,’ Hodgson sniffed. ‘Both Wayne Rooney and I have been in football a long time, and if we took into account of what people from the other team are saying and allowed that to influence what we were doing, then we should be ashamed of ourselves.
‘talk is talk and action on the field is different. I haven’t heard anyone in the squad make any reference to what Wales have said.’
Coleman, meanwhile, looked as if butter wouldn’t melt, having gently allowed his players to crank up the e tension through the week. those who know him say he comes from the Sir Alex Ferguson school of management, believing the game is afoot once the first red light glows onn a newsman’s camera,a, and it was always his intention to use the England ngland circus as a pre-match weapon.
Asked whether this was his strategy, he grew coy.
‘It’s all about opinions,’ he said, with only the trace of a smirk. ‘We can’t worry about upsetting the opposition and we can’t be afraid to give opinions. It’s about what happens on the pitch now. One or two of ours have said things the English don’t like, but let’s get at it and then it doesn’t matter what anybody has said. ‘there’s a lot more pressure on England, a lot more expectation. But nobody can make you feel bad about yourselves unless you give them permission. ‘We haven’t had the intention to get under anybody’s skin.’ It doesn’t need that, sometimes, with England. the more they try to show how calm they are, the more uptight they seem. And it is hard being them. Imagine if one of Hodgson’s players said no Welshman would makem the England team — as Bale claimed no Englandland player would start for WWales. there would be aan outcry, a backlash. Arrogant England, they think they’re so superior. Yet a Welshman can do it and it is indulged aas all good fun and part of the phoney war. Hodgson wouldn’t be drawn on it, when asked, and said the composite XI was more of a question for journalists and fans. For the record, mine would be: Joe Hart; Kyle Walker, Ashley Williams, Chris Smalling, Danny Rose; Aaron Ramsey, Eric Dier, Dele Alli; Wayne Rooney, Harry Kane, Gareth Bale. So England eight, Wales three. Another reason why all the pressure is on Hodgson. Pride and passion be damned, man for man, England should win this. Of course, if they don’t, it might even knock Glamorgan off the back page.