Winning Ugly - Talking Tough

Played three, won three. Ten goals scored and not a single one conceded. Crushing victory margins of 4-0 in the friendly against Greece and 5-0 in the qualifier against Andorra, plus a gritty 1-0 away win in Macedonia. All that and a new spirit and purpose throughout the England squad. You simply can’t argue with Steve McClaren’s record so far.

No, you can’t and it would be churlish to do so. But that doesn’t mean that you aren’t entitled to express any reservations at all. Take for instance the pre-match ritual of talking up the tariff, making the forthcoming match sound more difficult than it really is. Asked about the game, new England captain John Terry said: “We’re looking to challenge ourselves against the best.” What, Macedonia? You must be having a laugh, John. Then after the single goal victory had been achieved, Steve McClaren declared solemnly that it had been “just the game we expected”, talked of the need to “dig deep” and added ominously “all we wanted to do was win”. Listening to that lot, you can’t help thinking that perhaps with a more positive attitude, they wouldn’t have had to dig quite so deep, they could have set their sights a bit higher than merely winning (a spot of entertainment maybe) and then it would have actually turned out better than expected. After all, it was Macedonia, not Brazil, they were playing and whilst we’ve all heard the comforting ‘insurance policy’ cliche about there being no easy games any more in international football, the Germans clearly work to a rather different script – they annihilated San Marino 13-0.

Needless to say, Macedonia is a tougher proposition than San Marino – but how much tougher? Enough for a difference of 12 goals?

The truth is that England’s solitary goal came courtesy of the telescopic legs of the prolific Peter Crouch, following a couple of fortunate rebounds, and their clean sheet owed much to the heroism of John Terry and a frantic goal line clearance at the second attempt by Ashley Cole. It all added up to three very valuable points – and a few reservations.