Delph was excellent once he settled, a little bit too eager to start with.But how annoying is that condescending twat 'glorious night in Barcelona' Tyldesley? Comments reference Delph achieving International status whilst playing for an also ran club like Villa & a player like Milner achieving 50 caps.
Hodgson changed to a diamond formation to allow Welbeck to play through the middle, Raheem Sterling to take the No 10 position and Fabian Delph to make his first England start, playing with Jack Wilshere and Jordan Henderson in midfield. “These are our talented players,” said Hodgson. “This is the way forward. We’ve got to back them. I’m pleased we adopted a bold approach, asked a lot of these players, but only because if it’s going to work in the future, if this group of players is to become any good, we’ve got to do it from the start. We had to go from the start as we mean to continue, and luckily we got the start which will help us.” Delph was fortunate not to be sent off inside the first 10 minutes, when he was booked and let off another challenge, but recovered to produce a good performance. “It’s like everything else – you can take away players’ qualities by speaking to them too much,” said Hodgson. “If you emphasise discipline too much and to be careful in tackles, you can take away elements of their game. “It’s always the same with people like Fabian Delph, Wayne Rooney and John Stones – their first thoughts are to get up to the ball. We lacked that at the World Cup at times, putting people under pressure and making life difficult for opponents, and I was pleased with that tonight. “We have to continue working on that. Fabian will come away with some nice remarks, but it’s one game. One cap. I want him to have lots of caps and games for Aston Villa before France comes around. I want him to be a much more competent player than he is now. I’m not saying he’s not competent now, but he can be even better in two years’ time. "We thought about the diamond at the start of the week, but decided against Norway to start in another way. We thought this could be a good system for our players. The six players I have in front of the back four have tremendous potential: youth, energy, talent. “They can play in different positions, wide and central. The inclusion of Delph could be regarded as a bolder move given he’s inexperienced, but that’s how he plays for his club team. Being left-footed, it eases things for him as well. I was very pleased with his performance. To come here and do as well as he did deserves a lot of credit.”
Wilshere is never a holding midfielder. His instinct is always to drive forward and play a one two. And his long range passing is poor. Carrick is the obvious choice there but I'm not sure who gets the gig long term. A good performance overall but we still look very shaky defensively
Fabian Delph recovered his cool to contribute valuablyThe Aston Villa man was a horse for a course: he has operated in a 4-3-3 domestically under Paul Lambert, covers an exceptional amount of ground and looks after the ball carefully. A promising opening, in which he made a strong run down the left and popped a couple of decent balls to his front men, threatened to unravel when consecutive lunges on Valon Behrami and Stephan Lichtsteiner earned him a yellow card and a subsequent slide – after he had ill-advisedly let the ball run – caused concern. But Delph knuckled down on his first start and looked more positive after the break, causing problems with bursts down the left and perhaps being unlucky not to win a penalty. He also played a part in subduing Xherdan Shaqiri and can be happy with his night’s work.
Fabian DelphA positive display despite two rash challenges in the first half, earning your correspondent a welcome £60 with the first booking of the night at 12/1. Thank you, Fabian. The best word to describe Delph's performance is 'energetic', but he also showed composure on the ball to record the highest pass completion rate of all starting players with an impressive 97%. His forward bursts helped to put Switzerland under pressure while he should arguably have had a penalty when he was brought down by Johan Djourou. Will need to keep his cool from the start in future.