England 1 Belgium 0:ROY HODGSON'S continued reluctance to include Rio Ferdinand in his squad for the European Championship was denounced as "disgraceful" last night by the defender's representative after Gary Cahill became the latest England player to be ruled out of the tournament having sustained a double fracture of the jaw.
The national manager, who had previously justified Ferdinand’s omission citing “footballing reasons”, has called up the inexperienced Liverpool full-back Martin Kelly as a replacement for Cahill rather than considering the 33-year-old’s credentials. The Manchester United defender, who has won 81 caps, made his frustration clear yesterday by posting the message “What reasons????!!!” on his Twitter account.
Hodgson’s insistence that Ferdinand had been omitted on the grounds of what he could provide on the field has now been left rather exposed.
Kelly made 12 Premier League starts last season and has 22 in his career, but he will travel to Poland on Wednesday as the sixth Liverpool player in the party with two minutes of senior international experience behind him. He was summoned from vacation yesterday once X-rays on Cahill confirmed he had broken his jaw on both sides having been shoved into the on-rushing Joe Hart by the Belgium forward Dries Mertens during the 1-0 victory at Wembley on Saturday.
John Terry underwent his own scan on a tight hamstring yesterday and will be checked again tomorrow, with Hodgson confident the 31-year-old will be fully fit to feature in the finals.
Cahill has now been added to a lengthy list of enforced absentees. The Manchester City defender Micah Richards, who can operate at right-back and centre-half, might have been in contention for selection but his refusal to take up a place on Hodgson’s standby list has effectively cost him a place in the travelling party. Phil Jones and Phil Jagielka are effectively now providing cover at centre-back.
When asked specifically on Saturday night about the prospect of Ferdinand, who has not played for his country for a year, potentially returning to the fold, Hodgson had understandably declined to address the issue with the extent of Cahill’s injury unclear at the time. “But we have been unlucky, not least in the quality of players we have been losing,” he said.
As the match against Belgium on Saturday highlighted, England look like a fledgling work in progress.
France await at the Donbass Arena in a week’s time, a team who, by then, could be unbeaten in 21 matches, settled on their strategy and, surely, established as contenders for the tournament.
“I have a team in my head that can do very well against France,” said Hodgson. “Whether we can beat them, I don’t know. They are 20 games unbeaten before playing Estonia [tomorrow night], so they obviously have something . . . if we have a bit of luck on our side, perhaps we can win it. But I don’t think we’ll go into the game as favourites.”
So, no bold public statements of intent from this regime. England travel to Poland this week with their manager’s pragmatism defining any underlying sense of ambition. In some ways Hodgson’s honest approach is refreshing. An absence of the bravado of previous years will not be lamented. Progress into the latter stages this time round will feel pleasantly unexpected.
But the watching world has at least gleaned some understanding of what Hodgson’s side will offer. The handful of training sessions he has overseen have produced a team that strains to be well-drilled and organised, the basic skills required if England is to progress.
More probing tests of their defensive obduracy await. Neither Norway nor Belgium, despite Marc Wilmots’s team proving slick and creative in the buildup, benefited from any bite in front of goal.
The visitors to Wembley on Saturday served up pretty patterns, Eden Hazard offering Chelsea fans a tantalising glimpse of the skills to complement those of Juan Mata next term. But the closest they came to scoring was when Guillaume Gillet tired of all the delicacy and hammered a shot from distance against the outside of a post.
France will have a more menacing fulcrum in Karim Benzema, with the prolific Montpellier forward Olivier Giroud an imposing back-up. If their fluid and creative midfield clicks in Donetsk, it will rapidly become clear whether England are as watertight as is hoped.
The injection of real invention is still to come. There are players in the set-up who can create. Ashley Young has shown flashes in both friendlies and having slipped Danny Welbeck through to convert smartly on Saturday, has now scored or provided 11 out of the last 20 goals mustered by the national side and he combines well with Welbeck and Andy Carroll.
Time will tell if England can exploit the opportunities ahead.
ENGLAND: Hart, Johnson, Cahill (Lescott 19), Terry (Jagielka 70), Cole, Milner, Parker, Gerrard (Henderson 83), Oxlade-Chamberlain (Walcott 67), Young (Defoe 66), Welbeck (Rooney 53). Subs not used: Green, Jones, Baines, Downing, Carroll, Butland. Booked: Parker
BELGIUM: Mignolet, Guillaume Gillet, Simons, Vermaelen, Vertonghen, Hazard, Fellaini, Witsel, Mertens (Lukaku 72), Mirallas (Chadli 59), Dembele. Subs not used: Renard, De Camargo, Pocognoli, Benteke, Vossen, Odoi, Nainggolan, De Ceulaer, Defour. Booked: Mertens
Referee: P Rasmussen (Denmark)
Attendance: 85,901
