Former England man Alan Hudson said defensive blunders which led to England being ‘smoked out’ and losing their World Cup fixture this weekend were a result of certain members of the back four getting smothered by the ‘Italian blanket.’
On Saturday, England played their debut fixture of the World Cup tournament and lost 2-1 to Italy, resulting in a huge outcry by England supporters over the error in defending that saw left back Leighton Baines made scapegoat for the Three Lion’s second goal concede to Italy, which turned out the match-winner.
Hudson, who played for a number of clubs including Chelsea and retired from the beautiful game in 1985, jumped to Baines’s defence and said the blunder was not caused by the player not playing well, but more to do with his style of defending not proving effective against the tactics employed by the opposition.
He told Football Express News: “I don’t think it was a case of Baines not playing well, I just think the game didn’t suit him and the way the Italians played didn’t suit him.
“Baines is good when he’s got a lot of space in front of him as he’s very effective at getting forward,” he explained, “but when you put him against the Italians it was like putting him under a blanket.”
Hudson said it was not only Baines who struggled against the blanket of Italians driving forward, he said other defensive players struggled to unravel them too, including right-back Glen Johnson.
“This scenario of the Italy game really does sort people out,” he said, “Glen Johnson is normally good in these type of situations, but even he got smoked out by the Italians the other night.
“It was like they just smothered him and he didn’t know what to do.”
To follow Alan Hudson’s blog Devil’s Advocate, click here