Arsenal
Aston Villa
Chelsea
Crystal Palace
Everton
Fulham
Leeds United
Liverpool
Manchester City
Manchester United
Newcastle United
Nottingham Forest
Southampton
Tottenham Hotspur
West Ham United
Wolverhampton Wanderers
On Saturday evening, England played their first match of what will hopefully be a lengthy Euro 2016 campaign against Russia. Most people thought and hoped that The Three Lions would not be presented with too much difficulty in this opening game, and in truth, Russia did not offer a great deal of threat to Joe Hart’s goal throughout the match. However, they were frustrated for much of the ninety minutes as the woodwork, goalkeeper Igor Akinfeev, and poor fortune came between Roy Hodgson’s team and the goal they so craved.
England enjoyed by far the better of the first half, playing at a tempo that we so rarely see from them at major tournaments. Adam Lallana was fantastic in that period of the game, exhibiting terrific energy, awareness on the pitch, and fantastic touches – all of which have been a feature of his performances for Liverpool towards the end of the domestic season.
After a great deal of talking in the build-up to the tournament, Wayne Rooney was indeed deployed in a fairly orthodox midfield role, with Spurs’ Dele Alli given the licence to roam forward and support his club-mate Harry Kane up front. This proved to be a wise decision, as the captain was able to exert a significant influence on proceedings and allowed Alli to employ his tremendous engine in the right areas of the pitch.
Despite all of this positivity – a refreshing feeling for supporters of The Three Lions – they failed to break the dead-lock until the 73rd minute when the most unlikely of scorers; Eric Dier, popped up to give Roy Hodgson the elation he had been looking for. Following a period of the game where Akinfeev had produced a terrific save from a Wayne Rooney effort, Dele Alli won a free-kick cleverly on the edge of the penalty area. The Tottenham Hotspur duo of Harry Kane and Dier lined up the set-piece, and seemingly to everyone’s surprise, it was the holding midfielder who took responsibility, smashing an effort high into the net.
England then demonstrated a pleasing degree of game management for the rest of the ninety minutes, restricting Russia to long balls up towards their towering striker Dzyuba. However, it was a high cross towards the back post in injury time that resulted in England’s demise, with Danny Rose overpowered by Vasili Berezutski, leaving Joe Hart helpless.
With Wales winning their opening game in England’s group earlier in the day, the match between the two home nations now has an extra edge to it, as Hodgson’s men need a win to keep any hopes alive of winning the group.
Here is how Twitter reacted to the game:
An overwhelming feeling of disappointment was rife amongst most England fans…
😡 there we go! Same old England 😂😢😢😩😩
— Terry Smith (@Tel_DV)
Surprised how positive my timeline is about that England performance. Seemed same old tournament England to me. Roll on Thursday!
— Andrew Beasley 💙 (@BassTunedToRed)
Worry is that if poor can unpick defence how much havoc will a really good team cause?
— Jonathan Legard (@legardj)
Will England ever change? Ever ever? Ever ever?
— Tancredi Palmeri (@tancredipalmeri)
Some resorted to gallows humour…
Well after Leicester City’s year it’s clear order has been restored to the footballing universe. Well done England.
— Mike McCarthy (@mikemccarthy)
With that many Spurs players in the England side we were always going to bottle it at the last minute
— Dan Silver (@dansilver_)
England are like a McDonalds meal. You look forward to it but after you remember why you never go.
— Messi Minutes (@MessiMinutes)
Predictably, there were a number of people blaming Roy Hodgson’s decisions for the defeat…
Hodgson did not get his substitutions right there. Needs to be bolder as Deschamps was for France on Friday. England played well but 1-1..
— Jason Burt (@JBurtTelegraph)
Missed too many chances. And Roy hodgsen made the wrong decisions and changes … complete THICK IDIOT of a manager. Clueless. 😤😤😤
— James Graham (@itsjamesgraham)
http://twitter.com/marco_ten/status/741735407478558722
Hodgson making a mess of the talent at his disposal. Why take off Rooney? Why not bring on Vardy? Victory thrown away. Self inflicted
— James Pearce (@JamesPearceLFC)
Imagine having a pile of game-changing, dynamic forwards (Sturridge, Vardy even Rashford) & persisting with Sterling, Kane playing like that
— Rik Sharma (@riksharma_)
England's problem is not the players they played well tonight. It's the coaches and manager so so negative with substitutions.
— Joey Barton 🇵🇸 (@Joey7Barton)
Despite only picking up a point, there was still a degree of positivity… if you looked hard enough…
Fans were magnificent, sang their hearts out, very proud of England, we were Awesome COYEEEEEEE
— Micky Hazard (@1MickyHazard)
England were brilliant tonight, one mistake cost us, 2 games left to correct it! Come on 👊🏼👊🏼👊🏼👊🏼
— Luke (@LukeParkyJenks)
Featured Image: All rights reserved by arif_shamim