itsbeautifuloutside

Uruguay v England

Sao Paulo, 19th June 2014

"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Albert Einstein

Match Report

England’s supporters have far more to worry about than their manager’s sanity if he is to remain in charge of the asylum after England’s final world cup game against Costa Rica on Tuesday.

After errors in selection and tactics in the 2-1 defeat to Italy, Roy Hodgson repeated the same errors in this must-win match against Uruguay. If the news of an unchanged line-up was hardly surprising, the end result against Uruguay, a second 2-1 defeat of this World Cup, was also depressingly familiar.

Hodgson told us enthusiastically before the game that, although the line-up was the same, the setup would be a little different, with Rooney switching to his more familiar position in the centre. The press, as usual, had borne their influence on team selection and Raheem Sterling, England’s most influential player in the defeat to Italy, was reduced to the role of tricky winger, depending on dribbles out on the flank, which the uncompromising Perreira of Uruguay mopped up with relish.

Rooney and Hodgson, meanwhile, misunderstood what is required from a number 10, a role that takes as much discipline as that which Rooney lacked in the wide position against Italy. The number 10 in the 4-2-3-1 formation which Hodgson has chosen for this team is the pivot between defence and attack, the player that can transition seamlessly. A successful number 10 must take up positions between the lines, in the gaps, to receive the ball from the defensive midfielders and to move it forward accurately for the other attacking players to play facing the goal.

For the entirety of this game, with Rooney missing from his required position, England often reverted to long balls forward to an attack with its back to goal. Transitions were slow and laboured and gobbled up by Uruguay’s enthusiastic defence. Rooney, meanwhile, was everywhere and nowhere.

And this is the crux of the problem. For a while now Hodgson has taken the air of a man who does what he is told but doesn’t quite understand why. Just over a year ago at the Maracana, he threw out his favoured 4-4-2 after being overrun by Brazil in the first half, switching at half time to this new-fangled formation of 4-2-3-1 and he has stuck with it ever since. But that night at the Maracana he had Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain in the number 10 role, a player disciplined enough to play the role well. It paid dividends. In Sao Paolo against Uruguay, Wayne Rooney, haunted by the ghost of David Beckham’s celebrity, took the number 10 role to mean that he could roam wherever he so wished, popping up where he thought he as an individual could look the best. Often, Baines had a helper in Rooney at left back, though arguably this was coming five days too late. Gerrard and Henderson must have appreciated his assistance alongside them in the engine room of midfield. And Sturridge, I’m sure, welcomed Rooney’s companionship up front. But rarely did the team benefit from having Wayne Rooney where they really needed him: in the spaces between midfield and attack.

And so, that area of the pitch was bypassed and as a result Uruguay were able to take control. Hodgson had lost the tactical battle because of a lack of understanding of the formation he was playing.

It did not take Einstein to work out what was going wrong for England, though this seemed beyond Hodgson even when Uruguay’s first goal perfectly illustrated England’s frailties. Lodeiro, Uruguay’s number 10, picked the ball up facing the right way and immediately rode a challenge from Steven Gerrard. Spotting Cavani in space, he delivered a simple ball with the accuracy required to keep the move going forward. Cavani, crucially receiving it facing goal, shifted the ball to find the space to measure a perfect cross to Luis Suarez, who dispatched his header past Joe Hart with a brilliant inevitability. A swift and brutal transition from defence to attack.

Unlike against Italy, England were unable to find an immediate response so the half time whistle came and went while England took no notice. Indeed, it appeared that England failed to emerge from the dressing room at half time, with Uruguay spurning three excellent chances in the first five minutes of the second half. England finally settled, so Hodgson was able to repeat his substitutions from the Italy game. Firstly Barkley came on for Sterling, who had spent the game so criminally wasted in a wide position, and then Lallana joined the melee of disorganisation in place of Wellbeck.

But it was those old guards of Wayne Rooney and Glen Johnson who finally gave the England fans hope. Johnson, redundant as a defender because Uruguay directed all of their attacks through the middle, had been equally redundant in attack due to his lack of ability. But he somehow managed to squeeze the ball through to Rooney, who finally found the net with his third close-range sight of goal in the match.

Then came the first period of the match in which England began to dominate, but this was their undoing. With the game stretched and men committed forward, a long ball forward found Gerrard’s head, flicking it on to Suarez who found space to rifle the ball into the net. If this goal was conceived in Liverpool’s colours, it would have been breath-taking in its speed and simplicity. Instead, it dumped England and Gerrard out of the World Cup.

Hodgson wasn’t yet put out of his misery, for there was still time for further ineptitude. Playing his trump card, he brought Rickie Lambert on as a target man. Balls were lumped up to him and Lallana, Rooney, Sturridge and Barkley were expected to feed off the scraps. This was further mis-use of Hodgson’s chosen formation. If Lambert was ever to be used properly in this World Cup, it should have been as a genuine Plan B with him as a pivot and a licence to come deep and pick the ball up, bringing into play the other attackers. Playing Lambert as a target man, it left the feeling that Hodgson would dearly have loved to pick Andy Carroll instead. But the press told him to take Lambert, and so Rickie came on with the look of a man who’s fairy tale was finished.

The final whistle mercifully blew on England’s chances, and if the FA have any sense, also on Hodgson’s reign which promised much but delivered absolutely nothing. Time to put this team in the hands of a tactical innovator who will bring to the team a coherent way of playing and give youth its head.

Batts