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Lampard Saves Pedestrian England as Ukraine Set Up World Cup Roadblock
Published: September 11, 2012
Hodgson's team were minutes away from defeat to Ukraine at Wembley, having gone behind to Yevgen Konoplianka's rasping drive on 39 minutes and wasted several clear chances to respond—Manchester United's Tom Cleverley and Danny Welbeck being the prime culprits.
Had it stayed that way, England would have mourned a potentially disastrous undoing. Only the teams finishing atop their qualifying groups are guaranteed a place in Brazil, so the Three Lions would likely have needed to win in Ukraine and Poland to avoid a playoff.
That may yet happen, of course. If Ukraine were to win the remainder of their games and the two teams draw in Kiev, England could still fall short of the automatic passage their No. 3 FIFA ranking surely demands.
Third in the world? Not on the evidence of anything we've seen since the heady days of Italia 90, they're not.
Hodgson sent out his team in a 4-2-3-1 formation against Ukraine. It was certainly a departure from the inflexible 4-4-2 setup we saw under Fabio Capello, but it remains to be seen whether England have the players to make it work.
On the evidence here, they don't.
Cleverley was cast as England's trequartista—their ball-playing maestro pushed forward centrally behind Jermain Defoe. It was a role that invited the 23-year-old to stake his claim, but Cleverley's night will be remembered most for a glaring miss that Wednesday's papers will argue cost England victory.
You can't fault his short passing and movement, but for Cleverley to truly emerge as the talent Hodgson and Sir Alex Ferguson believe we have before us, he needs to develop a more clinical touch in front of goal.
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