France extended their unbeaten run to twenty-two matches in a row, following a 1-1 draw with England in Donetsk. The key talking point from an England point of view before hand was the selection of young Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain ahead of the more experienced Stewart Downing, but more on that later.
- Young: Did his job.
Both of the goals came in the first half of what was ultimately quite a dull affair. However, England wasted their best chance to score prior to the opening goal. As they broke forward with purpose, James Milner pointed to where he wanted Ashley Young to play the ball; whilst the Manchester United man did his job, Milner’s pointing proved better than his finishing, as he rounded Lloris but stabbed the ball wide.
England opened the scoring in the 30th minute, and in doing so, extended their fine run of scoring first in their opening game for the eighth tournament in a row. Whilst it is a decent record, England have now only won two of these games, so it has clearly not done them too many favours in the last sixteen years.
After Patrice Evra had given away a foolish free kick, Steven Gerrard put a fine cross into the French box, and Joleon Lescott headed the ball past Lloris to score his first international goal. Ironically before the game, Laurent Blanc, the French manager had said “If we play the English way then it will be a 0-0 and we might get a goal from a set-piece”. Blanc might have been able to predict the English threat, but his team were unable to stop it.
Lescott’s strike meant that England’s starting eleven moved onto thirty-three international goals for between them; proof (if it were needed) that this is a far-from-prolific squad, not least as Steven Gerrard accounts for 58% of the goals on his own.
The cross from Gerrard was the first of thirteen in the match by both sides that found a team-mate, and how important it proved. Indeed only six out of forty-one crosses by both teams were successful in the match acccording to in-game Squawka stats.
Nine minutes after the opening goal, France were level as Samir Nasri fired the ball inside Joe Hart’s near post to score. The players of Manchester City were clearly making the difference in this match.
The goal illustrated perfectly the perils of defending too deeply; there were eight England outfield players in the box when it was rolled to Nasri (who was around twenty yards out), but none of them were close enough to make the block.
The second half was a tense affair, with little to separate the two sides. The flat atmosphere in a less-than-full stadium hardly helped matters either. France probably shaded it, as England retreated deeper and deeper towards the end and only had 25% of the possession in the final fifteen minutes, but the French didn’t create any clear-cut chances, and it only served to show the importance of the earlier Milner miss.
It shouldn’t be too much of a surprise that England failed to score late on; only two of the last eighteen goals they have scored have been after the sixtieth minutes of games, and England famously scored no second half goals at World Cup 2002 for instance. But I’m sure they’ll be pleased enough with a point from the group favourites.
- Click to image to view stats
So who played well for England? The defence all did well, the goal aside, and Glen Johnson offered a threat at times down the right flank. But what of Oxlade-Chamberlain?
Whilst he did nothing wrong particularly, and was unlucky to be booked, the Squawka in-game data panel shows us he only attempted nineteen passes in the whole game, completing fifteen, so he will need to be far more involved in future if he is to retain his starting place.
England’s next match is against Sweden, so they will certainly be hoping that Ukraine can take a point from the Swedes in the second fixture today.
