Why Allardyce needs to get
equivalent to Coventry was a humiliation they need t o move o n f ro m quickly.
“I wouldn’t say we have worked it out what happened that night, it is one of those you can’t dwell on too much,” said Tottenham midfielder Dele Alli. “It was a tough one to take — for the players as much as the fans. We all felt it and we were devastated. It is important we move on and don’t think about it too much and dwell on the past. We have got to keep looking to the future.
“After that last game everyone just wanted to put on the shirt again, go out there, get another 90 minutes and try to make things right, not just for us but for the fans as well. They weren’t happy with the result and neither were the players. So it is important we go out in the next game and get the win.”
Slovakia are expected to show far greater ambition this time around. In contrast to England, Jan Kozak’s team are buoyant, having qualified for their first Euros this year following a campaign which featured a 2-1 home win over Spain in October 2014.
It was Spain’s first defeat in 37 World Cup and Euro qualification matches stretching back eight years and was achieved with just 27 per cent possession, with five shots on goal compared to the visitors’ 20.
England monopolised the ball in their last meeting and have spent the previous four years under Hodgson developing that style, but they have an unpredictability about them now created by the arrival of a new manager.
Allardyce insisted on cancelling a friendly against Croatia this week in order to have more time to work with his players and one benefit of that decision is that Slovakia will have little to go on in determining how England will set up under the new regime.
It is a decision the Football Association will not have agreed to lightly, given the millions lost in revenue by not staging a game at Wembley, and Allardyce must