It's started again, England have got off to a good start at a major international tournament, and suddenly we are back on the bandwagon that is England might just have a chance at silverware this year. After starting brightly at this years European championship, and winning from behind for the first time in a major international tournament against Wales on Thursday, is there a reason to believe again? Or is it simply the same old England who will eventually let us down?
Selection is obviously important in any football game, but if England are to have any success in this years Euro's, Roy Hogdson must learn from his first half tactical mistakes against Wales. Firstly, Raheem Sterling simply can't be in the starting eleven next time out. He has stumbled through his season at Manchester City and he has taken this poor form into the Euro's and he looks not even a fraction of the player who carried our hopes at the 2014 World Cup. He looks like someone who simply cannot be bothered to play for his country. He may be tired and in need of a rest, but I don't buy professional footballers needing rest when they are only playing twice in a week. I still think he would be an effective substitute to bring on with fifteen or twenty minutes left on the clock, but for me Vardy or Rashford should start in his place. Roy Hogdson also needs to be more expressive in his tactical shape, we have a team blessed with some of the finest attacking players in world football, in Harry Kane, Wayne Rooney and Daniel Sturridge. These players need to be utilised, when you have attacking players as good as ours, play an offensive formation and go for it, our defence is competent enough to be able to not be thrashed, and considering no team in the competition is blowing teams away, it would be a wise move. Take the example of how Barcelona set up tactically with 3 forwards, yes they concede goals but they blow teams away offensively and simply score more goals than the opposition because they have that attacking mindset and utilise the prominent talent. I am not saying Rooney, Kane and Vardy are as good as Messi, Neymar and Suarez, but like in the second half vs Wales, if we played with more forwards and were more attacking minded our chances of getting to the later stages significantly increase.
Joe Hart's performance has been questionable in both games so far, and I think on times his overconfidence affects his performance.He was way off his line for the Russia equaliser in the opening game, and his positioning when attempting to defend Gareth Bale's opener on Thursday was poor. He should have stopped it. Yes it was travelling fast, but it was 35 yards out and not even directly in an unreachable position in the goal. Now he is a very, very good keeper but he made a fatal mistake in both of the games thus far, and if you are to drop Raheem Sterling, dropping Joe Hart must also be considered.
If Roy Hogsdon plays with a more attacking intent, and gets the team selection right, I think this could lead to England scoring more goals, and surprising a few sides on the way. However I don't think England are yet ready to win the competition. Sides like Spain and France are starting to get warmed up, and then of course you can never rule Germany out of any competition. I predicted France to win it before the tournament began, and one of the reasons why is I think they are using their forward players tactically very well. They are another side, like England, who are blessed with a myriad of top attacking talent but are defensively not as strong. It will be interesting to see how far England go, and I will stick my neck out and say I think we will make the Semi finals. There is definitely more hope this tournament than there has been for a number of years, and when the knockouts start, anything can happen, including the possibility of Wayne Rooney, for once scoring more goals in a tournament than red cards.
