The answer was just about yes, although the result remained the same. England circa 2012 look well organised, tough to beat and less error prone. Roy Hodgson has got everyone knowing their role and they look well drilled. The downside is that Hodgson's formation doesn't put much emphasis on attack. The key to the plan appears to be keeping it tight and looking to exploit the pace of the forward players. Against France it worked in small doses, but the French had far too much possession and better teams will punish them.
At the back, England looked very solid. Joe Hart had a couple of flaps at crosses, but was unsighted for Samir Nasri's goal and made some vital saves. Finally, England have a keeper that they can rely on and who isn't accident prone.
The injury to Gary Cahill last week handed a starting place to Joleon Lescott and the Man City player had an excellent game alongside John Terry. There's been a lot of talk about Rio Ferdinand in the build up, but centre half isn't a position England have particular problems with. Yes, Terry is capable of having a mare (see Bloemfontein!) but he generally does well in a white shirt. There's also decent back up in the form of Jagielka, waiting in the wings. At full back, Cole and Johnson only got beaten a couple of times each, but Johnson's positioning is a big concern. Frequently in the first half, France had a man over on Johnson's side. Luckily, they either failed to find him or - when they did find him - he failed to capitalise. Johnson did offer some threat going forward and actually managed one of England's three attempts on goal. Albeit a pretty wild, long range effort that may still be rising as I type this!
It was in-front of the back 4 that England had problems, both Parker and Gerrard worked hard, and Parker put in some great tackles and blocks. Gerrard also delivered a lovely cross for England's goal, although Hugo Lloris should really have come to deal with it. The problem was that they were both playing so deep that to the naked eye, it looked like England were playing a back 6. This just invited pressure and France's goal came from one such situation. It was tough for France to play through England but Hodgson's set up granted them plenty of long range efforts. Luckily, most of these were from Benzema and failed to trouble Joe Hart too much. Parker's fitness is also a worry, and he looked dead on his feet when he was replaced after 70 minutes.
The deep lying midfield also made it hard for England to play their way up the field. The gap between the centre of midfield and attack was enormous. This meant a lot of hopeful punts forward and some absurd attempts at "Hollywood" balls from Gerrard - Andrea Pirlo he isn't! Out wide, Alex Oxlade Chamberlain was trying his best to bridge the gap and made a few incisive runs. He has very quick feet and a good turn of pace, but like Theo Walcott his decision making and final ball need a bit of work. Good to see Hodgson giving a young player a chance though, definitely a work in progress. On the other side of the field, James Milner was apparently playing! In fairness to Milner, he did work hard (faint praise if ever I heard it) and put in a couple of decent crosses, but wide midfield is a bit of a problem area for England. They lack an attacking threat who can also do the tracking back duties. Theo Walcott came on for the final few minutes, but didn't have any time to make an impact.
Ashley Young played one delightful through ball to Milner (who fluffed his chance) but aside from that was very quiet. Danny Welbeck was putting in a good shift up front, and his chasing of the French back four was encouraging. This led to a number of misplaced passes from the French defence who, Debuchy aside, look fairly ordinary. No decent chances came Welbeck's way, but he did enough to keep his place for the Sweden game.
Talking of that game, England will go into it reasonably confident. Sweden had the look of a one man team against Ukraine, and if Ibrahimovic is kept quiet it's hard to see them posing much of a threat. the danger could be when England sit back too much and allow Zlatan long range shots or the chance to play through balls. Although judging by Sweden's finishing on Monday, there's not much to worry about on that front!
At the back, the Swedes have an excellent keeper in Andreas Isaksson, but a pretty average back line. Olaf Mellberg especially, looks like the slow, veteran he is and Welbeck and Young will have plenty of chances to use their pace against him. I can see England winning if they play like they did against France, but stringing performances together was been a problem in recent years.
It's tough to see England winning the competition, but if they carry on like this they will at least avoid the embarrassment experienced by previous squads. All in all it was a fairly encouraging start for Roy Hodgson's team.
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