Thursday’s 1-0 win over a Portugal side who spent the majority of the game down to 10 men was perhaps the most disappointing of England’s recent displays, with a diamond featuring Dele Alli, Wayne Rooney, Jamie Vardy and Harry Kane seemingly inhibiting the attack-minded quartet.
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Rooney was more cautious in his assessment of the victory, secured four minutes from time by defender Chris Smalling’s header.
There was a disjointed feel to England’s forward play and, with the tournament opener against Russian Federation just over a week away, precious little time to address it.
Roy Hodgson has insisted he will not encourage his players to employ football’s dark arts to succeed at this summer’s European Championship.
England boss Hodgson said: “Unfortunately that’s a very hard thing to teach”.
“We need to keep improving at it and we have to hope that players like Walker and Rose, who performed their roles in exactly the way we’d like them to, also happen to have very good games”. We need all of our players playing well, and I’m not prepared to stand here and criticise some players.
Former England global Trevor Sinclair has claimed that Roy Hodgson’s refusal to drop skipper Wayne Rooney could lead to a disappointing Euro 2016 for the Three Lions.
If you’re going to play @HKane & @vardy7 then at least play them as centre forwards & not wingers.
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.
Said Hodgson: “We played with split strikers”.
“Having five strikers is great, especially as those players can play in different positions”, Rooney added.
To have England’s record goalscorer in Rooney with 53 goals and counting, plus the Premier League’s Golden Boot victor, Kane, who had 25 goals and Jamie Vardy the runner-up with 24, this should have been a formidable trio of strikers.
“If you play with them going down the middle and Rooney in behind them, you would never be able to defend the wide areas”.
“I don’t think you can judge it on one performance”.
England will next take to the field on June 11 when they open their Euro campaign with a Group B fixture against Russian Federation at Marseille’s Stade Velodrome.
“I know what Dier means but I think a lot of English players are known not to go down as easy as (players from) other countries”. It’s good we haven’t sailed through the matches, too. We have seen that everywhere he has gone.
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“We won the game but it was always hard for us when Portugal went down to 10 men, ” Rooney told ITV Sport.
