The Trundle Is On! Engerland 1 – 1 France

Cartoon version of England's brave ex-leader John Terry

Frankly that was as good as many people had hoped. Engerland ‘did a Chelsea’, a phrase that has surely already become the cliché  of the tourney, and successfully denied France the victory they so possibly deserved. Quite where this stalemate of a game falls within the panoply of the first round of matches is uncertain, but it’s probably somewhere between the ho-hummery of Spain Italy and the action pack that was Poland Greece. So, nothing spectacular to get excited about.

Both teams flattered to deceive in a match that followed the classic Engerland international pattern almost to the letter. Boring and cagey first half hour, albeit with Engerland passing the ball about a little more confidently than usual to the same non-effect as normal, astonishingly surprising Engerland goal against the run of play, haphazard retreat into shell following shock at having taken the lead, loss of lead, insipid substitutions, backs to the wall chaos of Engerland defending for the last half hour, all back to the pub for a night on the lash. France played the part of irritated floozy with a series of consistent ‘take one for the team’ fouling and annoyingly talented ball play (albeit to the same non-effect as Engerland’s hefferlump play). Ribery, as is his wont, vanished for large periods, Benzema never really got going and Nasri did what only he can by irritating not only the English, but his own fans.

This is an Engerland side that plays to its admittedly very limited strengths. Uncle Roy has had 2 pieces of luck, which he would do well to bank now. First, almost no one expects this team to win anything, certainly not with a midfield that consists of a back passer and a hollywood hoofballer. Second, thanks to Lampard’s unfortunate injury he’s been spared the never-ending pain of the Gerrard/Lampard Conundrum (a logic bomb that has been baffling scientists since the early 1990’s). It’s a shame it wasn’t Gerrard who was injured as he is so much less effective in the middle. Admittedly he has chanced his arm by bringing the likes of Downing and Henderson along, the latter was astonishingly actually given pitch time although as is normal he failed to register as much as a touch.

A draw kind of suits both sides, but they will have to play with a bit of aggression if they want to get out of this group.

That Was A Game That Was. Ukraine 2 – 1 Sweden

Every tourney needs a story as the old journo proverb goes. In Japan/South Korea it was the Koreans, in South Africa it was the Ghanaians, in Switzerland/Austria it wasn’t either of them, which only goes to prove the validity of the rhyme. After Poland’s South Africaesque failure draw on the opening day, it needed something special from Ukraine to ignite the tournament. And, thankfully, against all the odds (they have been the undisputed worst side in the last two international tournaments) Ukraine delivered.

This was a battle between two great Milan strikers, both of whom are probably past their best. In the Sweedish corner you have the enigma of Ibrahimovic, just coming off his first non-Championship winning season in 7 years; while in the Ukrainian one the Chelsea striking enigma that was Schevchenko, who has spent the last couple of years simply preparing for this big day.

In games like this sometimes the football just doesn’t matter, it’s the spectacle, the occasion and the sheer drama of it all. And while this didn’t quite deliver in the way that Aguero’s last second strike did at Man City, this time it was a whole country rather than half a city that was energised. In the end it was the Ibra Sheva show, just as planned. Ibra struck first, only for Sheva to equalise, before Ibra let Sheva run right the way round him to head in the winner. Cue Ukrainian meltdown as the entire country went off their heads with joy.  Pure football magic.

Petulant, Vindictive, Ugly – Football The Belgian Way

Dirty Plotte Dries Mertens gives Gary Cahill the "hurry up", breaking his jaw in the process

Oooof! (as opposed to ‘hoof!’) take that you slow moving defensive laggard, with your sneaky ball protecting, keeper covering pig-english ways. And take that supposedly world class keeper with you when you finally go to ground. That I imagine is the thought process that was going through spikey Belgian twat Dries Merten’s mind as he propelled Gary Cahill into an onrushing Joe Hart and spectacularly managed to break Cahill’s jaw. Nicely done fella and have a very generous yellow card for your trouble.

I was looking forward to seeing Hodgson’s Hoofers up against one of the most lauded teams in Europe. Yet the team that contains Kompany (who was injured), Vermaelen, Vertongen, Fellaini, Dembele and Euro wonderkid Edin Hazard was epitomised by Mertens’ behaviour. For a team supposed to be all about great football, they don’t half play dirty.

Aside from Mertens, Dembele seemed to think that having your hands nipple-gripping your opponent from behind was a legitimate tackling maneuver, and the ref seemed to believe that, given this was a ‘friendly’, he should let all sorts of dubious fouling go. Besides their propensity to foul first, the Belgians really didn’t offer much, having few genuinely dangerous moments, one long speculative effort from Vertongen aside. And I suppose that was as much a testament to Roy’s team management and shape as it was to the Belgians’ realisation that buggery bollocks they weren’t going to the Euros and this was their last game before holiday time. Still I was really disappointed at their spiteful behaviour.

The Happy Hoofers haven’t really progressed much in the week or so they’ve been together since the Norway match. Gerrard and Parker in midfield still look unable to string even a pass together, while Ashley Young remains fundamentally lightweight, receiving the ball all too rarely and not making great use of it when he does. And overall there seems to be no clear concept of how to use the ball in those rare instances when they actually have possession.

Still today it was all about the defenders and they took a right pummelling, Cahill becoming merely the latest Engerland defender to go from first choice to stretcher case in less than 45 minutes, but Terry, Lescott and Jagielka were all in the wars. And while you have to admire the way the entire team restricted Belgium to fewer chances than the Norwegians managed last week, their forward moving efforts were utterly uninspiring.

Engerland’s goal, when it came, was as surprising as it was clinical. Welbeck, who had a fine game, dispossessed Dembele in the middle of the field and exchanged passes with Young, before running in on goal and delightfully chipping the onrushing Mignolet. It was so unexpected and so far above the standard of play generally that the crowd took a couple of seconds to actually realise what was going on.

The second half was tedium incarnate. A deluge of substitutions revealed only two things. First, Edin Hazard is going to have to play a hell of a lot better than he did if he’s going to justify the £32 million he’s just cost Chelsea. He was utterly anonymous, playing mainly sideways, with little indication of the skills that have made him the French player of the year for the last two years. Second, Jordan Henderson must be the luckiest man in football. Utterly anonymous for Liverpool for the entire season, fundamentally anonymous for Sunderland previously, he’s now received a full Engerland call up and looks likely to be a major player in the midfield. He came on and, true to form, was largely anonymous, having as close to zero touches as it’s possible to have and made absolutely no impact on the game. Still, looking at Hazard one can only assume that Henderson’s value has been enhanced significantly as a result.

Once Upon A Time In Oslo

It doesn’t get any better than this for ‘Appy ‘Arry. Amazingly for ‘Arry and his ‘accolytes in the media, it turned out that Engerland didn’t actually want him as manager after all and went off and, get this, appointed someone else instead! (I mean would you cheddar cheese it!?). Not only that but his ‘potential champions’ of the spring went all daft on him and managed to give third place in the Prem to a team that was out for the count in 16th earlier in the season. And then, he found out that all that hard work coming 4th was for nothing as useless lumpen defensive-minded sixth place Chelsea went and bloody won the Champions League, thereby snatching ‘Appy ‘Arry’s golden Champions League treasure out from under his grasping fingers.  Life eh?

Still it could be worse for ‘Appy ‘Arry. At least he has his ‘olidays to look forward to. Uncle Roy, the man who mischievously stole that Engerland job out from under ‘Arry’s nose, now actually has to go off and manage the bloody side. And in Euro 2012 too, a competition that everyone appears to be looking forward to like passport control queues, a competition Engerland qualified for with surprising ease and which now looks like being little more than an impediment to everyone’s holiday plans.  And get this, the team actually have to play some warm up games too.

All Aboard For Playing Badly…

Engerland’s first warm up in Oslo couldn’t be more of a Roy style game. First off it was up in balmy scandewegia where Roy first made his name as a manager and where he is still revered as a kind of very minor godling sort of thing – right up there with Kleenaro the God of Asgardian street sweeping. A pretty basic test against the kind of side you suspect Roy really admires, hard working, no real stars, good on-pitch playing discipline, nothing spikey, aggressive or eye-catching about them, good old mid-table mediocrities Norway. And Engerland showed every sign of buying into the Uncle Roy Way.

Remember this? For me this passing move out of defence into a threatening attacking position was the most impressive thing about Engerland’s last, relatively lacklustre performance against Holland. It showed that the Engerland players were not only capable of actually passing and moving the ball, but had the nerve to do it under pressure on the international stage. Sadly there was nothing in this dour match against Norway that demonstrated either capability.

Although Uncle Roy has only gained control over the players for less than a week, it’s clear that some of his footballing credo is sinking in. Roy’s a direct football man, maybe not a total devotee of Charles Hughes’ criminal long ball loving publication The Winning Formula: The Football Association Soccer Skills and Tactics (Roy was out there winning things his way long before its publication in 1990),  but a man for whom midfield tikitaka jiggery-pokery is something of an anathema. As a result he restricted his midfield to two players, Gerrard and Parker, thereby effectively forcing the team to play wide or long.

Admittedly it wasn’t all horrendous hoofball ‘lump it in to the big man in the mixer’ tedium, but it wasn’t far off. With a makeshift defence (no Cole, Cahill or Champions League Hero John Terry) whose primary responsibility is to be tight rather than proactive, and a midfield duo whose principle skills are the 180 degree shield, turn and backpass, and the 60 yard Hollywood Hoof to the feet of an opposition player, the only impressive stat the boys were going to bring home was no of completed passes to an opposition player.

Even so, Engerland did what they so often do. Scored early though a nice turn and pass from Carroll and a dribble and scuffer from Ashley Young, then fell back for 80 minutes of chaotic defending on the 18 yard line. And they were so successful at this that Norway ended up looking like Barcelona trying to find a way through the brick wall that was Chelsea.

Sure there were some odd, good moments. Stewart Downing’s miraculous appearance in the team was matched only by the miraculous cross he put in in the third minute which Carroll only just failed to convert. As if to illustrate the rarity of the event, Downing never repeated the feat. Carroll’s good feet when the ball wasn’t punted at him at 90 miles an hour. Wallcott and Oxlade Chamberlain combining for a neat penalty box 1-2, which just didn’t come off.  And Rob Green’s two or three saves, which must have helped him redeem something of his Engerland career.

Yet there’s really nothing good to take home from this game. It’s clear the Engerland players are still petrified of the ball and anxious to get rid of it as soon as it comes to them, they have no coherent plan for moving the ball from defence to attack other than the over the top hoofball, no understanding of how to pull the opposition out of position and create openings and no intention of dominating the midfield and therefore the game.

You can argue that it’s the first game under Roy, that the players are coming off a tough season, but it was clear that many of them, Gerrard, Downing, Invisible Henderson, Barry, Milner and particularly Phil Jones all had spectacularly bad days at the office. It was abundantly clear that, like Barcelona at the Camp Neu, it was Norway who lost it, rather than the visitors who won.

Not A Bad Beating At All

True there really isn’t a ‘good’ time to take a beating on the International stage. But if there was (and we’ll say it again, there isn’t), then this was the time. Engerland have qualified well for Euro 2012, dispensed with a manager they didn’t care for anymore, and kicked a whole parcel of ‘football as moral cesspit discuss’ issues into touch. With a temporary coach in Stuart Pearce and no immediate pressure on the team to WIN WIN WIN, this was unquestionable the one match where it was totally acceptable to be as experimental as possible.  And you know what? It wasn’t all that bad, there were even a few positives. No really.

Are You Making A Pass At Me?

Be Afraid World! Be Very Afraid! Engerland do the apparently impossible and actually pass the ball out of defence...

I actually applauded when, in the 8th minute, Engerland managed to deftly pass their way out of defence and convert good, pacy midfield play into a genuine attacking move. A move which I suspect would have been even more effective had its intended recipient, Gerrard, not been suffering from ‘tight’ hamstrings and been able to get to the final ball.

Sure, they didn’t score. In truth they didn’t even get a shot in as a result. And, no, I don’t want them to be doing this every time. But the message it sent, that Engerland have players that not only can do this, but have the nerve to do it on the international stage, was fabulously encouraging. The notion that they actually understand what they’re doing with the ball when it’s on the ground is also something of a revelation. And the confidence the players seemed to have that their teammates both wanted the ball and knew what to do with it once they received it was something I hadn’t seen in an Engerland team for a while.

There’s No I In Team

This was especially pleasing given it was a team which hadn’t played many minutes together. But it was good to see that the relations forged at both club level and the U-21s seem to be paying dividends. Hart and Richards seemed capable of passing the ball around in defence to reduce threat rather than simply hoof n hoping, in a way that Cahill and Baines (who’ve not played together much) didn’t.

We also discovered quite a bit about the players on the edges of the Engerland team. I think the key things we learnt are that Richards is an international class right back (albeit not a great one yet). He and Kyle Walker should be pushing ahead of Glen Johnson. That Scott Parker is the right man for the Engerland captaincy (safe, uncontroversial and a guaranteed starter).  And that both Sturridge and Cahill have deceptively dainty feet.

We discovered a number of other things. Although maybe discovered is the wrong word, it’s more like it reinforced what we suspected. We found out that there isn’t much difference in terms of attacking threat between Johnson and Walcott. That Young can be largely anonymous for huge periods of the game, can’t defend in any way and still scores important goals. That Downing is fundamentally unimpressive. That Hart is the best keeper we’ve had for a generation. That Sturridge is a player who threatens more than he actually delivers (but that’s a great starting point). And that the team is strangely worse when Gareth Barry isn’t playing.

I know, I found the last one both unexpected and disturbing.

And The Same Faults Came Back To Haunt Us

But, as they say, it wasn’t an entirely good news defeat. For all the positive elements they displayed, a patchwork Engerland team were undone by some very familiar faults.

Hoof It!

If there’s one thing that the so-called Golden Generation of Engerland’s past-its could do right it was hoofing the ball accurately into either Row Z or the opponents’ defenders. Now I’m sure people can find occasions when this ‘tactic’ actually worked, but largely it’s an almost perfect way of losing possession and giving the ball back to the opposition. So, along with the ricochet shinpad thing (see below)  it’s one of Engerland’s most infuriating habits (and one of the reasons the passing movement above was so welcome). And while this side didn’t reach the heights of the usual, ‘pass it around the back for a bit to no great effect, then give it to Rio to hoof it’ strategy, there were too many occasions where the hoof was used, not least by the hoofmeister Gerrard, whose trademark hospital hoof was in particular evidence.

Stevie Me

This was one of Gerrard’s worst games in an Engerland shirt. Indeed, he was so disinterested and so poor that I thought his removal in the 33 minute was a genuine tactical substitution. He didn’t contribute, didn’t track back, made some truly ghastly hoof n hope punts and barely got above a slow carthorse trot when he could be bothered enough.  If there’s one clear negative lesson from this game, it’s that Gerrard is not the powerhouse player he pretends to be.

Off The Pace

International football is a strange beast, vastly different from the full-on pell mell of the Prem and Engerland still seem incapable of dealing with it. For pretty much the entire first half, the game was a relatively open, flowing match of passing and moving, with the Dutch being slightly ahead in terms of possession and movement, but neither side was really threatening. Then in two minutes in the second half they turned it on. Robben pounced on a ball breaking off as a result of an Engerland attack, then rushed from his own half to the Engerland box and scored. In one turn of speed he’d taken out the entire midfield and, helped by Huntelaar’s clever running beside him, totally disorientated the defence. So much so they clearly hadn’t recovered when Huntelaar headbutted the second a minute later. Engerland have to be more attuned to the pace of the game and ready to react.

That All Out Attack Thing Just Ain’t Working

The secret is out (as Germany’s special Cologne institute showed at the 2010 World Cup). Engerland just aren’t disciplined enough. The defence can easily be pulled out of position, while the midfield won’t supply enough cover to compensate. Again the midfield’s over-enthusiasm for joining the attack left a cavernous hole in the middle of the park for Robben to exploit for the crucial first goal. Indeed that area was so bare there wasn’t even anyone there to ‘accept the booking’ for taking Robben down early on in his break, which you can bet Van Bommel would have been more than happy to do had the situation been reversed.

And while the chaos in the defence can hopefully be rectified once the players become more familiar with one another (it wasn’t any worse than the chaos between Rio and Terry in the Germany game), the lack of midfield cover shows a tactical nativity which will be harshly exploited by teams in Euro 2012 . This is the special role that Gareth Barry should fulfill, providing that key initial protection for the defence, before calmly moving the ball on to the midfielders.

Ricochet Shinpads (Get Them While They’re Hot)

If there’s one thing that epitomised the negative side of the game, it was Engerland’s apparent reliance on Ricochet shinpads. How else do you explain the players’ apparent inability to actually control a pass? It’s bad enough seeing them standing with their backs to the opponent’s goal receiving the ball and doing nothing constructive with it, but to regularly see the ball ricochet 20 yards off their shins every time it’s passed towards them is to know the very depths of depression. If you can’t even receive the ball, how the hell can we expect you to control, command and use it effectively?

Two moments of madness

Engerland never, ever make it easy for themselves. Here a match that was clearly there for the taking, and the easy taking at that, was transformed into a backs to the wall war of attrition which Engerland nearly managed to lose thanks to two moments of suicidal madness.

Concentration, Concentration, Concentration

The three testicalled scrotum that is the Euro 2012 logo. Two countries separated by football.

Arsène Wenger used to go on about concentration all the time. Aside from not seeing things it was his go-to excuse for slip ups and incompetence whenever Arsenal lost (or drew) in Europe. But it was never more clearly illustrated than in Engerland’s total switch off for Montenegro’s first goal on the stroke of halftime. This set the tone for the rest of the game. Before that Engerland were comfortably in control, indeed they were actually playing within themselves and never looked like being threatened by the Montenegrans. Afterwards it seemed as if none of them had ever seen a round ball, much less played with one. And once they found themselves on the back foot they never looked as if there was any chance of them seizing the initiative from their opponents and while the Montenegrans rarely appeared truly threatening, they totally dominated the entire second half. Thankfully Engerland had already built their two goal cushion, because without it they would have been crushed.

You Can Take The Boy Out Of Chav…

But you can’t, apparently, take the Chav out of the boy. Rooney’s petulant kick at defender Dzudovic, which saw him sent off, will set the tone for his entire Euro 2012. So reminiscent of Gascoigne’s madness in the FA Cup final (the injury he caused himself blighted the rest of his career) or more pertinently Beckham’s kick out at Argentinian defender Diego Simeone in France 1998? If Capello has any sense he will be including Rooney in his squads, but will only play him from the bench if at all. That way the team will have to learn how to live without him, while he will still feel part of the side. And in a pleasing development, this is exactly what Capello has said he wants to do.

All About The Attack

We also saw Wales beat the Swiss, something Engerland couldn’t do at Wembley. They have continued their admirable progress up the FIFA rankings, albeit from somewhere close to the bottom. And it struck me, does Engerland actually have an attack as good as the Welsh? You have Bale and Bellamy racing down the wings actually threatening teams, something that Wallcott, Young, Downing, Lennon seem to do only infrequently. And they’re backed by a midfield, led by Ramsey, which actually likes to pass the ball. And I wondered, Is anyone actually afraid of Engerland? Because I wouldn’t be. They are a good Championship qualifying side, one of the teams you wouldn’t want to be in a qualifying group with, but nothing special.

Who Are Ya? (Repeat Until Senseless)

If Engerland were a Prem team, who would they be? Let’s think, supposedly one of the big beasts, yet they haven’t won anything for ages; capable of scoring goals yet always vulnerable with dodgy defending and a very soft centre;  just lost their talismanic forward/midfield dynamo; potentially a great attacking side yet always looking to throw away a lead… Any ideas? Could they possibly be today’s Arsenal (albeit with considerably less technique) in disguise?

Still A Few Good Points Lurking (Even If We Don’t Always Pick Them Up)

1. Engerland have qualified and are in the second pot. And now that we don’t have to jet about trying to win approval from some FIFA despot we can play some proper friendlies and try to build a side that could do well in Euro 2012. Time for Capello to really earn his money, playing players with potential, rather than the same old failures.
2. New broom? Engerland went to South Africa with the oldest squad in the tournament. And with players like Terry, Lampard, Gerrard, Rio and Ashley Cole beginning to look tired (or perpetually injured) it’s time for change. Capello has a moment, in between the demands of qualification and the tournament itself to test out the new blood. We want to see what a midfield of Wilshire, Cleverly and McEachran can do. What an attack with Welbeck, Young and Wallcott can accomplish if they’re allowed to float around and go for their opponents. We want to see players who can hold and play with the ball rather than just hoof it. We want to see an attitude to friendlies that says, it’s more important how we play the game than the result, because right now we have an opportunity to try things out without recrimination.
3. Changing expectations. We’re probably not going to win it. One of Engerland’s apparent problems has been the weight of expectation on their heads. Now, surely, that isn’t the case. I don’t think anyone expects Engerland to win Euro 2012. And with Spain, Holland and Germany all apparent certainties for the semis (an unkind draw aside), it would show admirable progress for Engerland to even get to the semis. What we do want to see is a dramatic improvement in both technique, holding and using the ball, and tactics, determining when to press and when to let your opponents have their head.

Description Of A Fool

I’m sure there was a song once by someone like A Tribe Called Quest about what it takes to build a Frankenstein fool out of the bits n pieces of poor quality human flesh you find lying around the place. A major constituent of which was unblinkered support for poor quality national sporting teams. Nowhere is this more in evidence than in the poor, deluded fans of the Engerland football team. Fools to a man (and woman), they (we) continue to expect commanding, effective performances when years (decades in many cases) of experience tell us that this is simply not possible. Like hapless Lotto victims drawn back to the scratchcard pit simply because the potential jackpot (a genuinely impressive Engerland performance) is so staggeringly massive, they (we) are pulled back into the remorseless gravitational hole that is an Engerland match by the seeming certainty that one day, some day, it won’t be as terrible as this. That one day, some day, we will once again hit the heights of Engerland v Holland ’96, which was a truly beautiful game albeit one that took place over 15 years ago. And just as the Jolly Jackpot custodians pocket our tenners with glee, passing the dregs on to a cornucopia of poorly chosen ‘good causes’, so the Engerland team crush our spirits and extinguish our hopes by putting in yet another truly tedious display. One day, some day, we will tire of it.

Wales Scale The Lows

Pity the poor Welsh. Hampered by a catchment area that is not only the size of Bosnia-Herzegovina, but mainly populated by Welsh rugby players, they outpassed and out thought Engerland for large portions of the game and still got nothing for their trouble. They did Engerland a massive favour by beating Montenegro (something Engerland couldn’t do themselves) earlier in the week and they doubled up by missing an open goal from six yards to avoid giving themselves a draw. Now that’s either being super charitable, or bloody unlucky. Given they had the two most influential and effective players on the pitch in Ramsey and Bale, Wales have to consider themselves cursed in some way.

Engerland, meanwhile, just seem to be eternally cursed. The same tortuous failings reared their heads again. And while time and injury seem to have reduced the decade-long issue of how to play both Lampard and Gerrard in the same team to an irrelevance, the elephant in the room remains the absolute lack of any kind of creative midfield. We have a vaguely solid defence, Hart is good in goal, Smalling is looking capable, if a bit inexperienced on the right, Cole is looking experienced, if a little slower on the left, while Terry, Cahill, Rio, Jagielka and co provide a decent set of vaguely competent centerback pairings albeit with limited speed. We have pace, if not application, in the intermittent wing play of Wallchart, Young, Johnson and Downing, and occasionally skilful work from Rooney in attack. Yet we have no one and nothing to bind these two together other than aimless, ineffective hoof balls sent flying over the midfield like artillery barrages from the First World War.

Engerland’s failings are rooted in a schooling system that has children playing on full size pitches, where kick n rush is the common tongue and a long ball over the midfield scrum is often effective as your goal-hanging striker can just about outrun the opposition and pile the ball into a goalmouth that easily swallows pint-size keepers. It’s here that the thuggish 11 year old defenders can cut down attackers half their size with meaty impunity, barrage blocking them through the sheer power of their girths. Soon these too slow, too inept leviathans will become the Upsons of their age, taking their poor touch and limited control to all areas of the football league. No wonder we have no midfield. If Messi were English his legs would never have been extended and his spirit and talent would have been crushed by the time he was 12.

Engerland’s midfield was the pride of this exemplary display of long-term scholastic ignorance. Barry, so slow he makes time lapse photography look impossible, Milner, so continually ineffective, and the returning Lampard, who once played for Chelsea for years at a time, now seems to struggle to see his way through a single game. These are men more suited to playing a giant game of Grandmother’s Footsteps, not football, so static and immobile they seem. Not a single decisive forward thinking pass through the middle from any of them for the entire match. Not one, penetrating diagonal to Rooney. Not even an attempt. Barry seems to have thought that because he was wearing the no 4 shirt he should have been in the defence, or if he wasn’t that the ball should be immediately returned there. Milner seemed so preoccupied fouling Bale, he didn’t have time to do anything with the ball. While Lampard saw so little of it he might as well have been on holiday. Still he was more effective than Scott Parker, who replaced him and collapsed Engerland’s shape even further.

All of which meant that rather than pushing forward and pressing the Welsh, which admittedly Engerland did do for moments at the start of each half, the midfield simply stood off the defence, hunkering down on the customary 18 yard line like stick thin linebackers holding hands with the defence, and forced the attack to retreat ever further in search of the ball. As a result much of the play was condensed in the Engerland half, allowing Wales to have ever-more possession and making the old Engerland hoofball even more ineffective.

Rooney must just despair. Stuffed upfront like an unwanted child’s toy, he can’t have received the ball more than a handful of times in the Welsh half and each time he did he was encircled by two or three Welshmen and bereft of support. It must be something of a culture shock to come from a side that’s playing fluid, interchangeable pass and move football to the Engerland camp, where movement is discouraged, possession something to be feared and passing erratic at best.

There is an upside, if rewarding your greatest failings can be said to have an upside. Engerland have played very poorly and still got six points. No one got injured and we are a step nearer to qualification. Right now, the fact that these performances won’t see us get a point in the Group Stages is somewhat immaterial.