It seems a long time ago that Sam Allardyce made his bow as England manager and now the players have returned to their club teams and will be getting ready for this weeks action. England made the difficult away trip to Slovakia, a team they had drawn 0-0 with in the recent European Championships which was obviously quite shocking seeing as we played free-flowing and attacking football, dominating teams and absolutely battering them (or not).
What could we expect from Big Sam’s new England side – from his club history, it would have been organisation, a solid defensive base, playing to achieve results and this was summed up in his pre-match comments where he confirmed a draw would be a good result in the groups toughest game.
By now, we all know the result, a 1-0 victory courtesy of a stoppage time goal from Adam Lallana. In the end, 3 points, a winning start and plenty of positives on that front. However, the pre-match comments, alongside the static and dull performance does not do a lot to fill the England fans with a lot of confidence. I mean, if I had travelled to Slovakia and heard that a draw would have been fine to the team, then I would have been most annoyed.
To say it wasn’t an enthralling encounter could be one of the understatements of the year – England did not have a shot on target whilst Slovakia had 11 men on the pitch, which is worrying. It shows we have continued our struggles to break defensive teams down and this is not a trait Big Sam brings with him from his previous clubs. As mentioned above, it took until the fifth minute of stoppage time for the break through to come along. This winning goal was met with relief, sheer relief that we had finally managed to make the break through and I would liken our performance to that of Liverpool against Burnley at Turf Moor – dictated play, had a number of shots and a massive amount of possession but lacked a cutting edge. I feel we need to use the pacy wide players we have to better effect, stretch the game to the flanks and drive the ball in across the box – it could be worth gambling on a developing Rashford (especially with his debut hat-trick for the under 21s) or bringing back a fox in the box like Jermain Defoe, just to have that great movement in the 6 yard box which is a nightmare for central defenders (like Rashford’s goal against Hull a couple of weeks ago).
I feel the Big Sam appointment could potentially mirror David Moyes at Manchester United in some ways, obviously, he isn’t taking over the most successful manager England has ever had – but he is coming from a smaller background in terms of his previous jobs and this can bring a defensive mentality. It could breed a culture of play not to lose rather than play to beat the opposition, which is the manner England should be playing. England should be looking to beat any team we come against, there are a few nations we could not be classed as better than but as a top international side, we need to play with an attacking swagger that will beat teams, create an aura where teams do not look forward to playing us and cannot simply put 10 men behind the ball knowing this will work and keep us quiet.
It’s obviously impossible to judge how England will progress under Big Sam, and with the most difficult group game out of the way we can try to look forward with nothing but optimism because Big Sam has never really failed at a club and could be the one to strengthen England in tournament football – because it looks as though we are going to qualify with ease if the first result is to go by.
Keep your eyes out because there will be another blog post tomorrow night looking ahead to the weekends action!
Taylor's Football Talk 