Cibaman wrote:
I dont think any England manager will get away with playing ultra defensive football for any length of time. But I think hodgson deserves to be cut some slack, at least for the time being.
Given the very short time he's had with the players and the quality available to him, I think it's reasonable for him to take a cautious approach, to concentrate on the defence and organisation. I just do not see how the current crop of England players could be successful trying to play expansive football. At least he's set out with an idea of how he wants us to play, something which his predecessors seemed to lack.
Of course it's quite possible that we'll fail to score in our next two games and end up going home early. And then he'll have to put up with the criticism. But I dont think he deserves it based on yesterday's game
I'm not bothered about England or how their results go, I lost all faith in the national side a long time ago, what I can't stand is people saying "we played well" when England didn't actually 'play'. I get defending, I get surrendering possession, but, as I said with the Italians, to not go out and play is defeatist and shows a lack of faith in one's tactics and ability to coach a side. You can be hard to beat but also attack and play with some form of intent, England never had that intent and they won't win anything meaningful playing for a clean sheet. You seem to have faith that Roy will change this but this is how Roy coaches, when he was Liverpool coach, Stoke City, for the first time since promotion, never had 50% possession or more against an opposing side. I think they ended up with something like 63% against Roy's side, and we all know how negative Stoke are. Roy clearly doesn't have faith in possession, which I don't mind, but to have no faith in attacking and counter-attacking with intent, well, that's just embarrassing.
