Now the dust has settled, here are a few of my thoughts -
Firstly, it's embarrassing that we haven't won that group. Wales, Slovakia & Russia are all teams we should be winning against and we've managed to draw against two of them, hit an injury time winner against another and ultimately, ended up finishing second. We were beating teams like that in qualification for fun - but if you can't do it in the tournament itself, it'll all count for nothing.
A lot has been said about the attack/defend mentality of the 'smaller' nations. But we knew full well this was going to be the way these teams set up; therefore, we should have been clever enough to work out a way of playing against these sides before the tournament started. It's alright having lots of the ball, but it's difficult to view that as an achievement when you're up against countries that are happy for you to have it (I think Bilic raised a similar point after the game last night). We don't have a player who can pick out that killer pass and break sides down. No one can turn around and say we are the only nation to come up against sides that are difficult to break down - the difference is the likes of Spain, Italy, Germany always find a way to win - they always find that killer pass and more importantly, have a player on the end of that pass who can stick the ball in the back of the net. Before the tournament Kane was our go to guy but he has looked WAY off the pace.
It's hard to have a go at Jamie Vardy. He can't help the fact that 90% of the time he had 8 Slovakian defenders on the edge of their own box marking him for the majority of last nights game. It doesn't suit his style of play to come up against such a negative side, but his performance last night wasn't helped by our midfield seemingly unable to play to his strengths. With Leicester every time Mahrez has the ball, he's looking to put it in to Vardy on the spin. The one time we did play it over the top to Vardy and put him in one on one with their keeper he nearly scored - hats off to the keeper for a good save. Which brings me on to our midfield who were far too ponderous and slow in possession last night. Hopefully we won't see Henderson or Wilshere again for a while. There's an argument that someone like Barkley could have done a better job in there but he seems totally out of favour. Sturridge for me is an absolute luxury player. It's either all or nothing with him. Last night I felt he just slowed the play down too much and tried to shoot from silly positions. Maybe it's the modern balls, but none of our players can seem to keep a ball down?
And finally, the defence. It seems obvious to me that as soon as we are properly tested at the back, we will leak goals. I don't trust Cahill or Smalling at all. Neither look comfortable on the ball (despite ITV building Smalling up as some sort of ball playing world class centre back before the game) - and whilst I don't dispute they will throw themselves in front of shots and do the blood & guts side of the game with no questions asked, I just don't think they're good enough to keep out the very best teams in this tournament. We'll be a totally different side again when Walker & Rose come back in to the starting 11, but neither of those are overly defensive minded either. As I said earlier in the thread, Bertrand is a good premier league full back but last night proved he is not an international defender. Far too negative in possession (passed backwards nearly every time he had the ball) - and was even questionable defensively on the very rare occasions that he actually had to defend - and that's supposed to be his main attribute.
I'm painting a very negative picture - it's not THAT bad. And we really should have enough to beat whoever we come up against in the next round (even Portugal who are struggling like us).
