Been a while since you saw my incessant semi-ranting...
Bit of a waste of a tournament for England for me, we got Jones 0 minutes in a tournament we introduced Chamberlain by have him mark his fullback and spend most of his time 10 yards from Ashley Cole. Not sure what the point of it all was, we were underwhelming throughout and at the end we haven't given the youngsters any freedom or much tournament experience whatsoever. As others have said Young had a bad tournament but to be fair at United he plays more advanced than a 442 LM and he doesn't spend most of his energy tracking the opposition fullbacks, for Young to be effective you need him in and around the opposition 18 yard box. I didn't see Downing whatsoever, surely it would have been smarter to take an impact substitute like Sturridge or Johnson?
After the World Cup I thought that was the idea, to freshen up the team and change from the already proven useless vs other teams - Germany 2010 - 442? I do not have a clue why that conversation has been forgotten and we hire the most predictable and 442 man in football as the national coach. What's Wilshere going to do coming into this system, sit in the centre and act as an off the ball runner just like Henderson was asked to do?
I mean I'll not vent on Hodgson too much I mean it was the FA that appointed him for 4 years and trusted him with Chamberlain/Wilshere/Walker etc. Just do not see any real difference between the way we set out this tournament and in South Africa, the only difference I see is a solid GK and a bit of luck.
I wasn't worried about this tournament but I would have preferred seeing England freshen things up more than bringing in Parker who should have been at the World Cup anyway. I'm just puzzled how the conversation we had post World Cup has been dissolved into lets play for results and ignore the 42% possession average which probably went sub 40 after tonights game.
Wasn't that the whole idea to produce more technical players and try to pass and move more which you really can not do in a 4-4-2. I'm just perplexed, what have we accomplished from the tournament? Maybe had a good look at Parker, established Lescott's a decent defender and discovered Johnson can defend a bit but besides that not much else.
To do what the Germans did a few years ago you need a brave FA and a brave manager to change the system/philosophy/players in a short period but 2 years on I'm not seeing any real progress in the England National Team whatsoever.
Italy are a good team but before kickoff you knew Hodgsons 442 was going to get dominated by the Italian midfielders who's narrow diamond would over run the English CM's I just don't think that's progress or a good sign considering there's another 2 tournaments of this.
I'm not angry by this tournament performance because it's what you would expect from Hodgson, 442 ride your luck football, I'm just left rather underwhelmed and perplexed to put it mildly.