Reflecting on France draw

England started Euro 2012 with a decent point against France on Monday, a point that most - if they are honest - would have taken before the game really.

Having taken the lead through Joleon Lescott on the half hour it was just a shame that we could not have got through to the break ahead, with France equalising 10-minutes later...

Nevertheless Roy Hodgson feels that we have a 'good platform' to build on, 'fitness' will get better and he was 'proud' of his players: 'this gives us a good platform.

'Hopefully we'll get fitter. The more we train and get matches under our belts the fitter we'll become.

'I have to be proud of their display. No player let us down. I was confident the players would not let us down.'

This was always likely to be a 'cagey game', as so often is the case in the opening game of a group - neither side wants to lose, and if you are playing one of the, on paper at least, 'strongest teams' in the group it is often even more cagey.

Hodgson admits that England 'need to improve' in certain areas but is happy to get, on paper, 'the hardest game' out of the way not that Sweden or Ukraine will be taken lightly: 'France are one of the favourites in the group.

'They'd gone 21 games unbeaten before today and people were tipping them to be potential winners of the tournament.

'We can't deny on paper they might be the hardest game, but I've got a lot of respect for Sweden and Ukraine.

'I've got to be very proud of that performance. Maybe that final ball needs to improve and we were maybe a bit anxious in the final third.

'But there were good signs of a team wanting to do well.'

Avoiding defeat against France was pretty important to our chances, and we managed that so we cannot be too unhappy can we?

Most definitely we do need to retain the ball better and make more use of this when attacking. Ball retention, especially in the heat that is being seen at these finals, is important as it allows you that small 'rest period' at times.

I think we dropped too deep at times, especially in the 2nd half and for a short time after we had scored, if we had not done this I am sure we would have got through to the half time break 1-0 up, if we had done that who knows...

All in all I thought we played pretty well, better than I think I, and I guess many others, expected.

Vital England on:

Vital England on:

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