Just in case there was any doubt that England’s qualification from the new, expanded Euro 2016 Group E has been a rather muted, all-conquering march, Roy Hodgson’s planning for the next three matches should provide some clinching evidence.
England will line up at the LFF Stadium on Monday night for their final qualifier against Lithuania with an eye on maintaining their 100% record at the top of the group. Although, in the event, perhaps only half an eye.
From the squad assembled for Friday’s 2-0 win against Estonia at Wembley James Milner, Michael Carrick, Gary Cahill, Wayne Rooney and Joe Hart have all been allowed to return home. With 11 players absent or rested, England fans can contemplate the possibility of Jack Butland, Delle Alli, Jonjo Shelvey and Jamie Vardy – eight caps between them – providing surely the least experienced central spine ever fielded in a competitive international. “The situation in Lithuania is a bit special,” Hodgson said, before the flight to Vilnius. “Not least as we have prestige friendlies coming up in November and this was really the last game I could give people a chance to show what they can do. Everyone knows they’ve got to be fighting for a place in what I consider to be my first XI when we put out a team to play Spain.”
England play Spain and then France next month with Germany to follow, games that will provide a far more accurate gauge of progress than the current qualifying romp. Hence the unprecedented spectacle of an England manager using competitive internationals to prepare for the real business of back-to-back friendlies.
It is a further twist in the increasingly varied task facing Hodgson, whose job now is to assess which aspects of England’s 14-game unbeaten run, with 36 players used in qualifying, might actually translate into an improved tournament performance in France next year. With this in mind Hodgson’s thoughts have strayed recently to other footballing codes. Stuart Lancaster might be pretty short on friends and allies right now, but he has one in Hodgson, who knows more than most what it feels like to suffer a bruising early World Cup exit.
“A World Cup is three matches. We’ve just seen it with rugby. It’s 14 months of preparation, four years of working with a team and then you come across Wales. I don’t know much about rugby but I always thought Wales were about the same level as England. But then you don’t win it and that puts you under pressure for the second game when you play Australia, who are the second favourites. And you don’t win it. So after that everything’s woeful and disastrous. That’s how simple tournaments are.”
For Hodgson those preparations begin on Monday night against a team England beat 4-0 at Wembley in March. Phil Jagielka could stand in as England’s third captain in three games, with Phil Jones also a candidate for his first appearance since the away match in Slovenia in June.
After which Hodgson faces a process of refinement, guesswork and hard calls on points of pedigree and progress. Ross Barkley’s man of the match performance against Estonia will naturally lead to calls for England’s manager to give a little more game time to a genuinely exciting midfield talent. Hodgson was some way short of gushing, stressing that Barkley still has a way to come on his decision-making and giving every impression a player who would not have started had Michael Carrick not twanged his groin remains no more than an work in progress in central midfield.
If issues of personnel, particularly in central midfield, are still to be refined then one thing is clear after Friday’s win at Wembley. England will go to France as one of the top seeds in December’s draw. France and Spain have already joined them. With Germany needing only to qualify to claim their own seeded spot it is perhaps no surprise those “prestige friendlies” against the tournament hosts, world champions and reigning kings of Europe are looming large in the peripheral vision.
