110% Football

England Struggle to overcome Wales!

England scraped a narrow win against Wales at Wembley last night, a night where England had a chance to stamp their authority against their local rivals ended with scrappy 1-0 win, leaving Wales fans feeling happier about their performance than England fans.

This game was a real back down to earth kind of feeling, after the Bulgaria game England fans were in positive spirits wondering if Fabio Capello is finally getting us to play with a bit of style but no, today the game was played with no style from England at all, apart from the goal which was a good move down the right, the game lacked quality, which is really poor as the team clearly has the ability in the squad to destroy teams and put them to bed early on.

At the start of the game, England were playing well, keeping possession biding their time looking for openings, yes, this possession football was good but we couldn't find the opening's, again as i said earlier there seemed to be a lack of quality. Moves going forward were just petering out, Rooney was dropping really deep, sometimes into the defensive midfield position to collect the ball, which makes you wonder what Gareth Barry was doing, as he should be the one linking up the play in central midfield, not our lone striker!

One decision i found quite strange from Wales was to play Gareth Bale out of position on the right wing up against one of the best left backs in the world in Ashley Cole, they could've played him left wing and had him up against an inexperienced player playing slightly out of position in Chris Smalling. That didn't work out all game for wales and that was clearly a poor decision from Gary Speed.

Wales were pressurising England well, and were playing a lot better than the last time they played England. They were doubling up on players like Rooney and Young trying to stop them getting into the game and making things happen. All the hard work from Wales was undone however just before half-time, Downing did really well to get past Joe Ledley down the right and on his unfavoured right foot cut the ball back to Young who  finished brilliantly into the bottom right of the goal. Ashley Young was probably the most impressive England player on display last night. I also thought Lampard showed his critics he can still do a good job for the team as well, he played some neat passes throughout the game and possibly should've scored as he fired just over following good work from Wayne Rooney.

Then the game kind of slowed down and nothing much happened, apart from Gary Cahill firing just over after a Hennessey mistake, until the last 10 minutes, a glorious chance for the Wales substitute Robert Earnshaw, Bale delivered a free-kick which came to Darcy Blake who fired across the goal to Earnshaw who from 5 yards out on his left foot fired high over the bar when it was easier to score. Gary Speed had his head in his hands! That was Wales chance to nick something from the game gone in an instant! 

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England look to be on their way to Euro 2012 now but I'm sure performances like this wont be striking any fear into potential opponents! Why cant we have an impressive win once in a while to give us some strong belief that we can actually do something next summer! The sooner Capello leaves the better in my opinion, the guy speak in riddles in interviews I'm seriously shocked the team know what they are doing when they get out on the pitch.

This stat tells you the story about the game, there was only 1 shot on target all game and that was the goal from England.

Needs to be better!