England 4-1 Montenegro

Of all the things I expected to see watching last night’s game Hodgson naming such an attacking side and letting England go all out for the win was very low down on the list, but it was number one on the list of things I wanted to see, and thankfully I did.

I thought Hodgson was uncharacteristically daring in his selections and in the way he set England up, the win was fully deserved and provided the perfect preparation for our game with Poland on Tuesday.

As Ukraine beat Poland, and they have San Marino as their last game, we now have to win on Tuesday to qualify, and if Hodgson’s new found boldness stays then he should name a similarly attacking line-up and set the side up to go at Poland from the first whistle.

Also I must praise Andros Townsend, on his debut he’d have been forgiven for being a little conservative and safe in his play, but he took to Montenegro from the first whistle and was easily our best player and to top it all off got the crucial third goal to seal the win, fantastic stuff.

While that was arguably one of the best and most positive England performances for a long time, there was still a major concern I had, why oh why oh why were Gerrard and Lampard paired together again!

Just last month in Ukraine Hodgson played them in a three and said something along the lines of they can’t play in a two but they can in a three, so why play them in a two, when you yourself have admitted that it doesn’t work!

We got away with it last night because Montenegro had number of key players missing but I think it’s time for one of them to make way and as I forgot Lampard was on the pitch until he was substituted, I think he should be the one to make way.

Ok Gerrard didn’t have his best game but he was a lot more involved and pushed forward and had a few chances to score were as Lampard did erm, err, oh that’s right absolutely nothing.  

For the game against Poland I would make a few changes, obviously Walker is suspended so I think Jones should be the one to replace him, Lampard should sit it out with either Carrick or Wilshire coming in, and as much as I like Welbeck he’s not a wide player, and Hodgson playing him there isn’t doing him any favours.

So Milner should come in because he can play on the wing and he will do more tracking back allowing Baines to push on more, other than that the rest of the team would be the same and they should play with the same level of aggression and attacking intent, and if we do that we should be too much for Poland, given that they now can’t qualify the match is a dead rubber for them.

Watching last night as much as I was enjoying it, I couldn’t help thinking why don’t England adopt this mindset and play like this more often; if England went out there each game and really went for it I wouldn’t mind so much if they lost because you could see that they were trying to make something happen, rather than sitting back and waiting for something to happen.