“The World Cup is three matches”.
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He said: “I think he’s been important to the group for a long time”. Unlucky not to get among the goals, he is finally showing a few end product to his play.
‘That’s not a criticism, but there were other performances out there which merited your obsession more than Ross Barkley’s’.
“We want to make it 10”. The 21-year-old Barkley is now performing consistently for Everton.
The thinking behind playing Ross Barkley in a withdrawn midfield role was presumably that he could use his ability driving powerfully forward with the ball to create from deep against “lesser” opponents in Estonia. We need to be aware of that and we will also need a little bit of luck this time. On Friday night, the pacey Englishman managed to add to his global strikes with a well taken goal late in the first half.
No-one could fault his work-rate, but Hodgson must have been watching on thinking Kane is still behind Rooney as far as candidates to start up front go. Dele Alli is another example. Great cross from Nathaniel Clyne into the path of Kane, but he gets his volley all wrong, hits his standing leg and the ball runs away from goal.
Busy without making a serious impact on the game.
He has denied that England will switch to experimental mode or just cap fringe players, insisting that England have experimented enough over the past year or so, and now he wants to build consistency and a good understanding between his squad players.
“Not least as we have prestige friendlies coming up in November and this was really the last game I could give people a chance to show what they can do”.
It took less than four minutes for them to register a shot on target, Estonia goalkeeper Mihkel Aksalu parrying a crisp half-volley from Walcott, but frequently their approach play broke down at the final pass.
“We know it is going to be a hard game”.
Gary Cahill was relieved to get a victory in his first game as England captain and felt they were full value for the win.
However, there were flashes of brilliance, mainly from the electric feet of Barkley.
‘It’s competition for places.
“It is a tough task ahead of us but we’re ready for that I think and we will do our level best to try and achieve it”. Outside that there is Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and injured players like Michael Carrick and Ryan Mason.
Whether they deserve that standing is another thing.
Roy Hodgson has hit back at Jamie Carragher over his claim it has never been easier to earn an England call-up.
It was his seventh goal in the last nine matches and provided more evidence that at 26, he could finally be fulfilling his undoubted potential.
England’s football boss has huge sympathy with his rugby union counterpart following their World Cup flop – because he went through exactly the same kind of agony previous year.
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His pass completion rate, however, is down from 87 per cent to 83 per cent. So he still needs to “keep hold of the ball more”.
