Phil Jagielka has urged Roy Hodgson to go with his instincts and select the strongest possible England team for next month’s friendlies against Spain and France, even if the manager risks annoying his Premier League counterparts.
Any momentum built up by England after they secured qualification for last year’s World Cup was arguably checked by the successive home defeats – their first back to back losses at Wembley in 36 years – suffered against Chile and Germany in November 2013 as the manager chose to experiment with his lineup. England’s qualification was smoother for Euro 2016 and secured after seven group games, granting Hodgson opportunities to chop and change for the final two fixtures, won against Estonia last week and Lithuania on Monday.
The decisions not to risk Wayne Rooney and Michael Carrick or even take Joe Hart, Gary Cahill or James Milner to Vilnius – Chris Smalling and Raheem Sterling were both informed after the Estonia game that they would be on the bench on Monday – were made with the management having made clear the focus is already on the tougher friendly fixtures ahead, with games against Holland and Germany to follow in the spring.
“If we don’t pick strong teams then the friendlies are pointless,” said Jagielka, who captained the team in the absence of Rooney and Cahill at the LFF Stadium. “If we pick strong teams then we probably put ourselves under a bit of pressure, but we need to go out and play well with the formula and gameplans we have been putting together during this qualifying campaign, and see how it stacks up against the so-called better teams of Europe.
“We need to see where we stand. Hopefully we play well in those games and it gives us a bit more confidence looking forward to boarding the plane to France. Roy said he decided to have a look at a few players back in 2013 and changed the squad around and all sorts, but he’s on record saying he’s not going with the same sort of experimental team this time.
“He’ll probably play his strongest team, if not pretty close to it, in both games. That should give you a good idea of how he is looking at these friendlies and how we go about it. I think he’d gone half-and-half on the Friday and Tuesday nights for the Chile and Germany games, probably trying to appease club managers and look at players and things like that, but maybe this time the manager is going to have to be a little bit more selfish and plan for France, even before Christmas.”
Jagielka, while a regular squad member, has found his opportunities more limited over the team’s pristine qualifying campaign for the finals in France despite his fine form at Everton and the experience he boasts within the set-up. The 33-year-old has watched the team’s smooth progress since their toils in Brazil and believes improvements have been made.
“It’s got to be positive because there was nothing positive to come out of the World Cup,” he added. “When the draw for the Euros came out we knew it was obviously not going to be the hardest of groups, but we had to go out, play well and perform well, and 10 wins out of 10 says it all. Obviously there were some better and some not-so-good performances in there, but confidence is quite high – and we have decided to play some pretty tough friendlies coming up which will be great for the fans and for us to play in and test ourselves.”
On the subject of whether England had a plan to ensure a better showing in France than they managed in Brazil, Jagielka said: “I don’t know if there is an exact science or an exact formula. There were signs even in the World Cup. I don’t think we played as badly as maybe the results suggested, and the young lads did quite well. We might have been naive in a couple of games, but hopefully we can learn from that.
“Maybe the young lads who were showing so much promise at the time of that tournament have matured and grown and, after another couple of seasons under their belts, we can maybe go to the next level.”
Uefa have confirmed that no action will be taken against the Lithuanian Football Federation over the crowd disturbances which marred the first half of England’s 3-0 win. No mention was made of the clashes which flared in the home end, where a large number of England fans had purchased tickets, just before the rendition of the national anthems, prompting the arrival of riot police to separate supporters.
There was a further incident immediately after Ross Barkley had opened the scoring for the visitors, with police spraying the home support to force them away. But no mention of the incidents was made in either the referee’s or the Uefa match delegate’s report on the game, so no disciplinary proceedings will be opened.
