England 1 – 0 Wales Euro 2012 Qualifier Match Report

Fabio Capello brought England one step closer to qualifying for the Euro 2012 tournament in Poland and Ukraine next year by slimly beating Wales 1-0 at home at Wembley.

A well worked goal from Stewart Downing and Ashley Young (35 minutes) was enough to see off a young, hungry Welsh opposition who were spurred on by their 2-1 win against Montenegro at Cardiff City Stadium last Friday.

The 3 points for England means that they only need to seal a point against Montenegro on October 5^th to guarantee qualification to the finals in Poland and Ukraine next year.

However, while 3 points was a great result for England, the performance left a lot to be said about an England team who have looked bewildered and unsure of themselves since the World Cup campaign in 2010.  Once again England played at an under-capacity crowd at Wembley (72,000 out of the 90,000 seat capacity) while the night actually completing their first home win in over a year.

The problem with England is that it’s becoming clearer and clearer where there weaknesses and it is much easier to pick out the negatives of their performance than the positives.  Once again, England failed to control and dominate large portions of the game for the full 90 minutes, while only managing 53% possession in the game overall.

Possession is the name of the game in international football, and when you consider that all of the top European teams including Spain, Netherlands, Germany and Portugal have had around 5-10% more possession on average than England in the Euro 2012 qualifiers, it really doesn’t take a rocket scientist to pick out the flaws in the team.  Even the best sports gambling sites must have at least 10:1 odds for England to win.

I DO think it’s too easy to criticise England over individual performances and results.  Even Spain lost 1-0 to Switzerland in the World Cup 2010 finals group stage match, and the best teams don’t always win games.  But when you look at England over the last 5-10 games it’s clear to see that they are not living up to the par their main European rivals.

England were great against Bulgaria when they won 3-0 away last Friday, but they failed miserably to get behind the Wales defenders and create opportunities upfront. Players such as Downing, Smalling, Barry and Lampard were also too wasteful in midfield and once again the question of “technical ability” comes into play.  Too many square, backward passes and a lack of runs down the wings characterised England’s performance in my opinion.

One thing that frustrates me about England pundits and the manager is that since our failures at the World Cup 2010 we have convinced ourselves that we have learned from our mistakes and are now a much better team for it.  I don’t think this is the case at all.  We are still 100% dependant on a fit Wayne Rooney playing upfront.  Rooney is the source of England’s entire creativeness and is the only real playmaker in the team who can envisage runs and make the right passes.  Not to mention he is the only player in the 1^st team who is regular scoring goals.  Maybe Danny Wellbeck will improve by next year, but I don’ see us having any world class substitutes upfront.

The goalkeeper and defence is our next biggest problem.  If Joe Hart is injured I don’t think we have anyone proven goal keepers on the bench to back him up.  And if John Terry or Ferdinand gets injured then we will be reliant on either Cahill, Upson, Phil Jones or Smalling to replace them.  The latter two are great, young players but with at 19 years old I think it’s a huge ask to play them in a potential Euro 2012 knockout game against Brazil, Portugal or the Netherlands.

Finally, our midfield still lacks quality. Scott Parker is good but too old and sits too deep, Barry is very one dimensional, Downing and Walcott are both completely overrated when it comes to the International scene (trust me, they miss plenty of chances for England) and Lampard, Gerrard are just to old, slow and predictable for the game.  Lampard doesn’t make the runs that he used to which begs the question what does he even provide in a 4-1-2-3 formation which is so dependant on fluidity, speed and unpredictability.  He doesn’t have the discipline to hold deep as a holding midfielder not does he have the engine and drive to run around the pitch as part of a three-pronged attack for 90 minutes.

In conclusion, I think England are a solid top 10 international football team and will get to the Euro 2012 finals no problems.  But I don’t in a million years see us winning the cup nor have that good a chance of getting past the quarter finals.  We just don’t have that good players in our team, and against lesser European teams such as Russia, Czech, Serbia and Greece we are still going to have problems breaking them down, holding on to the ball and keeping a clean sheet.  You can read a full listing and Euro 2012 odds for these teams at OnlineGamblingSites.net.