England looked in danger of dropping points in the Euro 2016 qualifiers for the first time after failing to reach Slovenia’s goalkeeper in the first half of the recent meeting between the two teams.
England looked in danger of dropping points in the Euro 2016 qualifiers for the first time after failing to reach Slovenia’s goalkeeper in the first half of the recent meeting between the two teams.
It also appeared that they would be heading for their first defeat in the qualifying campaign after Jordan Henderson’s own goal put the away team in front. However, a flurry of goals in the space of 20 minutes helped the home team get back in front and secure another win. Wayne Rooney opened the scoring for England before Arsenal forward Danny Welbeck completed a brace to secure three more points.
Manager Roy Hodgson was adopting a new formation with the England team, which saw the midfield lined up in a diamond formation. After the match, he admitted that this formation needed to be fine tuned in order to get the best out of players like Jack Wilshere and Raheem Sterling. After the recent retirements of players like Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard, these youngsters will be dominating the midfield for years to come. Hodgson wants to take advantage of their quality. He accepted that Slovenia’s goal came out of the blue, but England deserved to take all three points.
England will be taking on Scotland in a high-profile friendly match on Tuesday.”We were fortunate having gone behind – which I did think was a bit harsh on us; we were trying hard, we were probing – to burst straight back.It was a wonderful piece of play from Jack (Wilshere) and then Wayne to free himself in the box, win the penalty and then dispatch the penalty. He gave us a lot of confidence; I’m delighted for him.At half-time we knew we could do better, we knew we could cause them problems, we knew what we had to do,” said the England boss.