England's lackluster form in their 1-0 friendly win over Norway on Wednesday triggered significant backlash against the Three Lions and manager Roy Hodgson isn't having any of it.
Following the match, a reporter brought up the fact that England had only managed two shots on target in the fixture, which was actually a kind way of putting it as Hodgson's side have only managed two shots on target in their last 170 minutes of play, dating back to the World Cup.
Hodgson's response to the statistic: "Fucking bollocks."
Per the Guardian:
I am entitled to [be annoyed], aren’t I? When you have questions like: ‘You had only two shots on target …’ We can’t get rid of the baggage, we can’t change the fact we had a bad World Cup, we can’t play those games against Italy and Uruguay again, but I think you will have to give me the entitlement at least.
If we had played badly, if a lot of players had had really poor performances, if the quality of our passing and our movement was nothing like I wanted to see and if our defending wasn’t as compact, aggressive and organised as it was for large periods, I would be the first to say so. But I am not going to say it’s not that, just because we had a bad World Cup.
You have seen an England team dominate for 45 minutes against a good opponent. You have seen us work very hard to create chances, you have seen players get in behind defenders in wide areas and miss crosses and, yes, I am not terribly happy about that. I would have liked the crosses to be a little bit better. I would have liked two of three of those shots to get past the blocking player and whizz past the goal. I would have liked Daniel Sturridge’s magnificent effort, from that wonderful [Raheem Sterling] pass, not to land on the roof of the net.
I saw a ten-to-15-minute period in the second half when I thought we were nowhere near what I wanted to see. I thought we lost the aggression in our defending and we didn’t attack anywhere near as well. Joe had to make a good save from a corner, and Norway almost scored again from a Gary Cahill back pass. But we saw a different system then. We changed it around and I saw some very positive moments.
John Stones, who has played hardly any games recently for Everton, stepped out at right-back and gave a very strong performance and when Chambers came on he did well, too. Henderson and Wilshere, in my book, were excellent. Delph came in to play his first game and showed some very good things going forward and, of course, Sturridge was excellent throughout. All I’m saying is I want to judge every game as it is.
Welbeck came on and showed his potential, so there were a lot of good things but the bottom line is this: before the World Cup, with all the euphoria, we were getting 75,000 people to see us play Peru. Now we have 40,000 to see us play against a much more difficult opponent. I can’t put that right because I can’t turn the clock back, but what I can do is analyse what I have seen and judge that through my eyes and not because someone is telling me: ‘Well, you had only two shots at goal’ because, for me, that is absolute fucking bollocks, I’m sorry.
Monday will provide England with a chance of improving on their poor performance when they meet Switzerland in their first Euro 2016 qualifier.
