Match date: 11 October 2013
England entered the match having struggled in the past to beat Montenegro. Roy Hodgson, summarised by his cautious approach so far in his England tenure (and career in general) opted for a rather attacking line up. He chose Wayne Rooney, Daniel Sturridge, and Danny Welbeck as well as giving Andros Townsend his debut. In the midfield he opted for both Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard.
Montenegro were without some key players, including their captain Mirko Vucinic.
Gerrard and Lampard
It’s been the question posed to England managers for at least the past decade; can Gerrard and Lampard play together? Gerrard has always been a leader and a playmaker. His lung bursting runs forward and expansive passing have been trademarks of his game for most of his career. Those that criticise him argue that his tactical and positional sense is lacking and early on and during the peak of his career, his mobility was able to make up on the defensive side of the ball for his lack of positional sense.
Lampard has always been a rather limited player. Not one that can really put a tackle in and not really noted for his playmaking abilities, Lampard’s best trait is his timing in his late runs into the penalty area for his teammates to pull the ball back to.
The common trait in their play over the years is that they both like to get forward, but as they’ve both aged, Gerrard especially has changed his play a bit. Before, they couldn’t play together for England because it would leave the back four exposed. Now, while Lampard is still very good at those late runs into the box, he still doesn’t drop too much and remains rather limited. Gerrard, as he has done for Liverpool, tends to play a deeper-lying role at this stage of his career, but cannot play that role effectively without another holding midfielder alongside of him, as his mobility has been declining significantly.
With all that said, they both helped England keep the ball very well and dictate the tempo against Montenegro. Gerrard was pulling the strings from a deep position, while Lampard would consistently push on to join England’s attacks, but against a team that would have kept the ball better, Gerrard’s mobility could have easily been exposed.
Struggle in the First Half, Corrections in the Second Half
Throughout the first half, there was a glaring issue that Roy Hodgson’s selection caused; a lack of consistent width. While both Leighton Baines and Kyle Walker are good at getting forward, the problem for England was in the central area of the pitch as both Danny Welbeck and Andros Townsend enjoyed coming inside onto their stronger foot. At times, England had six players within a 15 yard area just outside Montenegro’s penalty area, which allowed a discipline Montenegrin side to become compact and hold their positions. While it was a positive to see that England were getting numbers up to the support their attacks, they were doing it in a way that played in Montenegro’s disciplined defense.
Montenegro looked rather comfortable throughout the first half. As you see above, they have their four backs within a 10 yard space, three midfielders around the ball, and an outside midfielder covering Leighton Baines who is the the only wide option on for Wayne Rooney at that moment. This was a consistent theme for England in the first half as they were sluggish in moving the ball quick enough to open up Montenegro’s back four.
As the second half came, however, England began to spread the field a bit better and it was of no surprise that their first goal came from the wide areas as Andros Townsend varied his running, taking his defender to the end line and putting a cross in that ended up in the back of the net at the end of it all. The goal also came from Townsend’s pace and direct running. Again, Montenegro looked comfortable in allowing England to pass the ball around in front of their back four.
Andros Townsend
As just mentioned above, Townsend’s pace and direct play had a lot to do with England’s success against Montenegro. His ability to dribble at their defense caused them numerous problems as he would draw multiple defenders to him, allowing others to be free.
Townsend had a good first half, but in the second half, he varied his runs more often, sometimes coming inside, sometimes taking on his full back down the line, which led to England’s first goal.
There are a lot of factors that go into Townsend’s success on the night. Hodgson admitted that a lot of reason for selecting Townsend was because Kyle Walker was going to play right back, so there was a club connection on England’s right side. Walker’s runs forward certainly allowed Townsend to operate in more space and more 1 on 1 situations that someone less able to get forward like Chris Smalling or Phil Jones would have offered. Had Montenegro been at full strength, namely if Vucinic were fit, Walker might have not gotten as much space to get forward to draw a defender away from Townsend as Vucinic tends to drift wide for Juventus and Montenegro.
Instead though, Walker got forward at good moments, causing problems for Milan Jovanovic (not to be confused with the former Liverpool player of the same name) and allowed Townsend to cause Montenegro a lot of problems with his pace and direct dribbling, even grabbing himself a goal on his debut, at Wembley.
Conclusion
It was refreshing to see Roy Hodgson’s attack minded lineup and to put faith in in form players, at least in Townsend’s case. However, against a better side, the combination of Gerrard and Lampard is not one that any England supporter should expect to see as it leaves the back four well exposed and a team with dynamic runners from midfield would easily exploit England’s midfield weakness. Against Poland, it would not be surprising to see Michael Carrick start over Lampard just to add a bit more certainty in England’s midfield that Lampard can provide. It is a move that would also allow Gerrard to push a bit further up the pitch.
With Ukraine playing San Marino, England’s match against Poland is almost definitely a must win if the Three Lions are to get to Brazil.