SLOVENIA 0, ENGAND 0
- Wayne Rooney starts on the bench
- England gift chances to Slovenia through errors and poor in attack
- Joe Hart makes four great saves to spare England blushes
England’s 14 game winning streak in international qualifiers came to an end as they shared a 0-0 draw against Slovenia with Joe Hart responsible for keeping England in the game with four great saves.
The presence or not of Wayne Rooney in the England team has been hotly debated for several days now since it became known that his place was going to be taken by Eric Dier.
And regardless of the merits of including Rooney or not, without the benefit of an an influential and physical presence on the pitch, Gareth Southgate’s men looked lost at times after a mistake ridden performance.
The fact that England barely improved after Rooney’s second half introduction suggests that the answer to Southgate’s current England problems may still lie elsewhere.
Danny Rose was England’s only other change from the Malta game at Wembley on Saturday coming in for the injured Ryan Bertrand.
Slovenia gambled on a high pressing game and it almost paid off early on but they spurned the chance to build up a potentially winning lead against England.
In a very turgid first half performance England failed to register a single shot on goal and could have been behind after two Dier mistakes gifted Slovenia a brace of early presentable chances.
Joe Hart saves England blushes in Slovenia
Joe Hart, who was otherwise unemployed in the first period, saved England’s blushes for those two crucial mistakes, with Jasmin Kurtic surely kicking himself for not taking at least one of them.
Kurtic’s best chance of the first half was a shot which hit the post. The Slovenia forward also saw a goalbound header from a flicked-on corner saved magnificently by Hart who hurt himself while pushing the ball out off the bar at the start of the second period.
It was on his ‘weaker’ left side as well, and will be rightly lauded as world class, as he atoned for some of his poor performances during Euro 2016 with one of his best ever games in an England shirt.
With Josip Ilicic opting to square the ball when he might have tested Hart with a shot in the second half there was clearly much to improve for England.
Ilicic also shot just wide with a left footed shot as England continued to labour.
Andros Townsend, a second half sub for the ineffective Theo Walcott, forced a save from Jan Oblac after 63 minutes as England finally rallied.
But Hart was in action once again as Jordan Henderson’s bad backpass saw the Torino man forced to make another great save from Ilicic after Gary Cahill committed himself.
Rose hit the side netting while Daniel Sturridge, Rooney, and Jesse Lingard went close late in the game without troubling the Slovenia goal.
The game became fractious right at the end as tempers flared but England can consider themselves lucky to escape with a point after another poor performance.