England were excellent in beating Switzerland 3-1 away from home on Tuesday, especially in the first 35 minutes.
I thought it was going to be a really difficult game. Beating Bulgaria at home is one thing, but I was expecting Switzerland away to be one of the toughest tests in the group.
England could have won by more. Switzerland did have a few good moments either side of half-time, but I expected them to pose more problems than they did considering they were at home.
England seem to have found balance in the team and they seem confident. Even when they lost Theo Walcott to injury, Adam Johnson came on and looked dangerous. It looked like a new team.
In the past two matches I would say England’s performances have been better than their performances in the qualifiers for the World Cup. It’s early days and England fans certainly shouldn’t get carried away. But England have performed well in very difficult conditions, and there were certainly people waiting for the team to fall, so their performances showed lots of character.
There seems to be freshness in the squad. Obviously all the players from the World Cup were not going to be changed, but there are four or five new faces, and the old ones look reinvigorated.
Wayne Rooney and Jermaine Defoe looked sharp together up front and it was a real disappointment that Defoe got injured. The wide players James Milner and Adam Johnson did well, the balance between Steven Gerrard and Gareth Barry in midfield was good, and Glen Johnson and Ashley Cole were dangerous getting forward from full back.
Phil Jagielka was fantastic in both matches, and although Joe Hart had a couple of dodgy moments in the Switzerland match, he certainly looks like he has commanded the goalkeeper’s position and he has a big future.
Qualifying should not be taken for granted – England didn’t qualify for the last European Championships – but it is easier to do well in qualifying than it is to do well in a major tournament. In a tournament you’re playing against the top teams that have prepared meticulously.
In the group you have some difficult opponents but they are not the top teams because of the seeding system which keeps the top teams apart. There is a lot more pressure in tournaments, although that’s not to say qualifying games are easy.
I’m happy that England have been able to move away from some of the stupid criticism and suggestions for all the players to be dropped and the manager to be sacked. The reality is, Fabio Capello is a good manager with a lot of experience and he’s not going to panic. Over the past two games the performances were as good as we could have hoped for.
A little bit of the pressure has been lifted, although it will return next month if England get a poor result against Montenegro. But the lads who played looked very confident and they didn’t seem to be worried about the pressure being placed on them by the media or the expectation of having to qualify for a major tournament. They looked like a team that has gotten over their mistakes and disappointments and are moving forward.
Giggsy the gaffer?
I saw the stories earlier in the week about Ryan Giggs being linked with the Wales national team coach job.
There have been players who have coached and played at the same time in the past, but I would imagine it is an extremely difficult task. He is playing for the top club in the country, so for him to be a manager as well would probably entail him having to juggle too many balls.
He is someone that the Welsh public love and he’s always going to get linked to that job because of his experience, quality and the fact that he’s closer to the end of his career than the start.
But I think Sir Alex Ferguson answered questions about this quite sternly last week when he said Giggsy is and will remain a Manchester United player.
If one day Giggsy did go into management he would command huge respect immediately, which is important for a manager. He would have fantastic experience of all types of situations both at international level and club level, because he has played in all the top games and seen all different types of football in his time.
You can never say for sure whether a player will go on and become a great manager but he certainly has the experience, patience and temperament for it. The raw attributes are there, but until someone actually becomes a manager no one knows how well they are going to do.
Defensive football
Last week Sepp Blatter announced Fifa are going to discuss abolishing extra time in World Cups to discourage defensive football, but I don’t think it would work.
It would be easier for a lesser team to hold out for a draw and penalties by playing defensive football over 90 minutes than it would be for 120 minutes. This proposal may actually contribute to teams playing defensive football.
Blatter may have a point in saying that some teams played defensively at the World Cup in South Africa, but although it wasn’t the greatest World Cup we still saw the best passing team win it. That has got to give people confidence that playing football in the right manner with passes and movement can be successful.
Another thing that affected the World Cup was the atmosphere in the stadiums. If England hosted the World Cup there would be fantastic atmospheres because we have genuine football stadiums which promote great atmospheres. Sometimes when you have these huge stadiums with athletics tracks around the pitch you get more of an athletics atmosphere than a traditional football atmosphere.
Stadiums can affect the game because if the fans are on top of the players and the atmosphere is intense, it can create passion and fever in the match which leads to attacking football.
Send your questions to Gary Neville to sunday@timesofmalta.com.