England v Uruguay: five reasons why it went wrong…

Luis Suarez

You got the impression in the run up to the game that Uruguay were so confident that the Liverpool striker’s mere presence would befuddle England – that they would have fielded him in a mobility scooter if necessary. And sure enough, a month after undergoing keyhole surgery on his knee and almost six weeks since he last played, Suarez needed only two telling contributions to prove them right.

He took his chances superbly in a manner which underlined the fact that England have not, for a very long time, had a player capable of influencing a match single-handedly at an international tournament.

That is the true barometer of the over used phrase “world class” and frankly, none of our players fit that bill.

Dodgy defending

The one nagging doubt which refused to go away during England’s largely successful qualifying campaign was whether the central defenders would be good enough when it came to facing the likes of Suarez at the World Cup.

Phil Jagielka and Gary Cahill, both decent, honest and hard working lads, always felt more like the best of a bad bunch than the cream of the crop and neither covered himself in glory last night. Jagielka was unable to match the anticipation by Suarez of Edinson Cavani’s fine cross for the first goal, and Cahill was caught in no man’s land as Steve Gerrard inadvertently flicked on Uruguay keeper Fernando Muslera’s route one clearance for the second.

Both former England manager Glenn Hoddle and ex international defender Rio Ferdinand described it as “schoolboy defending” from their respective TV sofas and one can imagine John Terry, wherever he is on holiday, kicking his sun lounger in disgust and pondering what might have been.

John Anderson is commentating on World cup games for talkSPORT. You can follow him on Twitter @GreatFaceRadio

Lack of adventure

After the opening game against Italy there were encouraging signs that, although beaten, England had at least shown a spirit of adventure both in the team selection and their willingness to get forward. Having been humiliated by Costa Rica, Uruguay appeared jaded and lacking in pace, with a goalkeeper who looked like a man trying to catch a bar of soap fired from a howitzer every time the ball came anywhere near him above waist height.

Even with Suarez and Cavani back in harness in a team which showed five changes, the 2010 semi finalists approached last night’s game with little more than a narrow 8-2 formation which invited England to attack down the flanks.

Unfortunately it was 75 minutes before the penny dropped. Glenn Johnson’s dart down the right after good work by Daniel Sturridge set up Wayne Rooney to finally tap in his first ever World Cup goal after 760 barren minutes on the biggest stage of all. But it was to be a largely isolated incident as the likes of Egidio Arevalo Rios and Alvaro Gonzalez cut off the supply at source.

The enemy within

Uruguay’s goalscoring hero, of course, has recently been voted by his peers and the press as the top performer in the self proclaimed “best league in the world”. All 14 players who represented England in Sao Paulo are also Premier League stars and yet the maxim “the better the devil you know” does not seem to apply to them, while the foreign imports certainly seem to subscribe to the notion that familiarity breeds contempt.

This is the sixth World Cup match in which an English based player has scored against his adopted country (there are no prizes but try to guess the others) and England have never won a single one of those ties. FA Chairman Greg Dyke’s belief that the premier league’s cosmopolitan nature is stifling the national side will strengthen after this latest capitulation.

But does anyone genuinely believe that country will ever again come before club in English football?

Time to say goodbye?

Just about everyone who attended Fabio Capello’s final media conference of the last World Cup campaign came away with the feeling that an era had ended and that this was the time to take risks and look ahead into the future.

The coach had to go, as did many of his senior players, in order for England’s national team to evolve as other nations already had. None of which happened of course.

This time I detect a genuine feeling that the nation believes Hodgson deserves to survive – but only as the custodian of a new generation. We must say farewell and thank you to Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard, Glen Johnson, Phil Jagielka, James Milner, Rickie Lambert, Ben Foster and possibly even Wayne Rooney.

The time has come for a team built around Ross Barkley, Raheem Sterling, Daniel Sturridge, Jack Wilshere Theo Walcott and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, aided and abetted by Luke Shaw, John Stones, Jon Flanagan, Will Hughes and Saido Berahino. With the expansion of Euro 2016 into a 24-team tournament you would expect even a new breed of England players to qualify and even if they failed it would be a price worth paying if it meant they came back stronger for the 2018 World cup.

How many more nights like the one in Sao Paulo can we really take?

Below: Reporter Cordelia Lynch is in east London on Thursday night, minutes before the game gets underway – and when hope was still in the air…