Sam Allardyce’s tenure as England manager will begin in Slovakia on Sunday with an entire lineup of players who were at the summer’s European Championship and with Harry Kane among those offered an immediate opportunity to banish the painful memories of the failings at that tournament.
Allardyce revealed his first selection to his squad before training at St George’s Park on Friday in an attempt to focus minds before the team’s first World Cup qualifier. He will offer eight of the side who began the humiliating defeat by Iceland at Nice’s Allianz Riviera on 27 June a chance to redeem their reputations.
Only Daniel Sturridge, Chris Smalling and Dele Alli from that XI will not begin this game, with Adam Lallana, John Stones and Jordan Henderson drafted in. The team shows only two changes from the one that started the finals, against Russia in Marseille, Lallana having been preferred to Sturridge on that occasion.
Kane, whose personal toils in the knockout tie against Iceland came to symbolise England’s shortcomings, has yet to score for Tottenham Hotspur this season but will start up front in a 4-2-3-1 formation, with the captain, Wayne Rooney, operating from the No 10 role. The Spurs forward failed to register at Euro 2016 and was omitted by Hodgson for the goalless draw with Sunday’s opponents in the group stage, but will be boosted by Allardyce’s show of faith as England seek a winning start to their Group F campaign.
There is another chance, too, for Joe Hart, whose form in France came in for widespread criticism after errors against Wales and Iceland. Allardyce had given consideration to selecting Fraser Forster but an arm injury sustained in training forced the goalkeeper to return to Southampton for treatment and offered Hart, on loan at Torino, his opportunity.
Raheem Sterling, who struggled badly with a crisis of confidence over the summer, will begin on the right with his form having improved markedly under Pep Guardiola at Manchester City. Yet, for those seeking evidence of revolution, the manager’s first lineup will come as an anticlimax, with a lack of options very evident and faith retained, 69 days on, in the vast majority from the defeat in Nice.
Allardyce will hope victory in Trnava’s City Arena in one of the section’s trickier contests will, instead, demonstrate the impact he can make on a familiar group of players. From those who began against Iceland Stones, who did not feature at all in France but is a player revived by his recent £47.5m move from Everton to City, will start ahead of Smalling, with the Manchester United centre-half having featured for only two minutes to date this term. Lallana will operate from the left and replaces his club-mate Sturridge. The striker boasts a solitary Premier League start for Liverpool to date this term, which saw him ineffective on the right in a 2-0 defeat at Burnley.
Henderson has been preferred to Alli and the recalled Danny Drinkwater, a late omission from Hodgson’s squad for Euro 2016. Allardyce has suggested he considers Alli’s best position to be a central playmaker, effectively relegating last season’s young player of the year behind Rooney for now in the pecking order. The captain will gain his 116th cap against Slovakia, with Jamie Vardy and Michail Antonio among the options from the bench.
The manager has resisted the chance to recall Luke Shaw to the starting lineup. The 21-year-old last played for his country against Switzerland almost a year ago but, fully recovered from a broken leg and restored to the United team, he will have to wait for his chance to displace Danny Rose from the national side. The Spurs player’s impact was one of the few positives from the finals in France, with his club-mate Kyle Walker to start on the opposite flank.
Allardyce and his coaching staff, headed by Craig Shakespeare and Sammy Lee, have spent the week analysing Slovakia, whose stubborn defence so frustrated England in their meeting in Saint-Etienne. There will be more urgency to the hosts’ performance in Trnava. “There is massive pressure to win, yes, and a huge need to, at the very least, come back with a result,” said Allardyce. “I have watched their home matches. All the analysis lads have clipped all their home games in the qualifiers and they seem to start pretty quickly and score the goals pretty early.
“They drifted away towards the end of the qualifiers and didn’t quite get as good results as they did in the beginning. They were on the front foot at the beginning. I didn’t watch the game in the Euros because I think different tactics will be used by Slovakia when they are playing at home. They only needed a point in the Euros, so they sat back, were very defensively minded and really chose not to attack at all.
“The onus is on them to come and attack us and winning their home game will be very important for them and their manager. That might hopefully leave our creative players a little bit more space to break them down where they failed in the Euros.”
Slovakia (4-3-2-1; probable): Kozacik; Hubocan, Durica, Skrtel, Pekarik; Pecovsky, Gyomber, Kucka; Hamsik, Mak; Duris. England (4-2-3-1): Hart; Walker, Cahill, Stones, Rose; Dier, Henderson; Sterling, Rooney, Lallana; Kane.
