By Myles Palmer
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MICHAEL OWEN surprised himself with two moments of skill.
The first was a backheel flick from five yards that went through a defender’s legs for 1-0.
Frankowski made it 1-1 on 45 minutes.
Then sub Peter Crouch, in his own penalty area, started a good move with a thirty yard pass to Rooney, a counter-attack swept into the box, a ball broke for Engand and Owen pinged it over for Lampard to volley home.
It was 2-1 after 80 minutes and England top the group.
ROONEY, still immature, tried to give a 90-minute exhibition.
He was eye-catching but didn’t score.
He needs a 20-minute purple patch where he scores one goal and makes another.
Rooney wasn’t the difference between winning this game 2-1 and drawing it 2-2.
LEDLEY KING WAS.
We know Ledley can play at this level.And we know he can play the holding role.
I saw some of his earliest games at Spurs and always rated him highly.
From day one I thought : He can pass under pressure. He’s tidy. He’s composed. He always gets his pass in. He’s strong, he’s fast, he’s cool enough to make sure of his passes.
Sven’s England team has been chockablock with untidy players for 5 years : Owen, Heskey, Joe Cole.
Ledley is a Godsend who gives us spinal strength, composure, shape and balance.
If you pick the midfield round Ledley, you can’t go wrong.The team falls into shape
Will Sven finally get the message that he needs a holding player?
Will he now stop being a groupie and abandon his galactico midfield?
If you have shape, you are compact.
If you are compact you can push further up the field and press and play aggressively, which is what English football is all about.
Against Austria, England were rubbish because we used all 110 yards of the pitch.
They were too scared to chase the Austrian players in their half.
Against Austria I was thinking,”If we had Ledley in midfield, we could play Steve McClaren at centreback and still thump this lot 3-0 !”
Against Poland we played in 60 yards and suddenly looked like a proper football team.
AFTER ALMOST FIVE YEARS of Sven we know that he is clueless as a téam-mechanic.
He makes the opposition look better than they are by not playing a sensible midfield.
He can’t build a balanced team.
He does not know how to connect his defence to his midfield and he can’t connect his midfield to his attack.
But he has won a weak group. He has qualified for his third tournament.
He’s not a motivator and that would not matter much if he was a good mechanic.
Unfortunately, if you gave Sven your car for servicing it would come back with three wheels on it.
FOR FIVE YEARS HE HAS PICKED HIS TEAM ON STAR NAMES.
As I said yesterday, absences can give England a more balanced team than the manager.
Events dictated his team selection last night and Engerland improved by 60% and beat Poland 2-1.
On a neutral ground, with Gerrard in for King, Poland would probably beat us in Germany.
DOES SVEN have the balls to own up?
He has four choices with Gerrard.
1. Play him instead of Lampard.
2. Play him instead of Beckham.
3. Play him on the left.
4. Bench him and use him as a sub.
IT’S NOT ROCKET SCIENCE.
It’s very simple.
How can Sven get that wrong so many times?
How can he get something so fundamental so wrong so many times?
Lampard is fitter than Gerrard, less injury-prone, more reliable.
He has scored 10 goals in 39 internationals and he can score another four in the World Cup.
Last night, as I predicted, was a turning point.
But it was a bigger turning point than I expected.
OK, Ledley was far from perfect.He made some duff passes. But his potential is huge.
Every time you go up a level in football, you have to learn more, see more, anticipate more, concentrate better against your mentally sharper opponents – and Ledley can do that.
He will improve by 10% in each game.
LEDLEY KING CAN’T MAKE A GOOD TEAM GREAT, but he can make us solid enough to allow Rooney to make a good team great.
Ashley Cole will be delighted.He grew up on the same street as Ledley.
Those two have been good friends for years.
He won’t mind if Ashley runs 30 or 40 or 50 yards ahead of him.
Ledley won’t be surprised to see that because when he played with John Terry for Senrab in Leytonstone, Ashley was a striker with Puma FC, one of their main rivals.
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October 13th 2005.
My piece yesterday was better than this one. If you missed it, click on Home below.