England V Algeria

I thought I should hang back on the report of the England Algeria game for a few days for the fear of it turning into a complete slagging off of the team and their performance. Three days later and I still feel the same way, so here we go I suppose.

It really was an awful performance from the England team as not one player really played well. I never expected a big win for England, but I did expect a comfortable victory. Instead, what we saw was a lacklustre performance against a side that we really should have beat. Algeria only managed to qualify for the World Cup - for the first time in 24 years - after a sudden death playoff against Egypt. Both sides finished their qualifying group with identical records, so a match on neutral territory was needed to decide the qualifying team, with Algeria winning 1-0.

Defensive alarm bells rang early on when David James unconvincingly punched a cross whilst under pressure, with Glen Johnson also failing to clear as the ball fell luckily to John Terry. James did recover from the incident to have a good, solid game in goal without having too much to do. Johnson however failed to recover. On a number of occasions he was turned by the excellent Karim Ziani, and looked off the pace defensively for much of the game. The fact that Ziani got man of the match shows how dominant he was over the fullback. Once again it took too long to close down the player on the ball as Algeria were able to fire off a few shots from range with relative ease. A better team on another day would have punished us for the lack of pressing. As ever recently with England, the second half was a different story, not allowing Algeria many chances at all, although Terry did provide a worry after he put James under unnecessary pressure following a poor back pass.

Going forward, we rarely created anything, with the long ball game being once again enforced. Whenever Heskey or Crouch are in the team, it always seems to attract the hoof up field. In the days leading up to the game, Capello admitted that the Jabulani ball - the ball used at this World Cup - behaves unpredictably in the air, so why do we end up playing the ball high towards our front men. Surely the best way to utilise this ball would be to play a short passing game, to keep possession and to minimise the unpredictability of the ball. So a number of times the ball was played high up to Heskey, and whether it was the ball behaving as described or just a poor pass, it often flew well over his head. As for crosses, I saw two decent balls into the box all game, both by Aaron Lennon. One resulted in a scuffed shot by Frank Lampard, while the other was just flicked away from Wayne Rooney’s head. Corners were awful, rarely beating the first man. It was disappointing to see players such as Rooney, Gerrard and Lampard become anonymous for large periods of the game, neither putting in the sort of performance they generally do for their respective clubs. As for Rooney, it appeared to me that something was bothering him. Whether it be an injury that he may be carrying, or the system or position he is being used in is not one that he agrees with, his attitude looked completely off.

It really was an awful performance, you would expect better from world class players who ply their trade in one of the greatest leagues in the world, and the travelling fans let them know what they thought of the game. Next up is a must win game against Slovenia in Port Elizabeth, let’s hope we get the result needed and progress onto the next round.