Roy Hodgson: ‘There could have been a lot more goals’

Roy Hodgson

Top of the group, but not necessarily having a laugh.

A 0-0 draw between Moldova and Ukraine meant that England ended the night at the top of Group H after beating San Marino 5-0 at Wembley.

The outward demeanour of Roy Hodgson, the England coach, was upbeat enough in his post-match comments. But his face during the match at times told a different story in the early stages of a match where England passed the ball with effortless ease mainly because the opposition were not too interested in taking them on.

In the age of “the win is all that matters in professional sport” is the fall-back position for a dubious performance but taking so long to unlock the defence of a team that props up the league of the global game along with Bhutan and the Turks and Caicos Islands was far from edifying.

Minnows? San Marino would probably be more akin to plankton.

Perhaps Hodgson was consoling himself that the night had gone better than England’s last match against the tiny republic.

Then, in November 1993, the 7-1 victory in which Davide Gualtieri made history for San Marino as he scored the fastest World Cup qualifying goal ever, in 8.33 seconds, cost England coach Graham Taylor his job although that was not for conceding a goal to San Marino but a dire qualification tournament for the 1994 World Cup which was most memorable for Taylor’s phrase of “do I not like that”.

Overall, Hodgson seemed to like what he had seen aside from the tackle that put Theo Walcott in hospital. "If I described it as reckless I would be being kind,” Hodgson said. “It was a very fierce challenge although I don't think for one minute there was any malice in it when he went for the ball. Irrespective of that it was a very bad challenge.

"It has put Theo Walcott in hospital. We have to wait now and find out the extent of his injury. When your goalkeeper does that you are very lucky to still have him on the field and not to have a penalty given against him.

"He's having a scan. It didn't look too good, but until they have x-rayed it and scanned it we really don't know. It did put a dampener on the evening."

Scanning through the rest of England’s performance, Hodgson found the best bits although when an England coach is remarking on the crowd figure it might suggest that good football did not figure too highly during the evening.

"There are a lot of positives. There were almost 85,000 people, I thought that was fantastic. The type of football we played would have entertained them. There could have been a lot more goals but there was a lot of goalmouth action and a lot of quality passing in the game,” Hodgson said. "We were patient, we probed and created chances on a regular basis throughout.

"They were two extremely positive aspects. The third positive aspect happened in Moldova where Ukraine only succeeded in drawing, not winning, which most people expected them to do.

"It means our three points here and the three points in Moldova weigh that bit more heavily."

Except that England’s three points came against the most lightweight of opposition.

England v San Marino full-time report
Wales v Scotland full-time report
Germany hit Ireland for six

Paul Wheeler

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