HODGSON: ENGLAND FEAR NO-ONE

The manager of the English national team Roy Hodgson says the team after qualifying for the knockout stage of the Euro 2016 in France, is not afraid of any team in the continental tournament. He also admitted that the England squad does not cause a stir ahead of any game now.

Alan Shearer, former England international wrote on his column on BBC that he was not too impressed with the performance of the team at the tournament.

England were expected to top the group but the team played a draw with Russia, defeated Wales narrowly with few minutes away from the stoppage time but couldn’t score against Slovakia.

Shearer blamed the performance on the fact that the options were much and that the coach was having a hard time picking out his best eleven. He said he “doesn’t think Roy knows his best XI, or his best system, and that is where we [England] are struggling.”

The Newcastle legend said the second spot in the group was not bad and that the team could still get a favourable opponent to play against in the next stage of the tournament.

Shearer called for improvements from the team ahead of the next round. He said the tournament was wide open and that anything was possible, especially going by some results from the group stage. Shearer went on to ask for a change in formation as the 4-3-3 formation wasn’t producing the desired results.

He added that Walker, Rooney and Dier were the most impressive in the team. He claimed the heart of the problem of the team was in the attack, which needed more work. He admitted that like others, he was scared of the defence ahead of the tournament but has been fine with their performance so far. He charged the team to go on to get past their opponents in the next stage.