Buzzin Football Blog

Watching the England game on tv yesterday, I wasn’t impressed with the way England started the game.  It was obvious they were nervous but excusing poor passing & a lack of ideas with the ball at their feet or an unfamiliar formation, is not good enough.

After 38 minutes, following a series of poor passes & schoolboy errors a section of the crowd began to ‘boo’; and so they should.  It wasn’t aimed at any partiucular player, the formation or the manager, but a crowd that could see top quality footballers, some of which are touted as being ‘world class’ running out of ideas and options, to the point where they passed the ball back from an attacking move, right back to the goalkeeper David James.

Wes Brown, Asley Cole and Gareth Barry stood out for me as looking out of sorts, while David Bentley managed to overcome a few starting nerves and errors to become one of the better players in the second half.

Wayne Rooney ran himself into the ground, but showed another England manager that he is not effective as a lone striker.  He also missed a few good chances.  But it was with the introduction of Peter Crouch in the second half that England began to play more confidently, and although using the same formation of 4-5-1, it worked because Crouch can play the lone striker role, knocking it down or holding the play to bring midfielders into the attack.

Overall I don’t agree with the Match Of The Day pundits who believed the performance was good.  It wasn’t.  Switzerland were a poor side.  If England had played a team with more skill and determination, the score could have quite easily been much worse.

Equally I got annoyed listening to the Radio Five Live 606 football phone-in with Tim Lovejoy that followed the game.  Lovejoy’s comments echoed the tv pundits - a new manager, a new style, new formation.  No, the problem is whether England will be able to play good quality football against decent opposition with their backs to the wall.

Next month England play France.