England lost as we all knew they would. It was a comfortable 2-0 win for Croatia, the first goal a header in the six yard box for which the forward did not have to jump despite being surrounded by defenders, the second an own goal that was at once tragic, comic and hubristic (I may have made that word up). It was awful to see.
McLaren had boldly deviated from the cherished 4-4-2 and sent out five defenders, Jamie Carragher joining Joking Rio, Terry, Neville and Cole. We played one midfielder (Scott Parker) and two forwards (Rooney and Crouch), with two auxiliary players (Carrick and Lampard) whose role was to sneak around the pitch as quietly as possible. In this they excelled.
Croatia have not lost a competitive home match since reformation, and this was never going to be easy. 0-0 would have been a good result, and was probably the result McLaren expected. A defeat here was no disgrace. What is frustrating is that this appears to be a team that is in freefall, clueless about itself and its opposition. Rubbing it in a little, Slaven Bilic said after the game that he was delighted with the 3-5-2, as this gave his players the space they wanted. They certainly used it well.
This was the second game in a row against Eastern European opponents in which England have been outclassed on the ball. Macedonia gave us a fright at the weekend, Croatia gave us the real thing last night. No England player imposed himself on the match, no England player even got stuck in as English players are supposed to do. There was nothing there.
We over-react where the England team is concerned, but I suspect that the personalities involved have become somewhat typecast now. Can we look at Rio Ferdinand as anything other than a massively paid under-developed airhead centre-back? Ashley Cole needs no further discussion. John Terry is perhaps tainted by the team he plays for, but even he seems to be out of form now. Frank Lampard is half the player he was. He appears to have lost all hunger for the game. Paul Robinson was quoted as saying he is glad that the second goal wasn’t the one that cost him his clean sheets record. Now, this may have been taken out of context, but really, Paul, who gives a rat’s about your clean sheet streak? You just hacked at air in a vital European Championship qualifier. Yes it bobbled, yes Gary Neville should have aimed wide of the posts, but Robinson missed the thing.
So what next? A very long wait for the next game. We will probably still qualify, we may even do so in style, but there’s something about this team that makes them very hard to like.
