England (3) 4 Gerrard 12, Lambert 26, Welbeck 45, 50
Moldova (0) 0
Att. 61,607
Entrance: £30
Programme: £6
Mileage: 100/1,569
Match Report
Namasco, who reportedly was brilliant in Moldova’s last qualifier against Poland, was directly responsible for two of the four goals with question marks against him for a third. We have come to accept that foreign goalkeepers plying their trade in the Premier League prefer to punch the ball clear rather than catch, but Namasco’s quality in dealing with anything aerial into his six yard box was not what you might have expected had you been playing in front of him for the Dog and Duck.
Moldova were so inept that England made light work of the absence of Wayne Rooney, lost to a training ground head wound and Daniel Sturridge. Such was the lack of strikers available to Roy Hodgson, he was able to name Lambert as his centre forward the day before the game.
With England’s most crucial game of the campaign due on Tuesday in Kiev, it also re-opened the debate regarding the relative strength of the national team in relation to the Premier League. The debate had been fuelled by new FA Chairman, Greg Dyke’s rather laughable assertion that England should be looking to win the World Cup in 2022. A banner read, Dyke’s Goals Are Our Goals but why wait until 2022? Unfortunately, unless there is radical thinking within the FA, even this ambition seems beyond reach.
As a humble fan’s opinion, the root of the problem lies with the Premier League and the players the clubs bring in from abroad thus stifling the progress of English-born young players. It is not the Van Persie’s or Ozil’s that need to be cut from the rotas, they bring a quality that our kids should be able to learn from, but the players that turn up from the likes of Costa Rica or Panama with the necessary amount of caps to obtain a work permit. A more stringent criterion for the awarding of a work permit for those outside of EU law would open up places in the Premier League for our own to develop. This is actually within the FA’s jurisdiction although the final decision is with the Home Office.
Change is for tomorrow, today was putting Moldova away before attention turned to Ukraine. An early goal was the requirement to alleviate any building of pressure and it came after just 12 minutes. An early foray had already exposed Namasco’s shortcomings before Danny Welbeck and Frank Lampard combined to set up Steven Gerrard for a drive from 20 yards.
Namasco’s first comedy moment came on 26 minutes when after a period of England onslaught, Theo Walcott’s shot to the near post was parried across the face of the goal by the keeper to Lambert who headed home at the far post.
Worse was to come from our Moldovian comedian on the stroke of half time. A long ball over the top from Lambert saw him rushing from his goal to close down Welbeck, however, he then appeared to actually get out of the way of the Manchester United striker who was able to drift past him and dribble to ball into an empty net.
The same pairing produced a fourth early in the second half, Welbeck exquisitely lifting the ball over the prostrate keeper who was doing his best to make sure that the ball didn’t hit his head.
England duly declared, Welbeck had picked up a needless, though harsh booking, ruling him out of the Ukraine game, so Lambert was withdrawn to preserve his fitness along with Jack Wilshere and, at half time, Ashley Cole who was also sitting on a yellow card from a previous qualifier.
Lambert’s reason for withdrawal takes us back to the argument surrounding the lack of depth to England’s squad and Hodgson goes into the crucial qualifier with only Jermaine Defoe, far from a regular starter at Tottenham, as a partner for the Southampton striker.
It was another night for comic book characters, my fervent hope for Tuesday evening is that Roy Hodgson isn’t fulfilling the role of Desperate Dan.
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