Euro 2016: Tottenham boss Mauricio Pochettino's astute coaching has left England primed to excel

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Patrick Barclay17 June 2016

So far, so good for Roy Hodgson. The squad he selected has served England well in the first two matches, with Kyle Walker an especially resonant success and only Raheem Sterling a slight disappointment.

Pace apart — and I’m not understating that as an asset to a counter-attacking team — it’s difficult to see what Sterling provides. Given time to think, he sometimes struggles and against Wales even a quick decision, when Adam Lallana read his enterprising run and delivered a perfect ball, proved beyond the Manchester City man, whose attempt at a finish looked more like a good piece of defending.

What persuades Hodgson to start Sterling instead of Jamie Vardy? There must be a reason. But maybe Vardy’s goal will alter the manager’s thinking. A lot of the promise Sterling showed under Brendan Rodgers at Liverpool — it persuaded City to lash out a record fee for an English player — appears to have evaporated and I still feel Andros Townsend would have been a greater asset. There can be no second-guessing of Hodgson’s choice at right-back. In the build-up, while we were all picking the team for him, opinion was split on the right-back issue, with many sages regarding Nathaniel Clyne as a bit steadier and sharper than Walker.

Maybe, having noted Walker’s recurrent defensive failings at Tottenham, we didn’t trust the evidence of our eyes last season.

Walker was one of Spurs’s most improved players under Mauricio Pochettino. He still went forward with a speed reminiscent of Dani Alves but now linked more effectively with the attack. And was seldom caught out at the back.

He looks very much at home with England, giving Hodgson’s team the required width, even outshining clubmate Danny Rose on the other side.

Like another of the Spurs contingent, Dele Alli, he gets a little too easily exasperated at times. But if Walker can keep his concentration there may be a lot of caps in store. Too often in the past, he looked like raw talent. Now he appears a fine example of what astute coaching can achieve. Like Eric Dier and the two others from White Hart Lane.

Gracias, Pochettino. Who knows? When this tournament is over and done, we may be saying that you have given Hodgson as much as West Ham’s Ron Greenwood donated to Alf Ramsey and the England cause in 1966. Not that I’m getting over-excited or anything. But it’s a decent start.

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