England tactics wrong: Taylor
25/06/2012 - 19:11:40Graham Taylor today accused Roy Hodgson of getting his tactics wrong in England’s European Championship defeat to Italy.
Former England boss Taylor claimed it was impossible to win tournaments playing 4-4-2 and that Hodgson’s failure to nullify Italian playmaker Andrea Pirlo last night was a “mistake”.
England survived an onslaught to take yesterday’s quarter-final to penalties before their shootout curse struck once again.
“If we’d won, we’d all be excited and we’d all be saying things but in the back of our minds would be the 120 minutes where we were the second best team,” Taylor told BBC Radio Five Live.
“In Andrea Pirlo, you’ve a player there who had the freedom of the pitch. This is difficult but it’s one of the things I learned from my time and that is that we were never going to win anything playing 4-4-2.
“You can’t allow yourself to be outnumbered in the middle of the pitch because they play through the team and yesterday Pirlo had the freedom of the pitch, so I think, from a tactical point of view, that was a mistake.”
Taylor insisted England needed to improve in possession to stand any chance of competing with the likes of Italy.
“They are very comfortable on the ball and apparently going nowhere for a lot of the time,” he said.
“Possession is nine tenths of the law in that regard. Italy basically kept the ball from us and dominated possession and had more shots. England looked tired as the competition went on.”
Harry Redknapp, the favourite for the England job prior to Hodgson’s appointment, told The Sun: “It would have been an injustice if we’d won.”
But he added: “Roy Hodgson did the best he could with that squad. The players couldn’t have given any more.
“What this could do is provide a lesson for everyone about how to be a force at international level. With Andrea Pirlo in there, it was extremely tough for our boys to make an impact.”
Redknapp expected Hodgson to make changes for the 2014 World Cup qualifiers.
“The match showed that the way forward points to a man like Jack Wilshere,” he said. “His absence was keenly felt because he can be like Italy’s Pirlo and can certainly dictate play the way Italy’s experienced man did.”
However, Redknapp hoped Steve Gerrard and John Terry stay in the squad.
“Gerrard was still our best player at Euro 2012,” he said. “John Terry was magnificent. We still need those players as now there is World Cup qualification for Brazil in 2014 to think about.
“We need to bring through a few youngsters. But, while we are doing so, players like Gerrard and Terry and others will be of vital importance.”
Former England striker Michael Owen suggested technical shortcomings and the absence of Paul Scholes were the keys to England’s exit.
Owen, a free agent after leaving Manchester United this summer, took to Twitter after the game to lament the absence of his former Old Trafford team-mate Scholes.
He wrote: “Pirlo was awesome but we have a player of a similar age and equally as good. Unfortunately he wasn’t there. £Scholes.
“Easy for people to say ’until we keep possession better we will never win anything’. We are not as good as others at doing that.
“We played to our strengths but are just not quite good enough. We were hoping to ’do a Chelsea’. If you are not the best team then you have to find an alternative way to win.
“The other option is to forget results for a while and start from scratch playing a different style. Doubt we have the type of players to do that though. Answer has to be to start coaching our youngsters a different brand of football.”
Rio Ferdinand, controversially omitted from the England squad, tweeted: “Wow, out on penalties again. Gutted for the lads man.
“On a pure footballing note Pirlo just put on a pure footballing master class + the penalty was too much.”
The once-capped Joey Barton was, as usual, not short of an opinion either, saying England deserved to come in second best.
“What is it with us and penalties? Saved us from the embarrassment of a pasting off Germany in the next round,” he wrote.
“Even the most biased Englishmen has to admit that Italy were much the better team over 120mins... £sadbuttrue.”