It was a disappointing result for England against Russia the 1-1 draw and it obviously puts pressure on us now against Wales, which is probably what we didn’t want — especially as the Welsh got a result over Slovakia.
I thought we played well up to a point, the team was energetic, everyone was in the right frame of mind and we restricted Russia to almost no chances, while creating quite a few ourselves.
The downside is we didn’t actually have anyone there to get the vital goals in. Someone like Jamie Vardy, I feel, would have got on the end of a couple of those chances.
Although Wayne Rooney had a good chance he was sitting quite deep and it was just one of those nights for Harry Kane, who couldn’t seem to get the right touch.
With Raheem Sterling and Adam Lallana, who are not really out-and-out strikers or internationally proven goal scorers, we lacked a bit of punch.
It was a bit of a luxury having both Sterling and Lallana. They created the right openings but we didn’t have anyone there to put the icing on the cake.
I would sacrifice Sterling for Vardy. Wales are going to press and press, so we need to be cautious in midfield. I would play two up front in Harry Kane and Vardy, with a couple of holding midfielders and I don’t think Sterling is that good defensively, he’s just good going forward, but you don’t always get the end product.
We can beat Wales, so long as we match the work rate and effort that they will put in, especially in the first half. I think they’ll come out the traps again like they did against Slovakia, but it will be hard for them to keep that up for 90 minutes.
Gareth Bale said Wales had more pride and passion than England, and if I was an England player now I wouldn’t be too happy with those comments.
I thought we gave it 100 per cent against Russia, whereas Wales gave too much in the first half and faded in the second half against Slovakia — but it’s a 90-minute game. You always expect Wales to have passion but sometimes you need controlled passion.
Things went Wales’ way as well, whereas I don’t think they did for England. Bale’s free kick was definitely the fault of the keeper and their second was a soft goal that came at just the right time for them, as they were beginning to look under the cosh a bit. If I had to predict a scoreline between England and Wales, I’d go 3-1 England.
As for the violence, it’s disgraceful and this has nothing to do with football, these are just mindless thugs.
It’s easy to blame it on the England fans but from the pictures I’ve seen it looks like the Russians started it.
Either way, for the actions of a few idiots to ruin it for the thousands of well-behaved fans, and for that to potentially have an effect on a nation’s future in the tournament, is a sad state indeed.
— Peter Shilton OBE is the global ambassador for Seattle Sport Sciences, Inc. and brand ISOTechne. For more information, visit www.isotechne.com.
