Ken Early: Sturridge and Vardy reward Hodgson’s roll of the dice

When Roy Hodgson named five strikers and three central defenders in his squad for Euro 2016, it looked a daring selection from a man who has more usually been associated with a belt, braces and both hands in pockets brand of football.

When England played all of the match against Russia with one man up front and three of the strikers sitting unused on the bench, the selection just looked poorly thought-out.

It looked a bit wiser at full-time in Lens yesterday, when the firepower England summoned from the bench ultimately overwhelmed Wales.

Any manager who brings on two substitutes who both score automatically gets tactical genius points. Hodgson was asked afterwards if it was “the best double substitution of his career”.

He manfully resisted the temptation to say that it was, but admiration for Hodgson’s double masterstroke is tempered by the nagging feeling that he had picked the wrong team to begin with.

He chose the same XI that started against Russia, even though Raheem Sterling’s performance in that match had merely added to the already compelling case for Jamie Vardy’s inclusion in the side.

Unfortunately for Hodgson, Sterling took up against Wales where he left off against Russia. So ineffective was he that this start will probably be his last of the Euros.

Wayne Rooney was playing as he had against Russia, sitting deep and hitting a lot of long crossfield passes, usually out to the right for Kyle Walker. He was bringing continuity and regularity to England's play, but he was also making it slow and predictable.

The idea with those passes, which Louis van Gaal will have drummed into Rooney over the last couple of years, is to transfer the ball to the side where the opponent has fewer players, tilting the opponent’s defence and creating the conditions for danger. That’s fine in theory, but sometimes it pays to mix the passes up a bit so that everyone doesn’t know exactly what you are going to do before you do it.

It was as though Rooney, who is still a relative novice as a midfield player, was so concerned with playing the position by the book that he forgot to bring in any of his own ideas.

The chances England had in the first half came not from this considered build-up but from quick play often stemming from Welsh errors.

The first big Welsh mistake came from Ashley Williams in the first ten seconds, as his first touch of the game was too heavy and gave Harry Kane the chance to charge down his attempted pass. Williams got away with that one, but unfortunately for Wales, it would not be his last mistake of the match.

A couple of minutes later Wales were caught high up the field as Lallana burst through onto Kane's lay-off and played in Sterling with a good cross, but the winger put the chance high and wide. A few minutes after that, Ben Davies was lucky to get away with an obvious penalty area hand-ball.

Wales were obviously nervous and needed Gareth Bale to inspire them, but though he threatened with one run and shot down the left channel, he was struggling to get into the game.

Until, that is, Rooney lost the ball to Robson-Kanu and then bundled him over 40 yards from goal. Although it was immediately clear that Bale would shoot, it looked too far out. But we had reckoned without some crucial errors from England's goalkeeper, Joe Hart.

His first was to set up a wall to defend the free-kick – a decision which would be criticised by various former keepers working as TV pundits, like Peter Schmeichel and Oliver Kahn.

The wall is to prevent the free-kick taker from hitting the ball as hard as they can.

When the ball is 40 yards out, the wall ceases to have that effect; you can hit the ball extremely hard and still be quite sure of getting it under the crossbar. In that case the keeper’s best option is to have his eyes on the ball, the better to judge the shot’s trajectory.

Bale hit this one about as hard as he can, which is extremely hard, and Hart made his second mistake, misreading the flight of the ball as it came over the wall and failing to keep it out although it was a couple of yards inside his far post.

The England fans, who outnumbered the Welsh about three to one let Hodgson know exactly what they thought of the performance at the interval, booing the players off and leaning forward over the railings to scream abuse.

Facing career meltdown, Hodgson took drastic action with two half-time substitutions: Vardy for Kane, and Daniel Sturridge for Sterling. They were trailing and staring humiliation in the face.

The roar that greeted Vardy as he ran onto the field showed the esteem in which the England fans hold him.

Within ten minutes he had scored a typical goal, moving into space as several bigger players challenged for a ball just outside Wales’ six-yard box and arriving in the right place to divert Ashley Williams’ misdirected header past Hennessy.

England were playing a similar kind of system, with Sturridge on the right and Lallana switching to the left, but they were looking more dangerous.

Stats show they had five attempts on goal in the first half and 16 in the second. But still by the time the match entered its final minute they were looking at a draw which would leave them needing to beat Slovakia in the last match to qualify.

Sadly for Wales, that was when Daniel Sturridge stepped up with a moment of unanswerable quality.

Not many people have been campaigning for Sturridge to be part of England’s starting team: though he might be England’s most skilful player, he too often drifts uselessly to the margins of games.

What he does have, though, is an artist’s ability to see things differently. He knows how to use the element of surprise.

Sturridge received possession from Danny Rose in an inside left position and paused for a couple of seconds over the ball, before stabbing a sudden pass forward to Vardy and darting into the box.

Wales were caught out by the change of pace, so different from the mechanical style of most of England's attacks, and their defence collapsed in confusion as Jamie Vardy's lay-off was flicked on by Dele Alli to the advancing Sturridge.

The striker struck the finish so early and unexpectedly with his right foot, using the prone body of Gunter as a screen, that Welsh goalkeeper Wayne Hennessy had little chance.

It was the most bitter possible ending for Wales, but England deserved the win.

Roy Hodgson has an enviable range of attacking players; we’re still waiting to see whether he knows how to put them together.