Sorry to ramble on about England but why would Danny criticise Hodgson?
We breezed through the qualifiers and even though we didn't top our group, we completely dominated all three games and to be honest, it just fell down to bad luck for us not winning all three. Russia scored a flukey goal and we couldn't break Slovakia down despite having 20+ attempts. It happens sometimes in football, but I don't think Hodgson or the team are worthy of any criticism just yet. We've looked good in all three games in my opinion and no other team have dominated all their matches the way we have.
You could perhaps criticise Hodgson for making six changes for the game V Slovakia which everybody seemed to make a big deal of before the game. I personally didn't think there was any problem with that though. The 11 are clearly good enough to beat Slovakia and they battered them from start to finish but just couldn't put the ball in the back of the net. Kane, Sterling and Alli all needed replacing after their displays against Wales in my opinion and Sturridge and Vardy definitely deserved a start as well. Changing the full backs was a little odd but Clyne and Bertrand both played well and neither made any defensive errors & kept a clean sheet so it's pretty irrelevant anyway.
Think he's done well Hodgson to be fair to him so don't see any reason why Murphy would lay into him? I don't think Danny having played under Roy is a factor of refusing to criticise him which you may be suggesting.
I don't have an issue with Hodgson bringing in 6 fresh faces. Like yourself I actually think they made England more threatening than the sides he started against Russia and Wales.
No - the problem is thinking he can setup 4-3-3 and believe that is all you have to do. England played in straight lines against Slovakia and seemed content to just pass it in front of two banks of Slovakian defence. Pathetic. The only movement that occurred off the ball happened, unsurprisingly, from the Liverpool quartet of Lallana, Hendo, Clyne and Sturridge. Hendo and Clyne in particular combining brilliantly and showing dynamism. You'd be a fool to think that was planned on the England training field. Nope - it was taken from Melwood with our Redmen choosing to play what they knew best. It was the only good thing about England's performance. They dominated possession, but Slovakia dominated territory. Dominance of possession does not equal dominance of the game. And England didn't dominate. Dominated possession yes but that was all they did. They did remarkably little with it and those last 20 minutes in particular against Slovakia were shocking. Take into account that his subs were not subtle or designed to change the shape of the team in any way and you realise, once more, that Hodgson leaves a lot to be desired. If you think 'doing well' is finishing second in a group with Russia, Slovakia and Wales while Croatia top a group with Spain, Czechs and Turkey then all I can say is that Hodgson really has achieved his objective of lowering expectations to basement level.
But of course, we all know about that (or at least you'd think most of us would remember) when we were told just a few weeks into his reign at this club that we were fighting a relegation battle and to come out of it would be a success.
I'd rather choose to listen to Slaven Bilic over on ITV as opposed to Murphy when he said 'Why are you praising England for having possession in a game where the opponent allowed you to have possession?' But there's a man who knows his onions.
« Last Edit: Jun 22, 2016 05:53:36 pm by Frankly, Mr Shankly »
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