England’s strikers are not happy playing in Roy Hodgson’s system and it has to change
SunSport columnist gives his damning verdict on the Three Lions boss' tactics ahead of knockout round
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ROY HODGSON came into Euro 2016 with one winger and a bit of a prayer.
It hasn’t worked and he has to change things.
Roy seems to have had one way of playing in his mind but that depended on Raheem Sterling doing well and providing the width.
Harry Kane has struggled in the games he has started for England
He hoped Raheem would get his confidence back but he looks like a player who didn’t play much for his club at the end of the season. He’s not got any form and simply hasn’t done well enough.
Now it looks like Roy is trying to fit players into a system which they are not comfortable with.
The strikers are good enough.
All five of those he selected came off the back of decent seasons, getting goals. But they were in systems they felt confident in.
Daniel Sturridge is playing in the right side of a three but that doesn’t work because he wants to play as a centre-forward.
He does not seem happy and he failed to gather that great ball over the top from Eric Dier, the sort of chance you’ve simply got to take.
Jamie Vardy scored against Wales and has looked England's best goal threat
Jamie Vardy has played well all season off another striker, Okazaki or Ulloa, and running into space.
He had one good opportunity when he shot at the keeper but then they shut off the space for him to run in behind, which takes out what he’s best at.
And Harry Kane won the Golden Boot playing on his own but with a line of three behind him and Dele Alli feeding him in. He hasn’t had an effort on target yet.
It means all three of them like to play in a system we’re not using.
And that has to change so we play in a way that is tailored to one or two of them.
Now we’ve ended up with the same problem we had when we were trying to get Paul Scholes into the team under Sven-Goran Eriksson and ending up playing him left side.
Roy doesn’t seem to know his best XI or the system to get the best out of his players.
That was certainly how it looked on Monday night.
The positive — and it is one — is that we are creating chances.
There were concerns coming into the tournament about us defensively, although that’s not been an issue so far. But the forward players haven’t produced the goods.
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You can’t win games if you don’t take those chances.
We scored a total of one against Russia and Slovakia. Wales, by comparison, scored five.
The longer games have gone on, the more we’ve panicked.
We ended up with three strikers plus Rooney against Wales, got the ball into the box and hoped it would fall for them.
It was the same in the second half against Slovakia. They threw everything at it but it doesn’t look natural. It’s all forced.
The simple truth is we have to improve. There’s no point in trying to pull the wool over people’s eyes. It’s just not been good enough.
We’re trying to accommodate people in a system that doesn’t look natural, right or good.
Instead, we end up getting desperate and playing long balls — we’ve really missed a trick.
Jack Wilshere spent most of the season out for Arsenal and it has shown
Before the game I didn’t think he should have made the six changes against Slovakia.
If I go back to Euro 96, we did pretty much the same in the first two games — a late equaliser against us in the first game, then a narrow win over a Home Nations team.
But we gathered momentum after that and scoring so late against Wales should have given this team the chance to do the same.
By changing the team, some of them will go 11 days between games and any momentum will be lost.
It’s important to improve as the tournament goes on but I haven’t seen that improvement. It’s all been very much the same.
Too often the final ball has been poor. We’ve got in some very good positions but not delivered.
That was where Jordan Henderson let himself down against Slovakia, while Jack Wilshere is not fit.
That’s clear.
Jordan Henderson 's final ball let him down in the match against Slovakia
It’s not his fault but his selection was the overriding negative. He hasn’t played for a year and it showed.
The trouble is, with Sterling out of form too and Ross Barkley and John Stones seemingly not in contention, we’re basically down to 16 outfield players, with four of them full-backs.
I think Roy’s just hoping to stumble into something that clicks, but at the moment it’s not working and we lack confidence.
On the plus side Dier was superb, our best player so far, brilliant.
But the three best players have been Dier, Kyle Walker and Rooney, two midfielders and a right-back.
None of the strikers. That says it all.
We’ve played three average teams, drawn two and beaten one in the last minute. We have to improve.
But from now on, especially if we get into the last eight, we’ll be playing better sides who won’t just get men behind the ball.
Roy Hodgson will have to change his tactics if he wants to progress in Euro 2016
They will test our defence but the games will open up and that will make it easier for us to play how we want to.
That means playing to the strengths of the players we have.
Whether he stumbled into it or not, the best performance we’ve given for years was in Germany, when we played 4-2-3-1, with Dier and Henderson sitting and Alli linking with Kane, Adam Lallana and Danny Welbeck wide.
So we should either play like that, to Kane’s strengths, or with a diamond behind two strikers, who are close to each other through the middle, rather than asking Sturridge to play where he doesn’t want to play.
If we can manage to score early on in the game it will be a different story.
I really want to believe they have got that in them.