ITV asked England’s Harry Kane what his best attribute was before their Euro 2016 opener and the striker simply responded with ‘Finshing!‘.

So you can understand why everyone watched on in disbelief as England’s number nine went over and took the majority of his country’s corner kicks. It was even m0re puzzling when he’d either over hit the set-pieces and they would go beyond everyone in the box or they would be cleared by the first Russian defender at the front post.

Now the only way to win a game of football is by outscoring your opponents. So it’s usually a good idea to have your best finisher in the penalty area at every opportunity. They are the men that sniff out the chances and that find themselves in the right areas to score from other player’s mistakes.

Now even if Kane is England’s best corner kick taker, it doesn’t mean he can cross them and then finish them off as well. It seemed that Roy Hodgson’s main tactic was for his striker to pick out one of his central defenders (I think it happened once with Chris Smalling). It was just beyond bizarre. Especially when you consider Raheem Sterling was in the box for at least one of Kane’s corners!

Now why not let your captain Wayne Rooney hit the corners? He showed during the game that he could ping the ball around from various areas. That would have then meant that Harry Kane could’ve been waiting in the penalty area ready to prove his finishing prowess.

Former England hitman Alan Shearer voiced his concerns on Twitter about Kane taking the corners for the Three Lions:

Maybe it would have been better had Harry Kane told Roy to pick someone else to take the corners, so he could concentrate on finding the back of the net.

I noticed the main striker also took some corners for Tottenham Hotspur last term and I thought that was odd too. Plus I don’t think it worked for Spurs either.

England left the Stade Vélodrome disappointed as they couldn’t take enough of their chances, Russia then caught them at the end with a sucker punch and the game ended 1-1.

The English sides had plenty of positives. The wing-backs worked well, especially going forward (Danny Rose could surely take a corner!). Spurs duo Eric Dier and Dele Alli showed they are ready for major tournament competition. Plus Wayne Rooney looks like he could actually do alright in the central midfield position.

As always with England, things need to improve. They need to get Kane more involved and provide him with some clear cut chances.  Raheem Sterling and Adam Lallana still look iffy when England really need them to be creative talents. Plus the defending needs to be switched on at all times. Most importantly, Hodgson needs to see out games better. They sat back and allowed a disappointing Russian side back in a game that they had no right to get anything from.

But really England need to get Harry Kane away from the corner flag and into the box. It’s an experiment that continually doesn’t make any sense or work!

Follow @Gibney_A on Twitter for more on the spot reporting from Euro 2016. 

 

Posted on June 12th, 2016 by scott
Filed under: Article