The Three Lions head to France on Monday fresh from hard-fought, if not totally convincing, friendly wins against Turkey, Australia and Portugal.
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The England manager on Thursday employed that pair alongside Wayne Rooney, nominally at the tip of a diamond, for the first time together in the 1-0 friendly victory over Portugal’s 10 men – only for the two leading English scorers over the Premier League season to find themselves too often pinned to the periphery.
‘I want to teach players how to defend better, attack better and that’s what I’ve been trying to do for four years and I will continue to do so’.
England’s squad is brimming with young talent like Harry Kane, Marcus Rashford, Dele Alli, John Stones, Eric Dier and Raheem Sterling.
It robbed Hodgson of the chance to try to solve the attacking balance, with the likes of Gary Lineker of Alan Shearer quick to criticise as in-form Kane and Vardy played wider of Rooney.
‘But I’ve said many times I don’t think it is part of our culture.
The England boss fielded what will most likely be the team that features prominently at the Euros – with the exception of one or two players, particularly in midfield – but was left with more questions than answers after witnessing a lacklustre performance from his side. “He’s got to get the right system, players playing in the right positions”.
England kick off their Euro campaign on Saturday against Russian Federation in Marseille and Ronaldo is relishing the prospect of potentially meeting Roy Hodgson’s side in the knock-out stages.
“Which one works best?”
The squad can play table tennis, darts and snooker in the team’s leisure room, as well as games varying from Jenga to Bop It. “We’ve had three wins out of three against different, but hard, opposition without playing our best football”, said Milner, who earned his 60th cap against Portugal.
A slight injury forced Southampton’s Ryan Bertrand to miss the final warm-up game against Portugal and now his starting role could be in jeopardy with Tottenham left-back, Danny Rose, performing well recently and only a week left until England faces Russian Federation next Saturday.
Thursday’s friendly was England’s last before it plays its first round-robin match at Euro 2016 against Russian Federation at the Stade Velodrome in Marseille on June 11. In the past we’ve always been an honest team, an honest country. “We’ll always be trying to play with style”. Others might say you’ve got to go down, you’ve got to be more cynical.
Since it’s to be expected that Wales and England will advance from the group stage, this makes it even more critical that the Three Lions start off on a good note and don’t go down early.
“What is style? What is good football?”
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“Maybe we could have moved the ball a bit quicker but we showed patience and got the result in the end”.
