After a goalless draw with Montenegro at Wembley this evening England’s lack of firepower was horribly exposed. With Darren Bent’s withdrawal on Monday meant Fabio Capello had just three fit strikers to choose from: the struggling Wayne Rooney, nothing changed on that front this evening; the more or less absent Peter Crouch, tonight being one of his worst performances wearing the Three Lions and debutant Kevin Davies who came off the bench for twenty minutes. The latter, in characteristic fashion, put himself about enough to earn a booking. We all know there are injuries to Zamora, Defoe and now Bent but all other options had not been explored by the Italian coach. In the absence of so many why not hand Michael Owen an opportunity to come back into the fold, even if it was only for one match? Better still the in-form Andy Carroll should have been given the chance to start his international career against a side he would be tailor made to compete against.
Tactically, the cutting inside of wingers Adam Johnson and Ashley Young, later replaced by Shaun Wright-Phillips, who Capello sees something in that I always seem to miss, was working but the end product was hardly ever there. Of the three the former provided the best service, but Steven Gerrard made the most incisive contributions to a drab display, playing sublime long-range passes and through balls that the faltering forwards could not dispatch. Those will try to defend tonight’s performance will point to the blatant handball of Milan Jovanovic (no not the Liverpool player) that the referee and his assistants missed three-quarters of the way through the second half, but it should not have to come to relying on such incidents to get England out of a tight spot.
I don’t often pay much attention to FIFA’s rankings and although Montenegro have been climbing them, helped by five clean sheets and three 1-0 wins out of four plus tonight’s draw in international matches this season so far, the Three Lions remain more than thirty places above them. Zlatko Krancjar’s side ground out this stalemate without two influential forward players in national captain Mirko Vucinic and Stevan Jovetic, both injured. The other big name in their lineup who did feature, Sporting Lisbon’s Simon Vukcevic did not have an effective game from the right wing by any means. He has performed a great deal better through the middle, often in support of Vucinic, in the past. The goalkeeper Mladen Bozovic, who plays for Hungarian club Videoton (no, that’s not a misprint) has been outstanding in recent matches. Both he and the centre halves deserve credit for the mean defence they have established.
With such limited options and stuttering in front of goal England did not anywhere near enough to stretch Montenegro tonight. It could have been worse if Jovanovic’s thunderbolt had not come back off the crossbar with Joe Hart well beaten. Glen Johnson barely put a foot right tonight and for me the reason why his performances have gotten this way is because he has no competition. Someone needs to step up and push him and maybe then we will see better displays, but Capello cannot drop if there isn’t a suitable replacement and if no other right back makes the squad. Ashley Cole’s crossing was abysmally bad tonight. It’s all well and good being such a gallivanting wingback but you have to do something with the ball in final third or it’s a simple waste of energy. Lescott and Ferdinand were as rarely threatened at the back as Montenegro were by Rooney and Crouch/Davies.
In the upcoming friendly against France England fans should be desperate to see Capello try something new in terms of personnel. While Rooney continues to moodily go in search of the ball inside his own half, play with zero discipline with regards to his positioning and not offset this by improving his goalscoring form then he doesn’t deserve to start. Provided they are still playing well I would like to see Carroll get at least a half to stake his claim, Tom Huddlestone to start in place of Gareth Barry, Marc Albrighton to earn his first senior call-up and another natural right back be called into the squad to combat the complacencies of Glen Johnson.
I noted with no distinct lack of dry humour the frequency with which the yellow card left the referee's pocket throughout the game. While some of the instances were thoroghly deserved (Ashley Young's diving episode springs readily to mind) after a while it began to feel like the ref had lost control of the game and was trying in vain to reestablish authority with the book. A quite poor night for the officials as well as the england players I think
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