Then you're saying that every single one of England players have no tactical awareness yes ? just because most crosses ended up in Hart hands, doesn't mean its nothing special, if anything the Italians is trying to measure how should they proceed with this advantage, and they did just that, regardless of Baines situation its required a hell of a player to take advantage for such situation, England also have the same advantage in the flank but the Italian never let them capitalized on that, and also England target men is unable to win the aerial duel for the crosses without capitalizing on the Azzuri's defense error,
Like i said England fate has been sealed ever since Thiago Motta comes from the bench and how Hudgson react to that changed, instead of adding more creativity in the midfield he introduce more attacking minded players in the pitch which is one thing they dont need,like Wilshere and Lallana, when they should have bring a player like Milner and take out Gerrard who did nothing for 90 minutes cause he's too scared of getting trolled by Pirlo, with Milner on the pitch it would have been easier for England to take advantage from the flank because Milner is known for his ability to cut edge from the flank and delivered a deadly cross for England players to feast on,
And please don't use friendly for a reference, Italy drew with Luxembourg 1-1. where England run rampart and scored 8 past them, and don't underestimate Honduras, they finished ahead of Mexico in the concacaf qualifiers for a reason.
This England team is a completely new dynamic, a whole new team. The WC is unknown territory for them. To name the debutants for this tournament, there is: Jagielka, Baines, Sterling, Sturridge, Henderson, Lallana, Wilshere, Barkley, the list goes on. This is more of a trial and error sort of process the team is going through and without getting too much into it, their team efficiency has taken a knock. Yes, we do lack creativity in the final third, hence our problem of penetration. We knock the ball around and inevitably end up losing it or wasting it with a half-chance. That's been the problem lately or even for a while now because we lack that Beckham or Scholes quality that Wishere, Henderson or Welbeck can't deliver.
Substitutions might have been a problem but it would have been hard in the manager's position to make such a substitution. Gerrard actually played well in my eyes, obviously not like Pirlo but Gerrard was composed and had great distribution of the ball while in the hole between defence and midfield. His age has caught up with him and can no longer run down the middle and pose an attacking threat. He's been playing like that for Liverpool all season and has been one of their talismans in midfield. Henderson is a workhorse in midfield and because of that, had to be subbed for Wilshere due to fatigue. Wilshere, being one of our more technically gifted players, is very... Whimsical, I'm not sure. It doesn't quite happen. Either it be recovering from injuries or confidence, he doesn't really impact the game. Maybe he's better as a starting player but 80% of the time he's unable to do the full 90 minutes. Lallana coming on in the 80th minute was a bit too late for me. He had no impact on the game and should have been a starter for Welbeck. He's very technical and actually creative with the ball and can split a defence in parts but like I said, it was too late in the game for him to get into his stride.
My point being is that this team is completely new and have only been tested out in 2-3 games. There have been drastic changes from the qualifying rounds English team. I'm not really taking anything away from Italy but we should have really gotten a point from it at most. I could go more into it, like the pitch condition, tactical set up and all that jazz but I'm not bothered to type it all out >_>
@Xarpius
Sirigu has been great for the past couple of years for PSG and has been on the cusp of the italian team but obviously, a talent like Buffon is always going to be the contender for the spot. In the beginning of the game, I believe Hodgson told the players to have a 'shoot on sight' policy to unnerve the keeper but that didn't work. Most of our shots were outside of the box and our best chances were off target.
Also, we should have gotten a penatly. Just saying.
