MUCH OF THE English reaction following yesterday’s stalemate between Ireland and England has centred on how utterly boring the game was.
ITV Sport reportedly risked the wrath of the FA after they issued a series of tweets mocking how sterile the English performance at Lansdowne was.
Under a heading of ‘five things we learned’ they left five blank spaces before saying ‘we’re sorry’, once they had finished broadcasting the game.
The Daily Mail didn’t hold back in their condemnation of Roy Hodgson and his team saying that England had returned to the darkest days of Hodgson’s regime.
The Mail Online‘s reporters seemed at a loss to describe Jack Wilshere’s performance as one reporter labelled him as the only bright spark who was ‘showing initiative’, but that only earned him a rating of 5 in Rob Draper’s separate player ratings following the game. Apparently he was ‘out of sorts’ and ‘ineffective’.
Draper gave Seamus Coleman the highest player rating out of both teams, 7.5, for his shackling of Raheem Sterling and his decent showing going forward.
The Guardian also ran the same line on how dull the game turned out to be, but also had quotes from Roy Hodgson about the reception Raheem Sterling received at the Aviva from Irish fans.
“You can’t expect people just to shrug off the criticism he has been receiving. He does ever so well and tries to shrug it off, let his football do the talking.
“But he needed this game to realise that, if he is going to get it out of his system, he’s going to have to work harder still and get a thicker skin than he has at the moment”.
The Daily Telegraph were somewhat conservative on their criticism of their national team compared to other newspapers, but they had plenty to say about Ireland.
Jeremy Wilson wrote about how John Delaney must be feeling a huge amount of pressure and is fighting for his future as head of the FAI.
“With the on-field action providing little first-half interest, John Delaney must have been shifting uncomfortably in his seat as the focus turned to his role in the FAI accepting €5million from Fifa.”
“‘Sepp Blatter, he paid for your ground,’ chanted the England supporters, to applause from the Irish fans. They themselves sung ‘Delaney out’ amongst other chants.
The Sun were almost condescending in their report of the game, saying ‘the Irish love Premier League football and had waited 20 years for an England team to return’.
According to the Sun, we were treated to 90 minutes of the international equivalent of Leicester v Hull or West Brom v Sunderland.
They also earmarked Raheem Sterling as someone who achieved something for the Anglo-Irish peace process after he ‘did absolutely nothing to upset anyone in a green shirt’.
John Cross bemoaned the lack of atmosphere at the Aviva in his column for the Daily Mirror. “The Republic played a behind-closed-doors friendly with Northern Ireland on Thursday. Maybe they should have spared everyone the aggravation by locking the fans out this time as well.”
