I WAS disappointed with the first-half performance against Trinidad & Tobago as I thought England started far too slowly. We couldn’t even blame the heat as it was much cooler this time. There were opportunities early on to play the ball forward into space, but England chose not to do so. When you are playing a weaker side, it is better to go at them straight away and put them under pressure — look how that approach worked against Paraguay. If you have the opportunity to play the ball into Michael Owen or Peter Crouch, you do it, but England seemed intent on playing keep-ball.
When you start playing at a slow tempo, you can’t just suddenly change it: sometimes, picking up the pace is a lot harder than it might sound. In fact, the pace of the game wasn’t changed dramatically until the substitutions. When Aaron Lennon came on I thought he made a real difference. Suddenly, there was a bit of excitement about the play and with his first touch he got the ball and flew past the full back — which no one else had managed.
Although I know that a lot of people were surprised when Lennon was named in the England squad, it was no surprise to a lot of people who watch Tottenham play — or me, in fact.Martin Peters has been telling me all season that Lennon would get in the squad and probably even the team. Of course Martin knows a tiny bit about football, so if he says something like that, you can take it as read.
Sometime people look on older players like us as old farts, but I would counter that by saying that while of course we have been around, we have played, managed, watched and been involved in football all this time. The game has changed dramatically off the field since our time, but not on the field to any great extent — it is still played on grass, the rules are pretty much the same and the goals are the same size. And a great player is still a great player.
Like Wayne Rooney. His introduction was always going to be exciting for the crowd and the team and he looked pretty comfortable on the pitch. The right person was taken off: Owen was out of sorts and he didn’t make any contribution again. A 70 per cent fit Owen is nothing like a 70 per cent fit Rooney.
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So some decisions will have to be made. It will be very hard to leave Lennon out of the next game as he made such an impact on the right. Obviously, had Sweden not won we could have played a reserve team, but I think we have to start with Lennon and Rooney. If there is the opportunity, England should give Theo Walcott a touch, give Frank Lampard a rest and let Steven Gerrard push forward.