Slovenia 2 England 3
Novakovic 37 Wilshere 57 Wilshere 73 Pecnik 84 Rooney 86
First half, England were even more pedestrian and than I’d feared.
Rooney was static and ponderous in a dysfunctional 4-3-3 system. That eleven was never going to work because we have far too many one-dimensional footballers.
Raheem missed a sitter in 4 minutes after Wayne played him in.
But, inventive and fearless as ever, Sterling played quite well after that.
Clearly, Arsenal should bring the kid back to London let him play with Sanchez & Wilshere.
Slovenia sat back and defended competently and then broke away after the dim-witted Gary Cahill tried to play offside.
Novakovic, the 36-year old Grampus Eight striker, played a sweet one-two and glided into the box to slot past Joe Hart for his 30th goal in 69 internationals.
Half-time : we were one goal down.
Adam Lallana came on for Phil Jones at half-time, with Jordan Henderson moving to right back.
Lallana is a flicky player who does something no England forward has done since Peter Beardsley: he runs towards the ball and gets it and links the play.
When Lallana was tackled the ball broke into Jack Wilshere’s run and he fired in a left-foot shot for 1-1.
Then came a storming sprint from right back by Henderson, whose pass reached Lallana, and his typical flick found Wilshere just outside the D .
Jack’s thunderbolt gave the keeper no chance. A very fine goal indeed.
Slovenia 1 Wilshere 2
But the home side soon levelled when a well-worked move on the left ended with a phenomenal header by Pecnik from seven yards.
Slovenia 2 Wilshere 2
When Henderson tried to find sub Theo Walcott, their left back got there first and poked the ball into the D and even Rooney could not miss this time. He swept the ball low inside the post for 2-3.
ITV pundits Glenn Hoddle and Lee Dixon differed on Lallana, whose arrival allowed England to play a bit.
Lee said, “He picks up on pockets of space. You can’t play him all the time, I don’t think. In certain games, he’ll go missing.”
But Glenn said, “Those sort of players, they’ve got to be given the license to have one bad game. Creative players… if he goes missing, he goes missing. I’ve seen loads of French players, Italian, Spanish players go missing – but we don’t analyse that. He can make a difference. Even if he has a bad game, he can be the difference.”
And Myles said : If Rooney’s going to stand still for 88 of the 93 minutes, you definitely need Lallana’s runs, passes lay-offs and flicks. Ball players create unusual situations and momentary openings, which are what you need.
This was a very dodgy performance by Roy Hodgson’s team. Whenever England are stuttering, clueless, utterly pedestrian, and getting worse by the minute, they remind me of the darkest days of Graham Taylor & Geoff Thomas,.
Watching Engerland for half an hour can seem like a month.
And the two goals we conceded last night were shockers.
However, we have six wins out of six qualifiers.
Let’s face it, England have always been better at winning games than playing football.
For 45 minutes Wilshere had nobody who could combine with him, so we were bogged down in the obvious, just a gutsy squad of yeomen.
We have big hearts even if we don’t have silky feet but Jordan Henderson is now becoming an influential sergeant in Hodgson’s regiment.The big man had a part in all three goals.
Can we improve before Euro 2016? Maybe.
We didn’t win a game at Brazil 2014 and if we don’t win a game in France next summer, what’s the point of having a national team?