EUROPEAN WRAP
Lithuania 0 England 3
Roy Hodgson’s men reached the European Championship finals with three matches to spare – but ensured their final competitive fixture before next summer’s trip to France would be a memorable one.
England’s 3-0 win was as comfortable as expected against a side ranked 116th in the world, with the triumph in Vilnius seeing them become just the sixth side ever to reach the Euro finals with a 100 per cent record.
It was an impressive end to Group E by the Three Lions, who boasted a two-goal lead by half-time after Ross Barkley’s long-range effort deflected home and Harry Kane’s shot went in off Lithuania goalkeeper Giedrius Arlauskis.
A fierce Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain added extra gloss to a scoreline that some inside the tiny LFF Stadium appeared to care little about, preferring instead to clash in the home end before and during the encounter.
Kane, Barkley and Adam Lallana were the only players to retain their starting berth as Roy Hodgson named an experimental England side in Lithuania.
The attacking trio were the only survivors from Friday’s European Championship qualifier against Estonia, with Phil Jagielka captaining the side in the absence of Wayne Rooney, Gary Cahill and Joe Hart.
Jamie Vardy, Jonjo Shelvey and Jack Butland were amongst those brought in at the LFF Stadium, where uncapped Danny Ings was amongst the substitutes after injury ruled him out of Friday’s match.
Unfortunately, the minutes leading up to kick-off revolved around what was happening off the field.
Riot police were forced into the stand behind the goal as trouble flared up as locals appeared to launch into England supporters sat in the home end.
The authorities’ presence remained as the match got under way on a bitterly cold evening in Vilnius, where Hodgson quickly found himself in trouble with the officials.
It was unclear just why Danish referee Kenn Hansen ran over to speak with the England boss, but the visitors’ superior ability on the artificial turf was far more obvious.
Kane was proving the biggest early threat, twice forcing Lithuania and Watford goalkeeper Giedrius Arlauskis into action within the opening 15 minutes.
The Tottenham striker continued to prove a nuisance for the hosts, forcing another save after collecting a pass from Barkley, turning and taking a shot from the edge of the box.
Barkley took a leaf out of Kane’s book by trying his own effort from range – a shot that brought England a 29th-minute opener.
Trying his luck from 25 yards, Friday’s man-of-the-match saw his strike take a big deflection off Tomas Mikuckis and beat Arlauskis.
Pockets of England fans celebrated around the tiny LFF Stadium, leading tensions to rise where trouble had brewed earlier – with police appearing to use an unspecified liquid to separate supporters.
Jack Butland – the first Stoke player to start for England since Mark Chamberlain in 1984 – produced a diving save to deny Lukas Spalvis when the hosts attempted to level, but they soon fell further behind.
Kane collected a pass from Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and played a neat one-two with Lallana, before hitting a strike that hit the base of the post and rebounded in off goalkeeper Arlauskis.
England continued in the ascendancy as half-time came and went, with Watford back-up Arlauskis doing well to smother Kane’s latest attempt.
Their duel continued minutes later after Oxlade-Chamberlain robbed Linas Klimavicius on the right flank and sent in a cross. Lithuania’s goalkeeper saved the initial attempt, but Kane’s effort from the rebound was going in until a timely interception.
Arlauskis continued to impress from the resulting corner, getting down well to stop Barkley heading home a Lallana corner.
Danny Ings was introduced in place of Kane for his England debut and was joined on the field by Dele Alli after the visitors stretched their lead in the 62nd minute.
Kyle Walker intercepted and played Oxlade-Chamberlain behind the Lithuania defence, with the Arsenal attacker rifling into the top right-hand corner.
Arlauskis was soon, though, proving a sturdy last line of defence again, denying Ings a debut goal from distance.
Shelvey and Vardy received bookings after one another for charging down a free-kick that Vytautas Andriuskevicius eventually got away, although Butland was a match for that effort towards the end of this one-sided encounter.
After the debacle of last year’s World Cup, few could have predicted Roy Hodgson’s men winning every single match in the campaign to reach next summer’s finals in France.
That marvellous run saw the Three Lions become the first nation to qualify for Euro 2016, while victory in Lithuania on Monday will see them do so with a 100 per cent winning record.
Jagielka is charged with leading the side out in Vilnius in the absence of skipper Wayne Rooney, vice-captain Gary Cahill and Joe Hart – a memorable moment the Everton defender wants to mark with a record-breaking win.
“Obviously I am delighted that Roy came and found me and broke the news,” he said after being given the captain’s armband for the first time.
“It is a great honour for me personally and, like the manager said, we’ve got a big task ahead of us (on Monday), to do something that we can be proud of.
“We started this campaign a while ago and the job was to try to win every single game.
“Normally you say that and probably not a lot of people expect to do so, but it is nice (on Monday) night we will have the opportunity to do so.
“We know it is going to be a difficult game. We have spoken about the (artificial) surface – yeah, it will be different, but a lot of us have trained or even played on similar surfaces.
“We really just can’t wait to get it going and hopefully get that 10th win and finish off in style.”
Onlookers will be hoping this match is more entertaining than Friday’s underwhelming 2-0 defeat of Estonia.
However, one major positive from the Wembley encounter was the man-of-the-match display of Ross Barkley, whose progress is impressing Toffees team-mate Jagielka.
“I have answered quite a lot of questions about Ross,” he said. “He has had a good start to the season.
“We have all wanted Ross to kick on and it seems like he is progressing sort of mentally and physically as a footballer at the moment.
“It was a fantastic performance. It was nice for him to get an assist and the general performance, but he is still the same player – he is still hungry to play.
“He has got a long way to go yet but it is nice that he is progressing along nicely.”
Date published: Monday 12th October 2015 1:56
It’s a surprisingly super Mailbox. Thoughts on Scotland, Raul, SkyNet, Lallana and the EurosArf
Judging by all of the press coverage of Jürgen Klopp, it looks like he literally will never walk alone.
James Tong, GFC, Brighton
We made this happen
The Transfer Blog was a thing of beauty. Only ever loosely linked to transfers of any kind, it took its readers and contributors through a myriad of random b*llshit that was truly remarkable to behold. Now, sadly, it is no more but the memories will last for generations to come, songs shall be sung and grandsons sat upon granddad’s knee in front of the fire will hear tell of the Great Daniel Snorey.
I was reminded of this once great institution by the article in which Adam Lallana says he is excited to work with Jürgen Klopp. The more procrastination inclined among you may be aware that the Transfer Blog ambitiously embarked on a Gossip Inception style project, trying to start a rumour that made so much sense, once the clubs and players involved heard about it they decided to act on it. The Chosen One was Adam Lallana to Dortmund.
To us mere mortals this attempt seems to have failed, but in some way, far beyond the comprehension of man and from the deepest reaches of the dark net, has the Transfer Blog insured that, by signing Lallana, Brendan Rodgers was fated to lose Suarez, Sterling, his confidence and ultimately his job; at the same time Jürgen grew tired of losing the Champions League Final, Mario Gotze, Robert Lewandowski all to Bayern; allowing Jürgen Klopp to replace him and be united with young Adam.
Of course this all could be coincidence, but I know if Liverpool bring back their canary yellow away kit in the near future, it will no longer be worth denying that free will is dead and that the Transfer Blog is SkyNet!
Brandon, LFC (Mild paranoia is a prerequisite for the support I’m told) JHB
Worried for Lallana
It’s nice that Lallana is excited to work with his new boss. Best foot forward, meet the new day and all that.
Not sure Klopp will be particularly bothered about working with Lallana, though. Between Coutinho, Firmino, the criminally under-rated (by Rodgers) Teixeira, Ibe, and potentially Milner (because those promises of a central berth mean nothing now Rodgers is gone and we lack disciplined wide-men) there are many players who are either just clearly better footballers (Coutinho) or have attributes that Klopp has prized in the past at much higher levels than lallana does – like stamina, finishing, physicality, ability to pick or try a pass without touching the ball seventeen times then losing possession, or just being young, somewhat talented and relatively un-molded by other hands (all of the others). Klopp doesn’t have his hands tied by needing to prove Lallana a successful acquisition – Lallana’s arrival had nothing to do with Klopp so, unlike Rodgers, giving him chance after chance simply is not on or even anywhere near the big list of important stuff to do.
I suspect that unless he drastically improves very, very quickly Lallana will shortly find himself bottom of quite a long list at Liverpool, because I watched the England game on Friday, and although Lallana was trying his socks off, the only true positives I can recall from him were a couple of dainty little flicks. He was otherwise anonymous – I know your player ratings lauded his movement and those flicks, but this is a 27 year old attacking midfielder, supposedly in his dangerous prime. If he wants to nail down an attacking mid position for club or country, he needs to offer more than a couple of flicks and looking dangerous (whilst producing nothing of actual substance), because Ross Barkley did some ball-moving stuff and moved himself well AND shot on target AND beat defenders, and he’s only 21. So did Sterling, who is again much younger. Both are already more dangerous to an opponent’s goal at the top level than Lallana – and Barkley sometimes mixes up left and right and Sterling can’t shoot straight.
Your article speculated that Klopp would have seen the performance and wondered why all the negativity towards Lallana was about. I reckon after watching 17 of our recent matches he’ll be wondering why the hell he kept getting starts, given his ability to never, ever deliver when it really counts. I know he scored two goals recently (one of which looked great, I’ll admit) but both of those were against lower-level opposition and after scoring he didn’t really do much. You can’t have players who will, if they are at their absolute best, do one good thing a match walking into your team; not if you’ve got any ambition of Europa League qualification – let alone a top four finish.
Hopefully I’m dead wrong, and Klopp the motivator will transform Lallana into what he already thinks he is, a tricky and skilful infiltrator of defences taking the ball from outside to inside the box. I can’t see it though.
Matt (Think about this – would Southampton have him back now?) LFC
Rooney: The new Raul (he’ll take that)
Is Rooney the new Raul? Since England qualified for the Euros at a canter there has not been much to discuss hence we return to the question “should Rooney still play for England”. Note this is this decade’s equivalent of last decade’s “can Gerrard and Lampard play together?”.
We all know Rooney has been a consistent Premier League and international player and is now top goal scorer for England. However for me this just means 50 goal Rooney is 10 goals better than injury hit Michael Owen and 17 goals shorter than Robbie Keane. This alone does not make him a starter for England.
I believe England need to look at the example of Spain. Approaching the 2008 European Championship all of the media in Spain were speculating if 30 year old record goal scorer (44 goals before you ask) and best player of his generation Raul would play for Spain. In the end Luis Aragones dropped Raul to much surprise and went instead with they younger Torres & Villa. There were only 5 players over 30 in that team. We all know what happened to Spain in the next 3 tournaments.
Now I am not saying that dropping Rooney from the team or squad will mean England win the Euro’s however I do believe we have a better chance with a front three of Sterling, Kane and Walcott with Barkley pulling the strings from midfield. This could also be an attacking quartet for the next 4 or 5 years. I just don’t see a place for Rooney in that team.
I’ve heard pundits say that you need Rooney’s experience to do well in the tournament which I just do not buy. Rooney himself only made an impact on a tournament (in 2004) as a teenager, since then he has been more of a John Barnes, Ian Wright or Andrew Cole, great domestic player but unable to make an impact while playing for England.
Along with a teenage Rooney the other England players to affect a tournament in my life time have been a young Gazza and a teenage Owen. Lineker and Shearer also played well for England and both knew when to call it a day for England.
Rooney you’ve had your chance, thanks but now it’s time to move on…
Paul, Londo
Leave Barkley alone
I have some serious issues with Matt Stead’s piece denouncing Ross Barkley as not as good as everyone’s making out. Whilst I accept he would do well to replicate Rooney over the next 10 years, most of his argument is pretty flawed. Yes we were playing Estonia, who are ranked lower than the Faroe Islands, but they did stick 10 men across their penalty area. If you’re going to use that argument you should probably question why Raheem Sterling , Theo Walcott and Adam Lallana struggled to get through them so much. Barkley’s not perfect but he certainly provides a bigger spark than anyone else in that squad at the minute.
Secondly, if we’re going to discuss Wayne’s great achievements pre 22 (200 appearances, young player of the year awards), we should probably also look at Rooney now, currently 29 basically can’t run and hasn’t been a threat from open play in pretty much the last 18 months (when was the last time he scored a good goal?).
Barkley is probably not as exciting a young talent as Rooney or Gascoigne but that doesn’t mean he isn’t someone who could be of real use to England over the next 10 years. Who remembers Xavi and Iniesta in their teens? Zidane tearing it up as a 16 year old? The English love the Roy of the Rovers stuff of a world beating teenager. The last 3 of those we’ve had (Rooney, Owen and Gazza) played their best football before reaching 22. Owen was busted by 25. Rooney by 28. Gazza even earlier. I love a good story as much as anyone (Owen vs. Argentina and Rooney vs. Croatia count amongst the most excited I’ve ever been about football) but maybe actually taking a bit of time to work on your game, learn the trade (Barkley’s a very different player to when he was 19) may actually pay off in the long-run.
Dan, Greenwich
Qualifying for the Euros: Slow hand clap
I realise the Euro expansion from 16 to 24 has made for a much more wide-open qualifying season. And as a longtime supporter (albeit from a distance) of the UK nations, I’d be the last to begrudge Wales and Northern Ireland their excitement at making the finals. Bravo to Iceland and Albania too.
But a look at the numbers shows that Euro fans are headed toward a big fat quadrennial “meh.” There are 53 UEFA member nations, and 3 of them (San Marino, Andorra, and Gibraltar) are superminnows who will never ever qualify. So if you’re in the top 24 of 50, you’re basically in the top half of the confederation. Not bad, but hardly the stuff of legends.
In four years we’ll begin to see the downside. Teams like Wales and Northern Ireland will expect to qualify, because if you’re not in the top half, you’re not very good at all. Maybe a few teams like Belarus or Montenegro will get in, their fans will go wild for a bit, then slide into expectation and/or dissatisfaction. And the bigger nations will barely have to exert themselves to get in.
Eventually we’ll realize that the competition is no better than it was, and has stuck itself with the unsatisfactory 24-team finals competition as well. So genuine congratulations to all the newbies and their wonderful fans – enjoy it while you can.
Peter G, Pennsylvania, USA
Why do buzzes need to be killed?
I very much liked what Johnny Nic had to say this morning on the nauseating media response to Jurgen Klopp’s arrival. However, I love it. It is a much-welcomed change to the nauseating response of the media to Brendan Rodgers for the past 12 months.
Klopp made a joke in his first interview that he had been tipped off by those in his homeland about the English press and something tells me that he learned his first lesson now that his own club are selling “The Normal One” shirts on the official club website.
I would also like to take time to comment on MickT Liverpool’s mail from this morning. It’s not just Liverpool that feels different now. Yesterday, before my own football, game a stranger stopped me in a gas station, because they noticed the Liverbird on my shorts, to talk to me about his excitement over Jurgen Klopp. I live in Pennsylvania, USA. The appointment of Jurgen Klopp hasn’t just united a city. It has united the entire fan base.
I think it’s important for supporters of other clubs to know that any rational Liverpool fan doesn’t think Klopp will lead us to a title this season or next season. But we feel, collectively as a group, that we are much closer to the dream than under Brendan Rodgers.
Just seen Liverpool has been linked to Lewandowski by the rags. It’s nice to be linked with world class players again.
Brian (Confident we will beat Spurs this weekend) LFC
A fair point on Norn Iron
Thanks for all the praise The literary Ed Quoththeraven and Mike Woolrich, LFC, the expansion of the competition really has helped us small teams reach those dizzy heights of qualification.
But before you get carried away patting us on the head just a quick point- Norn Iron and Iceland were group winners so even if they only let 9 teams in we would both still be there.
Chris, Belfast (expecting us to do an England and bomb out in the group stages)
A brilliant mail on Scotland’s failure
This is an attempt to understand and explain Scotland’s latest failure, so if that doesn’t do it for you, feel free to skip this mail. I’ve had a few days to reflect on Scotland’s performance, and to get over the disappointment of finding out that all your friends are off to a big party next summer and you’re staying at home. Basically, it’s horrible.
Scotland’s performances were so up and down in that group it’s hard to know where to start. We took 4/6 points from the Irish (who are very unlucky not to be qualifying automatically) and in all honesty should have taken 6/6, and we took 2/6 from Poland, and again we really should have taken 6/6 as we led them in both games only to concede late equalisers. We turned in good performances in two defeats to Germany, which at first seems respectable, until you factor in that Ireland took 4/6 points against them and Poland took 3/6. Scotland have been here before against top quality opposition, we start extremely cautiously, give away early goals and then decide that actually it’s worth having a go, but ultimately paying for a slow start (and a lack of quality).
So why do we feel unable to take points from big hitters such as Germany when teams who are in the same quality bracket as ourselves (Ireland and Poland) feel confident in doing exactly that? Why was it that I, like so many other Scots looked at the draw and were filled with dread at the prospect of Georgia away? We are Scotland, this is what we do. The errors against Poland were really of an organisational nature, we weren’t beaten by pure talent, we were beaten by our own sloppiness, as much as I like Gordon Strachan I think that he has to take a share of the blame for this.
There is a cultural phenomenon in Scotland known as the “Scottish Cringe”, it’s a sense of cultural and intellectual inferiority, an idea that other nations (notably England) are simply culturally and intellectually superior, that everything we do is tainted with naffness. I think it runs more deeply than this however, it’s an inherent feeling that nothing we do is ever quite good enough, that we shouldn’t aim to compete against people from other nations because we’re simply not up to it. I have to admit that this is a wholly unresearched theory on my part, but I think there might be something to it. Croatia and Uruguay are similar sized nations to Scotland, and both have been punching above their footballing weight for decades, they suffer no such small nation complex. We fail because we believe we will, it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Fraser (despondently navel-gazing), Edinburgh
Lewandowski: Just a really good striker
Were you as outraged by Shane Long’s blatant dive against Germany
on Thursday night, which resulted in an unjustified yellow card for
Hummels, as you were with Lewandowski last night?
I was watching in a pub in Dublin and along with the rest of the
crowd, I was getting extremely frustrated with watching Lewandowski
going down with even the slightest bit of contact. The thing is there
was contact and he just had the sense and experience to go down and pick
up fouls. He managed to draw O’Shea into trouble and have to play more
cautiously for the remainder of the game. The last thing you want when
playing a striker of his quality is to have to be more conservative in
your tackling for the rest of the night.
It has been a great week for Ireland despite the loss last
night and hopefully they can get through the qualifier after a fantastic
turnaround since the Scotland game.
Jack (Those in glass houses…)DublinTough gig
Why would anyone want to be on a transfer committee? You basically have two scenarios…
- Player is a success, everyone praises him and/or the manager as no committee has ever been credited with a good signing.
OR - Player is rubbish, manager denies ever having bought him in the first place and, providing the fans like the manager, defend him and swear these stupid new committees are a waste of time.
Chris
Klopp not Jordan in Space Jam
Date published: Friday 9th October 2015 1:06
If you have anything to say on any subject, mail us at theeditor@football365.com
Best boss since Sir Bob
This might be seen as controversial in some quarters but this is, in my humble opinion, the first decent manager we’ve appointed since Sir Bob Paisley. That may do a disservice to Joe Fagan but frankly speaking the team Sir Bob left was so dominant you could have put a European novice like Wenger in charge and even he might have bagged a European Cup or two. As indeed, did Joe Fagan the very next year.
King Kenny was a successful gaffer first time out but fell down, for me Clive, by leaving an ageing squad in need of major overhaul. Souness rightly gets dogs abuse for the poor job he did (let us not mention the Beardsley debacle) but he had to perform major surgery on the squad. I have to say I was never a Rafa acolyte. Whilst he delivered number5 and some titanic battles against Mourinho etc I always felt he put Europe ahead of domestic affairs and as Sir Bob said “the league is our bread and butter”. Just reel of the gaffers since 1983 and it’s a veritable who’s who of mediocrity. Charlatans, bullsh*tters and people who got the gig on one good season with small clubs. The absolute nadir being London FC’s current manager who can rightly be proud of boasting the lowest win percentage of any permanent Liverpool FC manager since Don Welsh. Top work Hodgson!
Loving the bitterness of the those two cockneys in this mornings mailbox. The best bit was the goon who said we’d had a golden decade (it was two) a while ago. Willfully ignoring Art Deco was en vouge the last time Arsenal were a big noise. And the Spud Tom Pellizzaro can hush now, the big clubs are talking. Spurs fans, eh? I imagine Tom avoids the lasagne at lunchtime, the mug.
A proper world class coach coming to Liverpool!!! I am old enough to have seen first hand all of the gaffers listed here (not Don Welsh) and have not been this excited since we finally bagged Sean Dundee from beneath the noses of RM / Barca and the like. As a sidenote I read with incredulity that the charlatan was extremely disappointed at losing the Liverpool job. Looking at the pictures of his unveiling he’s lost loads of weight and got new teeth out of us… There really is no pleasing some people, is there!?
Best Fans In The World (TM) have finally got a manager befitting the most successful club in English football. 18 + 5 beats 20 + 3 as the European Cup is harder to win; just ask Alex Ferguson.
Gregory Whitehead, LFC
Klopp and Rodgers: Not twins
Does anyone see the similarities between Klopp and Rodgers?
No, no I don’t.
Klopp as won multiple titles and trophies, at an under-resourced (level they’re competing at vs transfer clout) club.
Brendan has won no league titles and trophies, at an over resourced club.
BVB went from 13th, to 6th, 5th and then 1st, 1st, 2nd, 2nd under Klopp. He has got to a major cup final in each of the last 4 seasons. He pulled them up by their bootstraps, and then kept them up there competing with the big boys. That’s sustained success, not a one season runners-up blip like Brendan.
BVB have lost key players, but have continually been competitive.
Liverpool have lost key players, but Rodgers has used it as an excuse, talking about a team in transition.
During their period of success, 2010-2014, BVB spent 68 million (and MADE a transfer profit of 1.3 million net), delivering those 2 league titles in the process.
During Brendan’s tenure, he’s spent 192m (92m net), and has delivered nowt but a near miss.
And as for BVB’s “slide” – this one I’m happy to draw parallels with if Klopp delivers us 2 league titles, a few pots and a fair stab at the Champions league, before we “slide” back down to 7th.
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