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Roy Hodgson Must Embrace England’s Attacking Identity at Euro 2016
- Updated: May 25, 2016
As if Roy Hodgson needed further confirmation of his England team’s strengths and weaknesses, he got it within 13 minutes of Sunday’s friendly clash against Turkey at the Etihad Stadium on Sunday. It only took that long for them to underline their potency in attack contrasted with their deficiency at the back.
It offered a glimpse into the kind of side England will most likely be at this summer’s UEFA European Championship.
With qualification so straight-forward (England won all 10 of their fixtures), little was drawn regarding the style of play the Three Lions will adopt in France. Against the likes of Switzerland, Slovenia, Estonia, Lithuania and San Marino, Hodgson’s side were expected to dominate. It will be different at Euro 2016.
Recent friendly matches against Germany, the Netherlands and Turkey have told us much about England’s prospects as anything else. And in every single one of those games the Three Lions have shown themselves to be an inherently dynamic in the final third, but helplessly feeble in defence. At Euro 2016 the same team will surely make an appearance.
But to give his side the best chance of success Hodgson must embrace England’s best and worst qualities. Two years ago, there were signs of the team’s development as an attacking force, but it was not enough to get them past the group stage, exiting before they could truly impose themselves on the World Cup in Brazil.
England will seek to secure a rather different fate this summer, and they must do so by accepting their identity as an attacking outfit. That is where their best players are to be found and where they can inflict damage on even the strongest of European national teams this summer. Look at their win over Germany in Berlin last year.
In Harry Kane and Jamie Vardy, Hodgson has two of the game’s hottest strikers at his disposal, with the two demonstrating their burgeoning understanding in the weekend’s win over Turkey.
The duo give England a cutting edge sharper than essentially every other country at Euro 2016, besides France and Spain. Not even Germany boast the …
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