Depleted England aim to build on fast start
Reuters - Monday 10 September 2012, 02:59
England must cope without six
key players when they aim to build on a superb start to their
World Cup Group H qualifying campaign against Ukraine on
Tuesday.
An emphatic 5-0 win in Moldova came at a cost with key
defender John Terry joining his Chelsea clubmate Ashley Cole on
the injury list when he was ruled out of the Ukraine game with
an ankle injury, joining Wayne Rooney, Andy Carroll, Gareth
Barry, Ashley Young and Scott Parker on the sidelines.
Terry, who featured in one of the pivotal moments when
England beat Ukraine 1-0 in a Euro 2012 group match in Donetsk
in June, picked up the knock against Moldova and limped off two
minutes before the end.
Cole, who damaged his ankle in the European Super Cup
against Atletico Madrid 10 days ago, missed the Moldova game but
had hoped to be fit to win his 99th cap against Ukraine, but the
FA's medical team sent him back to his club for treatment.
England, playing their first competitive game at Wembley
under coach Roy Hodgson who is unbeaten in eight matches in
charge, should build on the momentum and take another three
points from Ukraine who are playing their first match of the
campaign.
England have won four of the five matches played between the
countries, including the last one on June 19 when Rooney scored
the winner and Terry cleared a Marko Devic shot from behind the
goal line, but officials failed to award a goal.
HAPPY MAN
Hodgson was a happy man after the Moldova game with
youngsters like 19-year-old Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Tom
Cleverley, 23, playing very well alongside the experienced Frank
Lampard and Steven Gerrard in a flexible 4-2-3-1 formation.
Lampard, playing in a deeper role with Gerrard which allowed
the youngsters room to manoeuvre, still managed to score twice,
once from the spot, taking his international tally to 25, to
become England's 13th highest scorer of all time.
Hodgson is expected to retain most of the starting line-up
against Ukraine including Cleverley, who impressed the coach
playing for Britain during the Olympic Games.
"The Games were good for him and important for me as well
because that is where I sort of 'discovered' him, although of
course I knew about him before," said Hodgson.
"You could call him an attacking midfielder but he's an
attacking midfielder in the same way as Cesc Fabregas, he's
capable of coming back and winning the ball where necessary."
Ukraine come to London facing formidable odds if they are to
create an upset.
England have only ever lost two out of 40 World Cup matches
(qualifiers and tournament games) at Wembley and apart from the
penalty shootout defeat by Italy in the Euro quarter-finals
which counts as a draw after 90 minutes, are unbeaten in 13
competitive matches.
Manager Oleg Blokhin, whose news conferences are often more
entertaining than the football his side plays on the field, will
be without Ukraine's greatest player, Andriy Shevchenko, who
retired as a player at the end of the Euros after scoring 48
goals in 111 games for his country.
Instead, he will be relying on 22-year-old attacking
midfielder Andriy Yarmolenko, the team's best player at the
Euros, to orchestrate them on Tuesday along with Anatoliy
Tymoschuk, who has a record 120 Ukraine caps, and the
outstanding prospect Yevhen Konoplyanka.
Ukraine's only win against England came during qualifying
for the 2010 World Cup finals when they won 1-0 in
Dnipropetrovsk to finish second behind England in the group
before being eliminated in the play-offs.