Euro 2016: It's time for Roy Hodgson to show England he has a nasty side

Players seem to have too much liberty under manager's softly softly approach

Daniel Sturridge kicks thin air when he should have scored against Slovakia. If only he'd practiced (Getty)

The pre-match warm-up told its own story in the Massif Central. England, the nation who would be looking for goals in the hour and a half's football that lay just ahead, embarked on a standard shooting practice routine for their strikers. But Daniel Sturridge, milling around on the edge of the group taking shots at goal, didn't participate: not a single ball struck.

Adam Lallana took a half dozen strikes in the same exercise and didn't score with one. Jamie Vardy struck a similar number and netted once. And who, you might ask, found the net every time and actually looked like a player with shooting boots? Wayne Rooney, the night's substitute central midfielder. But it was Sturridge's decision that the shooting exercise wasn't for him which beggared belief: a bewildering indifference, considering the significance of the evening against a Slovakia side whom it did not take great feats of tactical intellect to know would be defending for their lives. It seemed to belong to a bigger picture of Roy Hodgson's players feeling free to act as they choose when the moment takes them.

For long periods of the 0-0 draw with Slovakia which left Tuesday's L'Equipe baffled by the failure of “perhaps the most beautiful offensive arsenal of the Euros” to score, Sturridge was not even taking up attacking positions.

Roy Hodgson shows his softer side with Jordan Henderson - but maybe a bit of anger is in order (Getty)

This was part of a pattern we have seen since the last of the pre-tournament friendlies, against Portugal, when threatening balls were being sent into an opposition area in which Harry Kane and Jamie Vardy were nowhere to be seen. That night, Kane admitted that he and Vardy may have been responsible for drifting out of position. “Me and Jamie felt we had to go a bit wider to get the ball and in hindsight maybe we should have stayed a bit closer together,” he said - the remarkable aspect of the disclosure being that it was down to them where they drifted. Tactical commentators, like The Independent's Danny Higginbotham, were astonished that the players did not hold to the positions Hodgson had allocated them that night, in a system which seems heaven-sent for this group of players. Rooney abandoned his station on that occasion, too.

When we saw the same inability to occupy space inside the six-yard box from Kane against Russia in Marseille, it looked like fatigue, though Hodgson insists not. Whatever the reason, there was no forward to finish off several moves when required. Somewhere along the line, you wonder when England's forwards are going to understand who is in charge of this team and feel a little of the fear of God where their manager is concerned. There is something very civilised and distinguished about watching genteel Roy Hodgson travelling around the world with England. He listens intently to the representatives of foreign press corps. He jokes about continental managers the English have never heard of. Even his choice of novelists - Stefan Zweig and John Williams - is eclectic and international. But a little of the mean streak is a requirement, too. It would do no harm if a little fear - about knowing the role and sticking to it - was wrapped up in their respect and affection for him.

Of course, it is a little late in life for Hodgson to be up off his seat and patrolling the technical zone, yet to hear him explain the team’s performance, late on Tuesday night, was once more to feel the way that events are shaping England, rather than the team shaping them. “I think all of them can [deliver],” he said of his players. “The pecking order will come the next time we play. Who knows next time? I believe they can all score.” If his public utterances in Saint Etienne are to be believed, neither the system nor the personnel for England’s round of 16 game in Nice are yet known to him yet. England, with their very many talents, are twisting in the wind.

The sense of frustration with that requires a good measure of perspective. It cannot be said that England played badly in Stade Geoffroy-Guichard. We see a style and panache in their build-up play which reaches way beyond that at the last three tournaments. The team's total efforts created in their Group B campaign - 65 - vastly surpasses that of any other nation. (France have mustered 48 and Portugal 50 ahead of their own concluding match.) Only 15 of that total have been on target, 26 off target and 24 blocked. The Slovakia match statistics - 27 shots against four from the eastern Europeans - astonished the French media who now see England as a likely quarter-final opponent for Didier Deschamps’ side. The group stage, with the lesser sides setting up to repel rather than create, has in a sense been a phoney war. There may be less of a war of attrition in Nice, if Portugal lie ahead there.

At close quarters, we see Hodgson becoming increasingly convinced that the awkward questions are symptomatic of a general negativity from those who write about England. He is never pleased when his inquisitors encroach into the area of tactics or formations - which is ironic, since we are so often told by managers that they are tired of the questions about personalities. “Well, it's nice to know that’s what we have to do during a tournament,” Hodgson said when someone ventured to discuss the “development of the team” during Sunday's pre-match press conference in Saint Etienne. “So now I know what we need to do…”

It was not an aggressive response, but it put those he considers his tactical inferiors in their place. For the players to earn his wrath too, would not be a bad thing. The example of Fabio Capello is not one England will ever want to reach back for but Rooney remembers exactly what the Italian said when he ignored his demands to stick to his role and charged all over the pitch. “I've been shouted at for doing that too much!” he said.