Something to build on?

Meant for publication some weeks back but lost until found now, so what they hell!

Now that the dust has well and truly settled, we have all taken 'a break' for a while and enjoyed the summer - what we have had of this! - England reflections can be had...

Yep, we had some negatives shown at Euro 2012, and Roy Hodgson - despite all his experience in the game - needs to learn something from this tournament too, as I feel he will, but all in all we saw signs of something to build on really, right?

It was not always pretty for England and the Italian game highlighted some major shortcoming, with us paying the ultimate price...

We managed to get through a 'tricky' group as winners to set up an 'easier' tie against Italy as opposed to the one against Spain but we could not go that step further, pretty much finishing par for the course with expectation of the nation met really.

After such a positive start in the quarter final with Italy, the opening 20-25 minutes really were pretty impressive, but then we totally withdrew into our shell with the 2nd half and the whole of extra time with us very much on the backfoot.

The major failing, once again, in that game was an inability to retain possession and when we did have it us being unable to utilise this better. This constantly left us chasing the game and, as mentioned, on the backfoot. By doing that we expanded so much unnecessary energy and this left us out on our feet.

It was that failure if you ask me and we really must learn from when the dust well and truly settled and Hodgson looks forward to the world cup qualifiers and hopefully the 2014 world cup finals.

After this bright opening to the knockout game it was so disappointing to see us, quite visibly, 'settle for penalties'. Ok, we are not technically gifted like many nations but we surely are not so inept when it comes to attacking that we have to simply hold on and not really look to win a game to then settle for something that has cost us seven out of the eight shootouts we have been involved in over the years?

Substitution wise, whilst doing this quite well in other games, I was not sure that Hodgson made the right calls in that game. His withdrawal of James Milner, whilst not to the liking of all as a player in his own right, to bring on Theo Walcott, which was the right one instead of Ashley Young, who had another poor game, was odd. This impacted negatively on us in a number of was as had Walcott come on for Young, and played on his side, it would have allowed Glen Johnson to continue getting forward and offering us that outlet that he had been, once Walcott was on ahead of the Liverpool man he rarely ventured as far as the halfway line, if that!

Hodgson has done a decent job and I like the way he has us playing as a unit and as a team but hope that he looks into getting us playing more offensively in the future, he needs to have more intent on winning game and not just set up to avoid defeat.

We are where we are, for a number of reasons, but with some useful youngsters coming through - with some sadly missed due to injuries etc. - I reckon he can continue to build on what he has started with a positive new future ahead of us...

Vital England on:

Vital England on:

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