Criticisms coming thick and fast for England team at 2012, but surely it's too early to judge?

My first reaction was: Really? Already? 

Seeing Roy Hodgson already being labelled as being the wrong man for the job after just one game in charge is a little hard to stomach. Is it really necessary for the UK press to round on people so quickly? That the over-quoted and tedious argument of 4-4-2 being 'too rigid' is used as one of the primary explanations behind this analysis, particularly when no-one even takes the effort to explain exactly why it is too rigid (and there are a decent number of decent reasons to those willing to expand on their arguments), preferring to just throw the phrase about as a piece of accepted wisdom, only serves to irritate further.

I know I hark on about this endlessly, but when a manager gets plunged into the deep end, with only the briefest of preparation time ahead of one of the most challenging tournaments around, is it really fair to expect a fluidity of play reminiscent of Barcelona in their pomp? Surely pragmatism is perfectly justified in such a situation and the result yesterday (with Andy Carroll more than justifying his selection) will thankfully go at least some way to silencing those critics for the moment.

And let's face it - England has never produced football teams and players of the Spanish mould, so why not concentrate on what we do best? Scandinavian teams have always been content to play to their strengths (well organised, hard working teams) and have had decent enough success doing so with much more limited resources than England has at their disposal. Do German teams seek to emulate the current world champions or simply carry on forging the best systems and teams that their own unique system can deliver? Please let's give Roy Hodgson the benefit of the doubt for the moment and analyse his performance on a more solid base of results, as that will be the only true measure of whether the culture he is creating (and he will need more time to do so) is the right one for England.

Support for future legacy tournaments

The Times also had an article (reference missing unfortunately) suggesting that in the future, countries like Poland and Ukraine shouldn't have the opportunity to create a legacy from hosting such international tournaments, based largely on the fact that the reporter had to spend the night sitting on the floor in a train. While I'm willing to grant that the logistics around this tournament are unlikely to smoothly deal with the influx of football fans - having seen first hand the pride of local fans and startling development in facilities that has been created in Poland, I'm willing to sacrifice a night of comfort of a journalist who has probably one of the most enjoyable and privileged jobs in the world, in return for this legacy (and its a rare day when I will support a decision by UEFA or FIFA!).