The Match Review!

Positives to take from the match? Hopeful for next game? This gives us excuses to lose the game? No, England lost the game down to a sheer lack of awareness of how dominant Italy's midfield would be, Pirlo and Marchisio ran the game, as the midfield were simply not close enough. Henderson however much I rate him should be experienced enough to understand that he needs to be touch tight to Pirlo, obviously Pirlo has more class than Henderson but no other player on that pitch will have the endurance that Henderson possesses meaning that if Pirlo gets away and gives a pass off Henderson could of moved into a better position by his gut busting stamina.

I think this lack of understanding came from Roy, he obviously did not plan for Italy dictating the game so much and relied on his own player's abilityto simply back off and close down Pirlo without being on his toes, this left Pirlo to simply get the ball out of his feet and to thread the ball through to either Marchisio who consistently strayed behind Gerrard and in front of the defence allowing him acres of space to run into into. Another talking point was Rooney, many are questioning his ability and everyone is right to, a player who commands an income of £300,000 a week should be able to transfer his game to the left side of the pitch while also having an impact. The only thing that Rooney done well was a cross that was superbly put into the net by Daniel Sturridge, this however was overshadowed by three significant points, his horrific corner which ended up about 50 yards behind the goal, his chance to equalise he dragged wide (which any other player would of scored) and his lack of ability to defend. Baines did not have his greatest game with this in mind, Rooney should of had the basic mindset to acknowledge that Baines was being beaten by Italy's right side and sat deeper to nullify the opposition. A wise move would of been to bring James Milner on who would of chased and closed down the opposition in Rooney's absence, this chance may of altered the whole game as more energy from England may have of stopped the ball getting to Ballotelli for Italy's second and ultimately the winning goal.

At the end of the day I can understand many people's point of view that England played well, yet it clearly wasn't well enough, Italy are by no means one of the best teams at this world cup and England looked very vulnerable against them, imagine having to play Argentina, Germany, Brazil or Holland we'd be ripped to shreds. The most important thing now is too look forward to a simple easy relaxing fixture against, Gulp Uruguay and Luis Suarez.