wanted.
Roy has been desperate to play Wilshere and Henderson and he finally got his wish and boy did it work a dream as England drew their final group game to finish below Wales.
Roy didn’t go the whole hog, he didn’t include Rooney in the starting line up and didn’t put Wilshere in as the holding role, god knows how he managed to stop himself. Maybe Ray Lewington said “no boss”.
How did that work out for you Roy?
Well let’s see. Wilshere dragged off after less than an hour, showed how bad he was, it would take a performance that bad for Roy to pull the trigger, I mean look how long Sterling lasted in the first game.
The image doing to rounds of Henderson trying fill out his EU referendum ballot paper, Wilshere would only manage to get drool on it, he would then lose it and fall over.
So Wilshere basically played like Wilshere plays. As did Henderson, who my paper gave an 8/10 mark to today. Eight, eight out of ten, not 50, not 100 but 10. Really, it really happened. Now he turned up on time, wore the correct kit and had his name spelled correctly on the back of it, don’t know where the other 5 points came from.
Useless over hit corners and useless over hit crosses must now count for more than it used to. But why does it always fall to Henderson, he’s like some bloody ball magnet. A gurning useless magnet.
Henderson’s performance was completely summed up by the last kick of the game. Needing to get the ball forward for once last, probably hopeless chance, he passed it back. How Roy kept him on, well he was so upset at having to withdraw Wilshere, he couldn’t face doing it to his other favoured son.
The same pundits of course were baffled why Vardy and Sturridge didn’t work. Completely missing the fact that both of them repeated their performances from the Wales match, minus the goals. The gloss over goals.
Vardy hardly touched the ball, hell he touched the ball fewer times in the last game and a half than Kane did in his one half against Wales. They don’t know how to play to him. Slowly wandering up the pitch while playing Chuckle Brothers football – to me, to you – doesn’t work. He got one ball over the top to chase onto, was it from Henderson – hell, he really must have miskicked that one to get it on target – that Vardy hit straight at the ‘keeper but other than that he was unseen.
Sturridge ball hogged his way through the game.
It got so bad that at one point he was the deepest forward player on the park there was only a couple of defenders, well level with him not even behind him. Then he goes off on a wander with the ball at his feet looking for the chance to shoot, all in the pursuit of personal glory.
Clyne took his chance and looked the better player. Walker is all bluff and bluster, Clyne more controlled and worked well with Lallana, who again started brightly but faded. It should have been Henderson that went off for Alli not Lallana. But Walker is clueless with the ball.
Man of the match was undoubtedly Eric Dier. Some mongs replying to a tweet pointing out his stats were saying he only passed sideways, they seem to have massed all those balls cutting through the massed Slovakian ranks to the edge of the box. Even after these three games were Dier has been exception Roy probably still thinks he is in Wilshere’s shadow in the holding role.
So Roy played a blinder and another draw sees England finish second in the group to the Taffy Boyos. Second to Wales, yes I know the situation was different when Wales played Russia and Slovakia than England. Not so much flat back 10 when Wales won. But really should you not be beating at least one of them.
Any momentum of that Wales game was lost here with Roy still puzzled about who to play and how to play them. A new contract, their still thinking about giving him a new contract…