• Hodgson says England demand to improve in the final third• Manager admits concern over fitness of Parker and GerrardRoy Hodgson has challenged England’s front players to deliver a bigger performance against Sweden on Friday before he can bring Wayne Rooney back into the team as the “ace in the hole”.Hodgson’s satisfaction with the 1-1 draw with France was tempered by his team’s lack of incision in forward positions during a game in which Ashley Young, assigned Rooney’s position, managed only seven successful passes. The England manager also spoke of his concerns that Steven Gerrard and Scott Parker might struggle to at the end the pace of playing so many games in such a small amount of age, raising the possibility that Jordan Henderson might be called into the starting border-up if the team reach the knockout rounds.However, Hodgson’s priority will be to employment on the team’s composure in attack bearing in intellect that Young, James Milner and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain all misplaced more than half of their passes. Young and Oxlade-Chamberlain did not exchange a pass throughout the entire match. “It’s in the final third, isn’t it?” Hodgson answered when questioned where he wanted to see improvement.”Once or twice, exceptionally in the first half, there were some very promising counter-attacks that broke down since we tried a one-touch pass to end it off rather than taking that extra touch. I thought there were quite a hardly any other attacks which floundered, I suppose, on the circumstance we didn’t quite get the at the end pass fair.”The French were just the opposite. They don’t play a abundance of one-touch football encircling the penalty box. They play a abundance of two, three touches, holding on to the ball and asking another inquiry. Sometimes I reckon we desire to try to end it off also quickly, probably since that’s the path the Premier League is like.”Sweden’s 2-1 defeat by Ukraine demonstrated a vulnerability in the air, with Andriy Shevchenko scoring twice with headers, however Hodgson said he was likely to continue with Danny Welbeck in attack rather than bringing in Andy Carroll. After that, Hodgson admitted it would be a relief when Rooney was available after his two-match suspension to play in England’s final Collection D game against Ukraine on Monday.”Our absolute ace in the hole, I reckon, should be Wayne Rooney, since he is very fit and raring to go. He really can’t wait to get on the field and if he can play like the Rooney we know, we’re going to be a bit more dense to beat for some of these teams, since you can only benefit from having someone of his quality in your team.”However also you must remember that Ashley Young hasn’t always played that position, and Danny Welbeck, who is 21, did really well. You’ve got to constitute allowances for the circumstance France had [Karim] Benzema, who is much older and playing for Absolute Madrid, and Samir Nasri. Maybe looking at them you can expect a bit more from them when they get in the final third than I can expect from our players at the moment.”His concern about Gerrard and Parker is based partly on the punishing heat in Ukraine – England glide into Kiev from their Krakow base on Thursday – and the circumstance the two midfielders, aged 32 and 31 respectively, both came into the tournament with lingering fitness issues.Hodgson was questioned whether it was also much to expect the two players to commence every game and admitted there may have to be a alter at some mark. “That’s the huge inquiry. I don’t know the answer. I don’t reckon I will be the only coach asking that about his players in this tournament however obviously those two are both over 30 and they both had to employment really, really dense.”This is what tournament football is about and we’ve got to constitute certain that, if they can’t and if they commence to exhibit signs of fatigue, human beings such as Henderson, [James] Milner, [Phil] Jones or [Phil] Jagielka, are ready to go in there and do exactly the same job.”Parker, who said his achilles difficulty made him “touch and go” for the tournament, was substituted after fading during the second half. “I didn’t really desire to come off however I was feeling some cramp so I thought it was the best choice in the end,” he said. “Myself and Steven just have to keep going. We have to, don’t we? It’s a very intense tournament and the conditions are very dense. It’s very hot. There’s not a abundance of cover in midfield, however I’m certain we’ll be fine and we have other boys who can come in.”Euro 2012Roy HodgsonSteven GerrardWayne RooneyEnglandEuro 2012 Collection DDaniel Taylorguardian.co.uk © 2012 Twitter News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Employ of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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