Another english defeat

England suffered yet another world cup. This team always appears lesser than the sum of its parts. Though Hodgson's team selection was brave with four outright attackers, it seemed rather strange. Sterling was played in the number 10 position instead of Rooney to presumably mark Pirlo, but De Rossi was playing as Italy's deepest midfielder instead of Pirlo. Hodgson could have reverted Rooney back to his favoured central role but chose not to.

Rooney once was revered as a selfless forward who does more running than most of his teammates but his defensive discipline has considerably declined over the years. He is now considered more of a defensive liability nowadays. Questions over his defensive work even caused Alex Ferguson to drop him from the starting 11 in the crucial Champions League match against Real Madrid last year, preferring 39 years old Ryan Giggs instead. Here, although he was given a position by Hodgson to reduce his defensive duties but he actually had far more responsibility on the left.

Antonio Candreva, the Italian right winger varied his positioning throughout the game. Coming into central positions from the flank and exploiting the space behind Gerrard, he took along Leighton Baines with him. This opened up space for the Italian right back Darmian to run into and Rooney failed to track him properly throughout the first half. Marchisio opened the scoring with a stunning goal after a Pirlo dummy following a corner. He had four players and the goalkeeper between him and the goal but managed to beat them all with a perfectly placed drive. Although Darmian's attacking intent was threatening, it helped England back into the game. He was caught in an advanced position when an Italian passing move broke down and Rooney exploited the space in behind to assist for the equalizer.

Hodgson even made his wide players switch flanks after the break but Welbeck didn't perform much better either and an unattended Darmian passed to Candreva who crossed for Balotelli to score the winner. Balotelli could have added another minutes later from another right wing cross and Pirlo hit the frame of the goal with a brilliantly taken free kick. Although Italy deserved to win from the balance of play, Hodgson's could have done better with his substitutions when England were chasing the game. Although Barkley for Welbeck made sense, he had a tall targetman (Rickie Lambert) on the bench and didn't opt to play him. As Italy dropped deep, England were always gonna rely on crosses to get back in the game. If chasing a game against a deep defence with plenty of crosses coming in is not the right time to play your tall central striker than I don't know what is. 

Besides, what does 35 years old Frank Lampard bring to this squad. In case Gerrard is unavailable Lampard can't take his place. One cannot expect him to last for the full 90 minutes and certainly not to run the midfield with the all-action Henderson or the just-fit Wilshere. Michael Carrick would have been a much better option. Decisions.....