TWSI Verdict England v Israel

Oh how easy it would have been had England been terrible to torch England and especially McClaren a media trained robot with, seemingly, no ideas of his own. However they were not. Like Gordon Brown with his contempt for others he sets targets and people achieve the target without achieving the goal - to win. England passed fluently and looked far more a team bar the usual incongruous long ball from Lampard and to a lesser extent Gerrard. It has to be said this was only a bad result because of the context of previous results.

Early on Israel attacked and his team selection looked spot on. In those early moments the complete lack of trust in our defenders was obvious as we became a back 7 on or behind the penalty spot had me throwing things at the screen. Then when we had the ball deep and my usual complaints about Hargreaves selection came out as Lampard got the ball deep with Hargreaves just stood next to an Israeli and no one ahead of him available for the ball. The point being even the positives are tempered by Israel's defensive set up for the rest of the game - which made it easier for us.

As Israel dropped deeper as Rooney has shown in Europe he has few weapons to consistently hurt deep set continental style defences. Johnson made play early but he also is a small forward who likes space to run into and faded worse than Rooney - at least encouraging to see the Kid keep trying for once in a big game.

If you want a validation of my view it is a team game and the dynamics of the team in the modern era trump individual battles look at Rooney v Ben Haim. So far this is a mismatch since Ben Haim got Rooney sent off a few years ago. This season 5 of Rooney's 11 goals have come against Bolton. Here against a deep set 4 he made little impression.

Indeed Rooney's fighting and winning of headers did not half have me wondering what a Kevin Davies would have done to Israel. It is now 27 champions league and competitive internationals without a goal for Rooney and yet no one has spotted this it seems. At half time I was convinced Johnson was the one to play with a bigger man but by the end I was not sure.

It is a measure of how much the manager and his brain sat next to him understood that they brought Mr Lite Weight, Jermain Defoe, on late rather than height, which he had not selected it seems (not sure what he could have done - maybe sent Terry forward or something). Defoe was actually quite involved but at 0-0 Rooney and Defoe are not what you need - ask Martin Jol on the latter and look at his record for the former.

In the end Rooney's endeavour was good but his ability in tight games is still in question for me. Another selfish oik fact was at least 3 times with space and time on the edge of the box our so called world class kid just shot against people's legs. Indeed in another point I bore about "White Noise" when Rooney held up an imaginary card Tyler and Platt did not scold him. Not one word of the usual bullshit when a foreign player does it. Like diving it is just xenophobic white noise. Indeed what decent referee is going to book someone seemingly at the insistence of some oik... It is a stupid thing to do, no more.

Out wide Gerrard concentrated on quality 1st half and dropped in to make a defensive 3. He had a lovely pass that Lampard did not convert. However it is surely a sign of star power he played right. Surely Lennon should have started there. Lennon who was very effective for a half before as Joe Cole found at the world cup teams realise that is our only outlet and crowded him out. Gerrard as a winger can surely play either wing.

Lampard would look quite good if he had got some goals in his last 40+ shots. Again before Israel sat back he was suffering from playing with a camel, Hargreaves, and without full back outlets with 2 left feet, but no left foot, in Carragher and Phil Neville. I don't know if he truly suits this 442 anymore than Gerrard and Johnson.

Terry had a better game if only because he was not defensively challenged. Indeed he at times took the ball forward confidently and indeed set up the best chance that Lampard could not finish. I would suggest he and Ferdinand start to use their footballing ability more if England insist on having Hargreaves there to just defend against a team that is not attacking.

My conclusion is that McClaren as he showed with his substitution is not aware of the weakness of small strikers against 2 banks of 4. He also does not pick a bench to change things but to replace his players bar Crouch (who is not good enough). He set a target for more joined up football and he got it. He needs cutting edge as after all those awful Eriksson teams won games with horrible performances. Or maybe he just needs Lampard who still gets in the best positions to start scoring. If you think we should drop Lampard (my favourite player) then who else looked like getting into position to score in this game for England - Defoe but we know he is not the answer.

Oh and England cannot seem to score and have a striker 14 or 15 competitive games without a goal. When does Wayne Rooney get dropped? He has precious few assists and whilst he at least tried this time could hardly be accused of playing for the team in most other games. The pratical point being we should not pick him half fit ala the world cup and frankly he is not anywhere near a world 23.