|
I think that's a bit harsh. Steven Gerrard was excellent, as I thought was Lescott. Rooney's goal wasn't a classic but he's a goal scorer who changes games even when he doesn't seem to play well (compare with the some of the 'brilliant' forwards we've seen elsewhere who've dazzled on occasions but ultimately done nothing - what Robben wouldn't have given for a lucky bounce like that). We rode our luck a bit, but so to some degree have all the teams that made it through - Spain were very close to going out last night. We may lose to Italy, we may not. It's too close to call for me. Although the one thing we have in our favour that I think a lot of 'better' teams will rightly be wary of is that, as average as we obviously are, we're proving hard to beat and we're always capable of nicking a goal. Even if we do get beaten by Italy, this is the most positive I've felt about an England team for years.
Hodgson seems to have a proper footballing 'idea'. It's still obviously very rough around the edges and definitely not one I'd want to follow week in week out in a league but for an international side I think it's perfectly fine and a vast improvement on the kind of directionless leadership we've had to endure for so long. Under Redknapp we'd have likely seen him go on about letting the team "express itself", then appear clueless when it went wrong. We've seen against Sweden that Hodgson can adapt has strategy when things don't go according to plan.
|