Agreed. Hodgson being given a veryh easy time of it for me

All this "only had two games to prepare" and "all he could do was make us hard to beat" crap.

I don't really buy it. These are international footballers. most of whom have played together many times before. A few of whom play for the same teams. Its not like we had a whole team of inexperienced kids playing. These guys play for some of the biggest teams in the world and were probably the highest paid team of players at the tournament. They shouldn;t need anything more than basic training to be able to go out and play reasonably for England.

In Hodgsons defence we were a bit unlucky with injuries to midfielders and several players just did not perform at all in this tournament. one would hope they can play better and that might improve us.

I just found the tactics and the general manner of our play a bit depressing. We are England and (even if we aren't a great team) we shouldn't have to resort to playing like that. Putting 10 men behind the ball and parking the bus is not tactical wizardry. A decent tactician would have negated Pirlo and beaten a not fantastic Italian team. Just seems to be that because he's English and the players have tried a bit harder than normal he has avoided the stick that other managers would have got for the same performances.

I guess the proof will be whether or not we can kick on from here and up our performance levels ahead of the next World Cup.

Posted By: Jim, Jun 25, 09:30:20