Roy Hodgson chose not to criticize his players following England's 2-0 defeat to Spain in Alicante on Friday. England suffered their first defeat in 15 matches after Mario Gaspar and Santi Cazorla scored for Spain. "We chose a tough one, especially tonight with the situation we found ourselves in but for 70 minutes we defended really well," Hodgson said. "I thought the work rate and the discipline of the players was good and it's a little bit saddening that it was a counter-attack that cost us the game."
"Spain were very good," Hodgson added. "It was a really tough ask for our midfield, especially when we had to take Adam Lallana and Fabian Delph off which we had to do to protect them. They were really at the limit of what they could do," he added. "It was on that occasion that Spain profited and actually went on to win the game. I am not suggesting they didn't deserve to win the game, of course they did but hopefully we will learn from this evening. Hopefully, we won't lose confidence because there's still a lot more to come from our game. We weren't always allowed to show it this evening."
Spain scored the first goal following a failed counter-attack from the English side, and Hodgson insists his players have to improve their decision making on the pitch. "Our passing and decision making has to be better. We can't afford to give balls away in those areas," he added. "Spain do not give the ball that often and even on the one or two occasions they do they are very good at recovering. I don't really want to criticise the players. We take the responsibility. We don't want excuses."
England are 10/1 at Bet365 to win the 2016 European Championship while Spain are 11/2 to win their third consecutive Euro.
GREGJO 8 years ago
England has a good team without doubt, but Spain is one of the best on the world. I think England can be optimistic and they will reach easily the knockout stage at the EURO 2016. They have several good players on the board and we could see a good team chemistry when they played against France.
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sharpe 8 years ago
Obviously it's not so strange for England to loose from Spain and it's just a friendly so it's not a great drama but every time when the English team faces so serious opponent they fail and this is not an accident I think. The didn't have a decent coach since the Bobby Robson era and this is just one of the issues that...
Obviously it's not so strange for England to loose from Spain and it's just a friendly so it's not a great drama but every time when the English team faces so serious opponent they fail and this is not an accident I think. The didn't have a decent coach since the Bobby Robson era and this is just one of the issues that didn't allow them to be a successful team for so many years now.
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Alexa Alexa 8 years ago
Nobody can be mad when team lost from Spain.Spain is in period of changing generations,but they are still superb selection,with fantastic players and coach.Hodgeson can be confident,cause England played very good football during the qualifications.I suppose those were their best qualifications in last 10 years.
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nik92 8 years ago
Spain controlled the game, they were better in all aspects of the game. I noticed combined team of Spain with a lot of younger players, and I really liked that. Maybe this is the first defeat of England after a long time, and some would say that they playing well, in my opinion they are not favorites at the European Championships....
Spain controlled the game, they were better in all aspects of the game. I noticed combined team of Spain with a lot of younger players, and I really liked that. Maybe this is the first defeat of England after a long time, and some would say that they playing well, in my opinion they are not favorites at the European Championships. They are currently far behind Spain, France and Germany.
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