FIFA World Cup qualifiers: Slovakia vs England - 5 Talking Points
England began their world cup qualifying campaign on a rather tedious note on Sunday with the side failing to fully utilise Martin Skrtel’s sending off from the game. Despite dominating proceedings for most parts of the evening, the Sam Allardyce led side failed to intimidate the Slovakian defence and were saved from yet another embarrassment by Adam Lallana as his shot found its way to the back of the net through the legs of Slovakian goalkeeper.
With a clean yet tedious start to the qualifying campaign, new manager Allardyce will be hoping that he can usher in an era where the side can eke out crucial results.
#1 Three Lions fail to impress once again
Playing their first competitive game after the disastrous elimination from Euro 2016 at the hands of Iceland, the English national team failed to impress in their opening world cup qualifier against Slovakia. Despite having the larger share of possession, England did not look intimidating enough and failed to create a clear goal scoring opportunity until the 75th minute.
The side has been plagued by its inability to find the back of the net and that was exposed yet again on the evening as they failed to score against a 10 men Slovakian team and barely managed to gain the 3 points, courtesy of a really late goal from Adam Lallana.
Sam Allardyce, the new manager of the national team has built a reputation for obtaining pragmatic results in tough games, rather than going for the extravagant and failing miserably and that was evident in the match, where they did not commit too many men forward, despite being the better team for most parts of the evening.
Given that they dictated the pace of the game and were largely in control of the game, the English national team should have put a few more goals past Slovakia and Allardyce and his backroom staff will need to find a way to convert dominance into goals in the rest of the qualifying games to come.