Thats a fact. His passion is there for all to see. He prowls the touchline screaming instructions and directing everything. He jumps from his seat to berate or congratulate the players throughout the entire game. He see's what might be going wrong, and he makes small changes here and there until it's all working. He behaves more like a club manager during games, with the passion and determination of someone who loves what he does. The players thrive on it that's obvious. They need to see their coach as involved as he gets during a match. They are used to that at club level and must welcome it when playing for England too.
I like the way that he tries something new or different and tinkers with it from the touchline, to fine tune it looking always to improve things. He also has a plan B just in case things don't go so smoothly. The second half invariably sees the players return to the formation and tactics that they feel most comfortable with, and the boys seem to be thriving on it and also seem to be enjoying their football once more. Marvellous stuff indeed.
Sven or McClaren were not like this.
Anyhow another great result once again. 3 goals to be proud of, sublimely created and wonderfully executed. Rooney was masterful of course. His 2 goals were so cool. Heskey once more was amazing. His supply for Wazza's first goal alone was pure class. Gerrard's goal was pure Gerrard, fed superbly by Rooney and finished off with a sublime right boot.
Lamps and Gerrard interchanged positions smoothly throughout the match, which shows how hard they have been working on their game, and for the second half Lamps played deeper in support of the back four, while Gerrard played higher up the field. Both doing a damn fine job.
With a makeshift defence we were bound to be opened up a few times, and we were. Bridge did well considering that he has only played 8 minutes of Premiership football so far this season. He looked a little rusty but as always gave 100%. Rio was huge and had a good game too.
I think Wes was a bit off for this game though. He made a few errors of the type that he used to make, and did not look as comfortable as he has recently.
For the Belarussian goal though, (which was a beauty by the way), I would like to know why he ducked down to allow the ball to reach the goalscorer instead of heading it clear. That was a strange thing to do, and has puzzled me all day.
So, 4 wins out of 4, and we are scoring goals again. It sure is looking good so far. Lets hope it continues and gets even better. We have never in our history won the first four games of a qualifying campaign, so well done to Fabio and well done to the squad.
