A new chapter. The same story.

This blog previously asked for a bolder choice of England captain than Wayne Rooney, so it is predictable that this article is going to take issue with the 'new chapter' promised by Wayne Rooney that would form under his captaincy. But in this instance it is difficult to follow an unpredictable pathway.

Although England secured a win, and Rooney the winning goal, it was an uninspiring performance and also, perhaps more depressingly, raises the spectre of much dreary debate to come. Perhaps most disappointingly, there is no sign of a new culture of commitment to the England team, with mass substitutions at the end of a lifeless friendly the symptom. Surely Rooney, on his debut as England captain, would have demanded that he plays the full 90 minutes to lead his team? Unfortunately, Rooney also seems to lack the natural leadership demanded by this role, as he sat glumly in the stands rather than welcoming substituted players off the pitch as other support staff and players did. Also, his performance has also been questioned, and the performance of Welbeck deemed to be of higher standard. Sadly for Welbeck, he won't start the next game against Switzerland as dropping Rooney will be unthinkable for the England management. Although this blog has previously championed Joe Hart as captain, perhaps better, given the current team, would be to issue the captaincy on a short term basis, in order to keep competition high and provide flexibility in case of a drop in form - particularly important at the moment as few players other than Sterling seem to have their positions unquestioned.

But it is unlikely that the status quo will shift in the short term, and England's malaise will continue, with ever dwindling crowds. Roy Hodgson has blamed this on the quality of the opposition, which certainly is part of the cause, but more critical is the lack of connection between the national team and the public. Until this is corrected, which will only be done by performances of more commitment and verve, the attendances will remain low.

But of more concern from last evening's game was the return of the lazy 4-4-2 is rigid argument. Does anyone else not realise that rigid is an incredibly empty and useless description of a formation? By all means say that a formation is ill-suited to a team or opposition and give the rationale for it - but to lazily describe it as 'rigid', purely on the basis of the fact that it is a nice sounding description that has become a widely accepted truism is a waste of everyone's time. Another concern is an emerging debate on whether Wilshere and Henderson can work in midfield together, bringing back bad memories of the Lampard-Gerrard debate. Either they can play well together or not - please can the debate move on from trying to crowbar the best players into a team and start discussing how to select the best team, which isn't necessarily made up of a collection of the best players. Sadly this debate will probably rumble on, as correspondents insist on recycling tired old storylines and phrases.

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!).