Roy Hodgson admitted last night that England may adopt a defensive approach and “play like Norway” in Monday’s opening European Championship qualifier against Switzerland.
A 69th-minute penalty from Wayne Rooney on his first appearance as England’s full-time captain gave Hodgson’s side a 1-0 win against Norway, whose limited ambition did little to enhance the entertainment for the crowd of 40,181, the lowest for an international since the stadium reopened seven years ago.
Hodgson’s apparent willingness to ape such tactics when England begin their attempt to reach Euro 2016 in Basle next week is unlikely to aid his other ambition of regaining the nation’s support after a poor World Cup, given that the top two in a modest group that also features Slovenia, Estonia, Lithuania and San Marino will qualify automatically, but he seems intent on pursuing them regardless.
England reverted to Hodgson’s favoured 4-4-2 formation last night, although they looked at their brightest when switching to 4-3-3 after the introduction of Danny Welbeck in the final 20 minutes.
“If anything, we might be Norway on Monday,” Hodgson said. “Switzerland will need to beat us. We might be pushed back and can’t attack and dominate for long periods, as we did today. I don’t think the mindset of the Swiss team, playing us in Basle, will be the same as the mindset of the Norwegians today.”
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Hodgson declared himself happy with England’s performance as they recorded their first win in six matches, and bristled when he was told that his side had produced two shots on target over 90 minutes.
“Don’t give me that one,” Hodgson said. “Two shots on target? What about all the ones they threw themselves in front of? Don’t hit me with statistics. When we had that much possession, and you talk about two shots on target?
“We’re not scoring a lot of goals, but we’re not playing against teams who come out against us a lot. This team will score goals. They’ll all score goals. Rooney will score goals. Welbeck will score goals.
“I thought the performance was quite good. I was pleased with the first half. We probed well and showed some good movements. I was disappointed with the start of the second half when we didn’t do anything like as well for the first 15 minutes, but then we changed things, changed the formation slightly, and finished the game strongly.
“We enjoyed some positive moments, some good movement and good play. Our passing was good. For the last 30 minutes we were pretty good value for our victory. We wanted a clean sheet and got that.”
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Hodgson’s options for the Switzerland game have been reduced, though, as Jack Colback followed Ben Foster in withdrawing from the squad yesterday, although Gary Cahill will be fit to travel despite being substituted to protect an ankle injury with six minutes left.
England looked more inventive when Rooney was replaced by Welbeck in the 70th minute, and the form of his new captain could be a concern to the England manager going into the match in Basle on Monday. Hodgson shrugged off Rooney’s lacklustre display. “You do not become a bad player if you do not put in the performance you wanted,” the manager said.